Message from Your CEO & President

By Karen Botham, CMA, President; and Colin Bennett, CMA, FCMA, CEO

With summer quickly approaching, we’d like to take this opportunity to provide you with an update on our activities. Firstly, we would like to reflect briefly on the decision by CMA Canada and the CICA to discontinue merger discussions. While there was considerable support for the general principle of the merger by the members of both organizations, it was not possible to reach an agreement on key issues associated with the proposed merger – including the adoption of a single professional designation. Although we are disappointed with this outcome, we would like to recognize that the discussions in BC were enjoyable and productive. In fact, we fully expect to continue working together on professional matters of mutual interest.

Nevertheless, we have not lost momentum in the implementation of our strategic plan in British Columbia. Even though much of our energy and resources have been focused on the merger discussions over the past year, we continued to work very hard on our many CMA opportunities and challenges and will now concentrate all of our efforts and resources on our mission, vision, and values of our professional organization.

Overall our plan is to continue in the strategic directions that your provincial Board of Directors previously approved. We will focus on member satisfaction, the image and reputation of the CMA designation and the society, quality net member growth, and new student intake. On the topic of member satisfaction, we have recently asked you to participate in an online membership survey. We appreciate the time you have taken to participate in this survey and look forward to sharing your feedback with the CMA community later this year.

One of the major challenges and opportunities that our province faces is the implementation of the degree requirement in British Columbia. All BC student members registering to write the national exam for the first time will need to have a degree effective for the October 2006 CMA National Entrance Exam. To help communicate what this change means to the BC workforce and post-secondary markets, we are using a number of strategies such as building our strategic and professional alliances with the academic and business community.

As a result, you will continue to see us being very active in all markets across the province: raising CMA awareness, defining our unique and differentiating strengths, forming strategic and professional alliances, and recruiting post-secondary graduates as well as degree holders in the workforce.

A few meetings that will influence many of our plans and initiatives for the fiscal year are the CMA Canada Branding Summit meeting on April 15th in Toronto, the CMA Canada Board meeting on May 6th – 7th in Winnipeg to approve the national business plan, and our own provincial Board of Directors meeting on May 13th to approve our business plan. We will also carry out our provincial board nominations and election process later this year. CMAs who are interested in serving on our provincial board are encouraged to contact Lina Melo at 604.484.7007 or lina@cmabc.com for more information.

In closing, as we have suggested in previous messages to our members, be proud of your CMA designation. Help us to promote our CMA brand all around the province. Show your CMA designation with pride: on your business cards, when you interact with others in the business community, during interviews with the media, and in speaking engagements you take on. You are our best ambassadors in the marketplace.

>> Next Page: CMA advertising campaign picks up where the Fall 2004 campaign left off. Print ads now appearing across Canada.