President's Message:

It is my pleasure to be serving the membership as your new president for the 2011-12 year.  Thank you to Angela Chios for her leadership last year and the advice she has given me on how best to fulfil this new role.   Thank you also to Kathy Badham who has completed her CALA board commitment only to step in to become a member of ALAs Region 5 management team.   This is very exciting for CALA and its members as Kathy will bring her insight into ALA back to our chapter. 

Shortly after our AGM in April the new board met to develop a plan for our new year.   We had lengthy discussions on how we could better serve our members and agreed on a number of goals for the 2011-12 year as summarized below. 

1.  increase the benefits provided by ALA/CALA memberships 

2.  increase the profile of CALA within ALA and within the Calgary legal community 

3.  increase the CALA membership to 100 

Specific action items that we established that should help us achieve our goals are as follows:
 

         develop a membership prospectus to help attract new members 

        apply for (and win) an ALA President's Award of Excellence

         deliver more educational content to our members (ALA webinars, brown bag sessions, etc)

         enhance our use of social media to better serve our membership and others interested in our profession
 

-          ensure all sub-sections are meeting regularly so that greater value and the opportunity to develop stronger relationships with peers are made available to all members

 pursue the use of special committees to engage more members in chapter activities
 

         develop a 'know your members' program whereby board members would host small informal lunch meetings with members to foster better relations within the membership and to obtain more input from our members on their challenges and ideas

        celebrate CALA's 35^th anniversary, by hosting an anniversary party in early 2012

While this plan may sound ambitious, we have a great board that is committed to our chapter and our chapter's success.  Together with the support of our membership we will no doubt enjoy a very exciting and rewarding year as CALA members.  I encourage everyone to reach out to any of our board members if you are interested in helping with any of the initiatives we have identified or if you have any ideas that you feel might enhance the experience and value of our memberships. 

Sincerely, 

Bill Hopkins 

CALA President