Sneak preview of what I have to say in the forthcming newsletter:
OK let's see if you can guess the theme of this edition of the newsletter. Here we go.........deep breath........25% reduction on all business texts from Gower publishing............free access to an extensive professional development aid exclusively available to PMI UK Chapter members..........15% reduction on all texts bought via the forthcoming PMI UK Chapter bookstore to be launched in the Autumn.........the opportunity to buy a signed copy of Peter Taylor's 'The Lazy Project Manager' at the reduced price of £8........an exciting array of exclusive offers from our long standing partner ESI........free entry to IPM Day which last year cost in excess of £200............ Yes - we have been working extremely hard over the last few months to negotiate some exclusive benefits for PMI UK Chapter members and I am pleased to say that we are now starting to see a number of these realised. We have plans to continue to develop this list in the hope that each and every member is able to benefit from their membership of the Chapter and the success of the PMI brand. If anyone has any thoughts as to specific benefits you would like to see please reach out and let us know.
You may recall that in the balanced scorecard published earlier this year one of the key areas for improvement was to promote the PMI brand more widely in the UK. Well to that end I am pleased to be able to report that the UK Chapter is to be featured in a forthcoming Guardian supplement in which we will have both an article and a UK specific ad promoting the Chapter. The supplement is expected to reach a readership of approx 600,000 a large number of whom we expect to show an interest in PMI. The supplement is being published with the Guardian newspaper on 1st September and will also be available at Project Challenge for those who plan to attend. On that note as in previous years we are on the look out for volunteers to help out at Project Challenge which will be held 30 September- 1 October at Olympia, London where we will be joined by our US PMI colleagues. If you would like to come along and help out please let us know.
I would like to draw your attention to the roll of honour included with this edition of the newsletter. It strikes me that in the past we have not given much recognition to our long standing members so with the help of Nicola Wadham, our Director of Membership we plan to recognise these members, not only in writing but in true PMI style we are also working on creating a pin badge that will be exclusively available to those who reach 10 years continuous membership. Further information on this will be made available shortly.
Hopefully you will agree that we are continuing to make good progress, but the aim is to raise the bar even further and to that end I have invited the Regional Chairs and the Chapter Board to attend an off-site event during September at which we will focus on the future of the UK Chapter. Specifically how we can move into new, exciting areas and nurture a fresh, vibrant community of Project Managers in the UK. The event is a rare opportunity for the entire team to come together and I am optimistic that we will use this valuable time to develop a roadmap for the next 12-18 months. If you have any specific views on areas we should explore then drop us a line - either via email, the LinkedIn Discussion Group or even via my new blog!
The blog is a direct response to the recent membership survey the results from which are featured in this newsletter. It's all too clear that a number of members are thirsty for more information on what we do as a Chapter Board. Hopefully the blog along with all the communication via the web site, newsletter and email go some way to achieving this. If not, and you are keen to learn more then I would encourage you to contact one of the team such that we can discuss your thoughts - we may even try and convince you to contribute by volunteering in some way! On that note I would like to sign out by thanking all those who have contributed to the development of the Chapter over the past few months for their hard work and encourage more of the same.
Until next time.....
