President’s Update & Report on the APRA Presidents’ 24-hour Summit
Hello everyone and welcome to the first 2013 edition of The Scoop. As you will read in the issues ahead, there are many great opportunities planned for our membership, designed to keep everyone energized and innovative in their research positions. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any suggestions for APRA-Canada. My “virtual” door is always open at traceychurch@yahoo.ca
On February 28th and March 1st, I had the pleasure of attending the APRA Presidents’ Summit, in Chicago, on behalf of APRA-Canada. While the official Summit report from APRA has not yet been received by its 30 attendees, I want to share with you some of the highlights from this Summit as well as new developments at APRA International.
APRA-C and APRA
As you may know, APRA-C’s by-laws state that we operate as a local chapter of the larger APRA, also known as APRA International. On our website, we specify that the membership into the APRA International is recommended, though, it is not a requirement for membership in APRA-C. Since we share the same ethical standards in research and fundraising as APRA International, I believe that it is important to stay informed and connected with other APRA chapters and the parent Association.
In case you were wondering, here’s some information on how APRA is run. APRA is administered by SmithBucklin (www.smithbucklin.com), the largest association management company in the world. APRA is just one of the 320 trade associations, professional societies, technology user groups, corporations, government agencies, institutes and other non-profit organizations administered by SmithBucklin. So, the administrative staffs, IT personnel, accountants, and even Executive Director of APRA (Janet Rapp), are shared with other NFP associations. The IT folks at SmithBucklin also edit and distribute the APRA newsletter, Connections, and maintain the APRA website. Such an arrangement keeps the cost low and the professional standards high.
The Summit
The main themes at the Summit were Member-Centricity, Increasing Connectivity (between Chapters), and Innovation. So important are these themes that the APRA International President, Elizabeth Dollhopf-Brown, has these as her primary objectives.
While many suggestions were offered on how to achieve these goals, a common suggestion – one that most of the attendees agreed on – was to proactively connect with one another’s professional development opportunities. With the increase in communication tools, such as APRA’s Prospect-L, LinkedIn and Twitter sites, it is becoming easier to share the announcement of professional development opportunities. Eventually, we’d like to have one common area for PD announcements, or a tool which would automatically dissessimate information on these opportunities.
As well, APRA is offering to email Connections, their electronic newsletter, to members of all the APRA Chapters, regardless of their membership into APRA International. I have also contacted you to ascertain your interest in receiving Connections. I have confirmed with the APRA administration that your emails will only be used for distribution of the newsletter. APRA will also promote each chapter’s professional development opportunities and events.
At the Summit, I was asked to present information on one of our own innovative PD activities – the APRA-C’s Twitter Talk. I shared the intent of the twitter talks, and how they were run. I also shared some statistics from our Twitter Talk held in March 2013. The other Presidents are excited to learn more about these Twitter Talks and, particularly, how to conduct them, so that they can offer this (free) tool to their chapter members. (Shelly: Over to you – the world is eager for us to continue leading the way)!
Overall, the Summit was very positive and progressive, and I look forward to working further with the other APRA Chapter Presidents in order to make the most of our associations. APRA, from what I could see, is working hard to become more of a partner in this process rather than just a governing body.
APRA Canada is one of the largest and most innovative of the Chapters. As such, many other Chapters wish to work with us to further everyone’s educational and research needs. This makes me very proud and I congratulate all of you for the growth and success of APRA-C.
Tracey Church
President