Chapter Development Report

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Chapter Development Report

Gamma, Lambda, Theta Chapters

Jeffrey Phelps

I am pleased at this time to offer this report. This is my first report as a Chapter Representative from Theta Chapter and in my portfolio as one of the two Directors of Chapter Development. I am very honoured to be in a position to do this. Thank you.

As a professional association, we have been very active in our chapters in education and other areas and, from what I am seeing, we are getting better at it. We do need to work on our communications a little bit between the Provincial to the Chapter levels and vice versa.

Gamma Chapter is, I believe, active in education sessions but the communication lines are a bit fragile at the moment. Gamma membership numbers are a bit down since May 31 2012 but memberships are always coming in and hopefully this trend reverses itself. It is a goal of mine to attend at least one of these sessions in the future and look forward to meeting you at conference this year.

Lambda Chapter had a bit of a rocky year with the resignation of Trevor Lee from his post in Thunder Bay that left them scrambling for an interim President and a Chapter rep to cover off one of the Directors of Communication positions with Louis Konstant. I am please to report Luanne Sutherland has agreed to cover the President position and Provincial rep position and we are very pleased to introduce her to the membership at large and offer her a warm welcome. The lines of communication are now open again and there is every indication that they will continue to be active in the information and education area. It is of note that a number of Lambda members have also attended the Theta OTN education broadcasts as well. I hope as well to attend at least one meeting this season as well.

Theta Chapter has had a very busy season with three education sessions via OTN on various topics relevant to our work. These sessions are attended by other chapter members as well from as far out as Wingham and Fort Frances and also into Gamma chapter locations. This is a free service and is open to all CSAO members across the Province. The dates and times are posted on the CSAO website, I believe, for the next year already for people to plan ahead to attend. Theta also hosted an education day in April that was attended by 42 delegates, some from other chapters, including members from CHEO in Gamma and Pembroke as well. Theta Chapter membership is currently up from May numbers and we are excited about it and hope to keep the momentum going.

If I may be permitted at this time, I would like to ask everyone that if they have any ideas on how we may be more attractive to new members, please e-mail me at rwickett@cogeco.ca. It would be great if we could start some sort of membership drive to bolster our numbers so that we have a strong association heading into the future.

Once again, I thank you for the opportunity to serve this great association of ours

I am very excited about the developments we are seeing within the CSAO Chapters and, at the Provincial level, we are currently involved in some pretty exciting projects that we will be passing down shortly.

Yours Aye,

Jeffrey Phelps