October President’s Message

Happy Fall 2018!! I began to appreciate how beautiful the early Fall season was once I finished going to school (many years ago). Not long into my career, though, I quickly realized what a crazy busy time of the year Fall can be. Right now, we are all in the midst of that craziness.

In the spirit of these busy times, this article will be an update on what your MPI Ottawa Board of Directors is up to.

We started off the year by doing something new. It was the first time we combined the Annual Golf tournament, which normally takes place in August, with the AGM & Kick-Off event. We knew that this could be a bit of a risk, but it paid off. Thank you to all the Committee members who worked so hard to figure out how to make this work – we threw the two committees a huge curve ball but they blended seamlessly and made it happen. As a result of all the generous prizes that were donated we were able to raise funds for two charities, the Moisson Outaouais and the Ottawa Food Bank. A huge thank you to all our sponsors for this event, without whom we could not put this together. Our hard working MPI Ottawa Volunteer, Paul Glover, CMP, was the extremely lucky winner of a trip to the Yukon including airfare, accommodation and activities. Congratulations, Paul.

This first event of the year marked the beginning of a commitment that our Chapter has made to the MPI Foundation for 2018-19. We have committed two dollars of each paid registration to events to be collected and donated to the Foundation. There are so many great scholarships available to Members through the MPI Foundation and I encourage you to check out the MPI Foundation Scholarships for further details. Please let me know if you need any assistance in applying.

Each year Chapters are measured against goals that are set for the year in conjunction with MPI Global. Measured areas include financial management, member retention, education satisfaction and volunteer engagement. These are referred to as our metrics and achievement of these metrics can lead to incentive points from MPI Global. Last year our Chapter did quite well — we received enough points to earn an incentive of $800.00 US. We will be using this towards the cost of a speaker at one of our educational events — keeping in line with our focus of making all decisions this year based on what is best for our members.

We are also busy getting prepared for our website migration that will happen late this year. This is being done with all chapters around the world and it is to ensure consistency with the MPI brand. Jay Elie, our VP Communications will keep us updated on this as there is more news to share. From what we have heard, the transition with Chapters who have already gone through this has been smooth.

It is hard to believe, but the Board is already thinking ahead to our mid-year retreat at the beginning of November. The word “retreat” makes this sound more exciting than it really is. We gather together, as a Board, for two days and have a very extensive agenda of items to discuss. Two of the big items we will be working on will be the Annual Business Plan and the Strategic Business Plan. The good news is that we always seem to leave these meetings feeling like a very inspired team.

Using our project management software (Basecamp), Ryan Young has started a discussion group made up of past Chapter presidents. I am excited to have this direct line to such great advisors who have already been through what I experience, as Chapter President. I refer to them as my “Jedi Council”. There has always been a need to engage with this group and now we have found it. Thank you, Ryan.

We have so many dedicated volunteers working on some magnificent events coming up this Fall. On October 3 we have an afternoon educational session on Accessibility, on November 14 we have a Lunch & Learn on Event Emergency Planning for the Meeting Professional and on November 28 we have our annual Festive Dinner event. I cannot thank our dedicated team of volunteers enough for all the hard work that they put into events like this.

This provides you with a quick summary of what your MPI Ottawa Chapter has been up to. Never hesitate to reach out to myself or any of the MPI Ottawa Board of Directors with any questions or comments. We would love to hear from you! I thank you for the opportunity to serve as your Chapter President. It is truly an honour.