As a lifelong learner, September always sparked excitement in me. The new school term will be very different this year, and I sense more nervous energy than eager anticipation as we re-enter classrooms and board rooms – whether physical or virtual – that are being redesigned by COVID-19.
We know many of you are facing challenging times and our commitment as a local society board is to ensure you have a professional community to lean on and draw upon. CPRS National has reduced annual fees to help bridge through this period of uncertainty. And locally, we will absorb all programming costs to provide you with events at no charge to members, and modestly priced for non-members.
We’ll be sourcing and sharing speakers, topics and joint programming with sister societies that taps into the wisdom of CPRS Fellows, and our business and thought leader networks. Wherever reasonable, we’re appealing to colleagues to share expertise pro bono or on an in-kind exchange basis.
Our programming calendar revolves around six streams:
- Career pathing: membership to mentorship
- Thought leader topics: women in innovation, intrapreneurship, trust/truth and elections, etc.
- Issues/crisis management: from cyber security to reputation risks
- How-to sessions on new tools, techniques and technologies
- PR+ relationships with other professions
- Social meetups and mixers: September 24, October 22, December 3, February 11, April 15, June 24
We’ll post our preliminary 2020 program calendar to our website soon and will update it as plans are finalized, so please check back often!
Resilience and re-imagination are the sentiments driving us and reflected in our plans. We invite your ideas, suggestions, speaker referrals and offers to host/facilitate virtual meetups or live events as circumstances permit. CPRS Edmonton will be the community we make it together.
As always, my virtual door is open!
Stay healthy and safe, Lyn