Welcome to MISA Prairies!
2009 has certainly been a great year for MISA Prairies and it started with our annual conference that was held from April 29 to May 1 that was hosted by the City of Airdrie. This conference was a huge success that saw our largest delegation to date and the sessions, presentations and discussions provided a great forum of debate and collaboration. I would like to thank the City of Airdrie for being superb hosts for this year's conference. In 2010 the conference will be hosted by the City of Regina who is already aiming to meet or exceed the standards set by the City of Airdrie. I am already looking forward to it!
I would like to welcome our new MISA Prairies members which are the Town of Crossfield, Town of Chestermere, Municipal District of Foothills, City of Grand Prairie, County of Lethbridge, Town of Canmore, and Sturgeon County to MISA Prairies. We are glad that you have seen value in our association and hope that you get actively involved.
At our Annual General Meeting on May 1st in Airdrie we held our elections where nominations for the positions of President, Vice-President, Treasurer, MISA Canada Board representative we called. As a result of those elections Chris Fisher was elected President, Corey Halford was elected Vice-President, Dan Newton was elected Treasurer and Norm Francoeur was elected as the MISA Canada Board Representative. All of these individuals have great ideas I know you will see the fruits of their labor over the next year. Our next event scheduled for MISA Prairies is the semi-annual meeting which is being held in Kamloops, BC at the MISA West Conference during the week of September 13 - 18.
As you can see we have a new website and this is a very exciting time for MISA Prairies. At the AGM the membership provided feedback and a desire to increase the effectiveness of our website and the website sub-committee was tasked with the job of finding a replacement. In a very short time they reviewed the options that were available to us and selected a solution that fit us best. Our new website provides us with the ability to provide member surveys, content distribution, event management, membership management, and the collaborative tools that are necessary for MISA Prairies to deliver effective service to our members. I think this website really puts us on a platform where we can communicate and collaborate effectively and I hope this is a resource you will refer to on a regular basis. I want to thank the members of the website sub-committee for helping make this possible and thank you to MISA Ontario for collaborating with MISA Prairies to make our transition possible.
I hope you enjoy what is remaining of 2009 and I look forward to seeing many of you in Kamloops in September and again Regina in 2010.
Chris Fisher
President, MISA Prairies
