OCASI Executive Directors Forum

Registration Opens August 19

chris — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 00:55:06 +0000

Registration for both the Professional Development Conference and the Executive Directors Forum opens on Tuesday, August 19th. Registration for these events is based in part on when the registration was submitted, so don’t wait too long before getting yourself online and registered. Visit www.ocasi.org/register to register online.

Annual General Meeting

chris — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:12:49 +0000

The Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants holds its Annual General Meeting on the day between the Executive Directors Forum and the Professional Development Conference so that the greatest number of people possible can participate. This year’s AGM, on Wednesday, October 22nd, will feature a keynote address by Kay Blair, Executive Director of Community Microskills Development Centre.

The Annual General Meeting, while a legal requirement according to our bylaws, is much more than just a dry meeting. The AGM is where OCASI reports on the year gone by; on the projects completed, the policy initiatives undertaken, the state of its members. It’s also where OCASI elects its new At-Large members for the Board of Directors, reports on the financial statements for the year gone by and selects an auditor. The AGM is also a chance to mark special occasions in the life of our membership, and to state the plans for the coming year.

We hope that you’ll join us for this year’s AGM at Geneva Park in Orillia.

Debbie Douglas - Welcome to the ED Forum

chris — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:17:40 +0000

Using an Online Registration Service

chris — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:23:38 +0000

The Professional Development Conference and Executive Director Forum both use an online service called RegOnline to manage the conference registrations, which can make it easier and faster to register if you’ve attended before. It will remember some of your information based on your email, like your work address, agency, etc. You’ll still want to take extra care to make sure that it remains correct because we use this information in the directory of participants and to contact you regarding your registration.

One of the nice things about RegOnline is that it will let you go back and check your registration and change things right up until we close registration on September 30th. This can be helpful if you decide to go vegetarian, want to make sure that you are in different workshops from your co-workers (share the learning when you get back), or if your contact information changes after you register.

The system is very secure and reliable and has made our lives much easier by helping us better manage all of the information necessary to pull off this event twice a year.

Recording Proceedings

chris — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:41:37 +0000

One of the challenges of any sectoral conference is that, no matter what, not everyone will ever be able to come and participate. Restrictions of site size and finance are always an issue, but we also need to have staff staying in the offices back home, serving clients like it was any other day.

At the OCASI conferences we try to make it possible for people who didn’t attend the conference to benefit from it as well. We do this through providing daily updates online during the conference, posting the speaking notes or workshop handouts, or videotaping the plenary proceedings. We put all of those online here so that participants can review them when they get back to the office and so that those who aren’t here can still participate and benefit in some way.

While there isn’t much content up online yet from past conferences we will be working on that in the near future and you can expect lots of content from this year’s events to be online soon after the workshop. Click here to visit the conference proceedings section of the website.

New Conference Website

chris — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:38:41 +0000

Welcome to the new OCASI conference website. We have lots of information on here now and there will be more coming as the conference approaches. Watch this site before, during and after the conference and forum for updates, videos, proceedings and more.

On the site you can find out all about how to register, how travel to the conference works, what workshops are being offered and much more. Check out the Questions and Answers for some of the more consistent inquiries we get.

Up in the top right corner there’s a link to subscribe to site updates either by email or RSS, which you may want to do so that you can stay current with important information without having to check back here all the time.

Hope you like the site and find it useful.