Fellowship

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

This was the start of just about every conversation in the year 2020 in our industry. Our community is going through some transformative changes, and it isn’t the first time a metamorphosis has happened. When the COVID-19 crisis started, many of us began reaching out for guidance and support from mentors in the industry to get a perspective or a hint at how to tackle the colossal challenge ahead. We reached out to the most experienced people we knew – the most tenured. 

Now, come with me as I rewind the clock by two years when a group of us were sitting around the table at a CMP Commission meeting trying to figure out how to stop the brain drain in the meetings community, specifically in the CMP community. As professionals seemed to get busier and more tenured, they let their accreditation lapse and we lost their voice and their history in our sessions, in our conversations, and in our classrooms. We also lost them at conferences and around board tables. Sometimes it was as simple as having an out-of-date email address with reminders going into the great abyss, sometimes it was the feeling that promotions had made the CMP irrelevant, and sometimes it was just being too busy to get together the documentation of completed CEUs. With each loss, we lost history. We lost a different way of thinking. We lost thought leaders, and we lost their expertise and contribution to our community. We all sat around that table and really tried to imagine how we could get the brain drain to stop and how we could harness all of that brainpower for good. 

The CMP Fellows Programme was born.

We had no idea whether what we were putting together was going to finalise at a time when we needed it the very most. 

Now we are on a quest. We want to recognise the most tenured and the very best of the best in our industry, while at the same time pulling those we lost for so many different reasons back into the fold. To make the CMP more than a test, but truly a community of meeting professionals, without advertorial, bias or a financial stake in the conversation. We want our mentors back into the fold. We want a community of experts, ready to mentor our new and rising talent to help shape the next generation of meeting professionals. We want their influence on our criteria, our test questions, and our definition of what it means to achieve excellence in the meetings community. 

We are going to launch the CMP Fellows Programme in the Fall of 2021, just in time to help the industry build back better. We are going to give you all the details over the next few months. We have a plan for a one-time reinstatement to make it easier for those that have let their CMP lapse within the last five years to get it back. To support those meeting professionals that have continued with their education and contribution but were unable to renew for whatever personal or professional circumstance. To come back without having to re-sit for the full exam so that they can apply to be a part of this prestigious community of Fellows. We don’t want to miss out on their voices.

So, please start thinking about if you may have an interest in applying in the inaugural year. To be eligible for CMP Fellows designation, an individual must hold an active CMP or CMP Emeritus status for the past 10 years and must have a minimum of 15 years full-time work experience in the meeting, event, exhibition, and/or hospitality and tourism industry.

We are on the horizon of better things, and it’s going to take the community of mentors and experts who have successfully shaped their entire careers to be ready for this moment to get us there. 

Best Wishes,

Alisa Peters, CMP, CMM

Senior Global Event Strategist

Chair, CMP Governance Commission - Events Industry Council