For those of you old enough to remember paper calendars, the first few weeks of a new year brought fresh, crisp pages just waiting to be filled, and blocked, and erased and redone…and if you had one of the daily flip calendars there was a certain satisfaction to the ripping action at the end of a tough day to bring forth the fresh page of tomorrow. Now that all my calendars are electronic, I miss the fresh appearance of a new page! As your professional development association, I’m hopeful that you’ve already blocked dates in your 2015 calendar for the district and regional trainings, the FCCMA annual conference, your required hours of ethics training (and you have lots of options here!) and the ICMA conference in Seattle in September. The time you carve out for yourself, and for the development within this profession that you also share with your management team is necessary for lots of reasons. It was hard to see many of you sacrifice that time during the Great Recession. While I admired the budget cutting and additional sacrifice so others on your team could attend their own events, I know it kept many of you from networking, learning and leading. My hope for you in 2015 is that you can once again take time for yourself to focus on your own development, your own refreshment from chaos and stress, and the time to connect and reconnect with colleagues; maybe even to mentor a young person within the profession! Take time now to block these hours for yourself. I admit I have to do it, too. That way, the commitment is easier to keep as the weeks progress and open time becomes more scarce. Your own professional health is important! Please let your FCCMA directors and staff know how we can be there for you, and with you, on this journey.
FCCMA and ICMA Annual Conference Dates
FCCMA Annual Conference, May 27-30, 2015, Loews Royal Pacific, Orlando
ICMA Annual Conference, September 27-30, 2015, Seattle, WA
For the complete FCCMA training calendar, go to: https://fccma.org/professional-development-training-dates/.
