President’s Letter, June 2020

Another programming year is over, and with it my first year as chapter president. Thank you to all who attended our very first virtual AGM and Sponsor and Volunteer Appreciation Night on Tuesday, June 16th! I was incredibly proud to be able to reflect on our year together and express my thanks for the hard work, support, dedication and passion of 50 board members, deputies, conference committee members and volunteers as well as 22 organizations who were sponsors, partners and friends of the chapter.

This year was all about experimenting with new things – everything from our first professional development conference (Capital BA Day) and new event formats (BA Trailblazer, BA Blitz and BA Talks) to a new organization structure that now includes 10 deputies. We also developed new collaborations with other IIBA chapters and many professional organizations in the Ottawa community.

Most recently, Covid-19 showed us how resilient we are as we transitioned all of our programming to an online format.  We saw our registration lists explode as people began investing newfound time into their BA career development and all of our events went global. The ECBA, CCBA and CBAP Study Group in May alone was attended by people from 10 different countries in numerous time zones!

Congratulations to our new and returning board members!  

I’m absolutely thrilled to announce the election of four amazing, dedicated and generous people to our board of directors, every one of whom is transitioning into a board role or carrying on in their current mandate:

• Nancy Beatson will work alongside me as President Elect for the next year while still fulfilling her mandate as VP Certification. She will then take over as President in 2021/2022;
• Chinyere Ubani is transitioning to VP Marketing from her Deputy, Outreach role;
• Magdalena Jaros has accepted another 2-year term as VP Communications; and
• J-P Thompson has signed on for another two years as Secretary.

Additionally, Marian Eke has kindly stepped in as Interim VP Professional Development, a transition from her Deputy, PD role.

There’s still time to join us!

The chapter still has a couple of events coming up this month: the GRAAL Award ceremony is on June 22, and there will be a final study group session on June 23.  We don’t offer any programming in July and August, but do have a look on the IIBA.org website for events offered by the many other chapters around the world.

The year ahead promises to be an excellent one, and we can’t wait to see you in September!

Christina Abbott
President
IIBA Ottawa-Outaouais Chapter

Thank you for a fantastic 2019/2020!