Hello and I hope everyone is looking forward to having a wonderful, frost-free summer. For those of you going to the APRA-International Conference in Las Vegas – we want full reports! And, of course, I look forward to visiting with many of you again at the APRA-Canada Conference in October.
President’s Report
APRA-Canada Strategic Plan:
- Following the last board meeting, an appeal was sent out to APRA-Canada members to form an APRA-Canada Strategic Plan Task Force, and the following members stepped forward:
Tracey Church (KCI), Caitlin McLellan (Ivey), Donna Moriarty (Ryerson), Shawna Delgaty (Baycrest), Lauren Burgess (U Waterloo), Sheila Marie Larin (Crohns & Colitis), Shelly Steenhorst-Baker (U Calgary), Karla Benson (U Vic), and Julie Linkletter (UBC).
- The group met in May and June. The plan is to have monthly strategic meetings leading to a presentation to the membership of the plan so far, with the hope to pass the completed Strategic Plan at next year’s AGM (Jan/Feb).
- Thank you to everyone who is participating in what has been and exciting, productive and dynamic work group.
Resource Sharing:
- The APRA-International “Body of Knowledge” to replace the outdated “Skill Sets” was released last month followed by a webinar launch. This Body of Knowledge will be uploaded to the APRA-Canada website to share with our membership, and will help when developing position descriptions and professional development within your own shops and moving forward in the field.
iSchool – University of Toronto Meeting:
- As requested by Dean Seamus Ross of the U Toronto iSchool to increase their relationship with APRA-Canada, a small group of APRA-Canada members met at U Toronto on Thursday, April 10th. The group attending included myself as APRA-Canada President, Gretchen Wintermeyer (Board Member and Researcher in the Field), Jennifer Zhang (Researcher & Workshop Instructor at Part-time Continuing Ed at the iSchool), and John Hermans (Head Researcher at U of Toronto Advancement, and Corporate Sponsorship Lead for the APRA-Canada Conference).
- Discussion focused on increasing the Dean’s knowledge of the prospect research field, with the possibility of including a prospect research course in the iSchool Masters curriculum, and the iSchool sponsoring the APRA-Canada conference in the fall. Discussions continue.
Prospect Research Course at MLIS Program at Western University:
- Izabela Piasecka-Latour (The Arthritis Society) and I have been accepted once again to teach the course “Prospect Research in Fundraising” in the MLIS program at Western for Winter (Jan) 2015. Having the course taught at both Western and U Toronto will bode well in continuing to acquire interest and educate future researchers for our field.
Tracy Church
President, APRA-Canada
Senior Consultant, Research & Analytics
Ketchum Canada Inc.