A couple of weeks ago, walking past Parliament Hill, my eyes watering and my ears covered by a scarf, I remarked at the wonderful location of our hotel. The Ottawa Hotel Marriott couldn’t be more ideally situated for the 2016 CACE conference. And I can promise you that on October 22-25, 2016 it is unlikely that your eyes will water from the cold. Steps away from the infamous Sparks Street, a block or two from Parliament Hill, a 20 minute (or less) walk to the ByWard Market, the conference hotel rooms and amenities make it the perfect place to make “Capital Connections.” Be sure to register for the conference early and book your hotel room now.
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The reason I was in Ottawa on that blisteringly cold night was to meet with our CACE executive for the annual January in-person meetings. Despite the fact that these meetings are two full days, grueling and long, we had the most engaging productive discussions. And I am going to share some of that excitement with you in this newsletter.
First of all, we’ve had a change in the executive. Unfortunately Claire Francoeur has had to resign from her role on the 2015-2016 CACE executive. We shall greatly miss Claire's wise input to our discussions and decision making. Claire was instrumental in taking our BRAVO awards program to a new level of professionalism and glamour in highlighting the best in education communications in Canada. Maxeen Jolin, a former CACE executive member with experience working on the BRAVO program has kindly stepped into this role as the interim 2nd Vice President. We are very grateful to Maxeen for taking this on. Email Maxeen if you are interested in participating on a BRAVO Awards Program Committee.
And speaking of committees … The CACE executive would like to provide opportunities for CACE members to “put your hand up.” If you are interested in becoming more involved in CACE on a short or longer term basis, we will be looking for members to sit on standing or ad hoc committees. This can be a great leadership opportunity for you, will look good on your CV, and could lead to other roles within CACE.
Allison Grange, the newest addition to our executive, is forming a Professional Development Committee. Contact Allison if you are interested in joining her on this new CACE adventure. I hope you have had a look at our latest addition of Social Media Content online videos. There’s some exciting new PD opportunities on the way soon!
Other committee membership opportunities? 1st Vice President Bruce Buruma is looking for members to join a Communications Committee to help inform the best way to share our learnings and opportunities with CACE members. Secretary Trish Smith is looking for CACE members from across the country who are interested in joining a Membership Committee to seek out ways to engage more communications professionals in education in our organization. A Sponsorship Committee will be headed up by our Treasurer Steve Lapierre – contact Steve if you are interested in helping us run an expert program that attracts applicable and interested sponsors.
I’d like to share with you the results of one other lengthy conversation we had … conferences. It is becoming more and more difficult for our regions to find time to pull together a conference. We all do our CACE volunteer work from the sides of our desks. The executive has watched the committees for the last two conferences, Quebec City and then Charlottetown, struggle with a small number of volunteers. By the time the conference rolls around, those of us participating have an awesome time, learn lots, and return home pumped up with ideas and enthusiasm, but our poor committee is exhausted. Our next two conferences are in regions where there is an abundance of support due to the large number of members – but as an executive, we need to be looking further down the road. To this end, we are working on a Conference Standards document, the content of which will be informed by the experience of past conference committee chairs as well as the expert advice of a professional conference planner. We will be engaging the on-the-ground advice from the 2016 Ottawa conference chair, and the 2017 Edmonton conference chair. Yes, that’s right, we have decided to not keep the conference locations a secret … in fact, conference locations for the next few years are: 2016 Ottawa; 2017 Edmonton; 2018 Toronto; 2019 St. John’s; 2020 Winnipeg.
At the end of two long days in Ottawa, your CACE executive agreed that we had some good, engaging, and courageous conversations. It was a productive meeting resulting in solid ideas, and a strong commitment to our association.
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