NGTAE and CSBA2016!
We hope you will be able to join us in Winnipeg for what looks like a superbly organized, quality event with extraordinary programming. The CSBA congress has long been a provider of excellent Professional Development, but it can also be a place to find inspiration, develop ideas, learn from others and feel empowered by our common goals.
I want to thank MSBA and the organizing committee for their excellent work and the warm welcome they have prepared for us all. Special thanks to President Ken Cameron, Executive Director Josh Watts, CSBA Vice President, Floyd Martens (MSBA) and especially Heather Demetrioff and the MSBA team. It really does “take a village…” I promise it will be difficult to choose your favourite session in the program.
From the opening, the tone will be set for the excellent program, as we go to the world-renowned Human Rights Museum and hear author of Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden, best-selling and award-winning author. Also, you may have read the moving book “I Shall Not Hate”, but you will have a rare opportunity to listen to the author tell his own story. Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, educated in Cairo, London and Harvard and winner of the Mahatma Gandhi Peace Award of Canada, will inspire you . This event will be a first time joint event with the Canadian Association of School System Administrators (CASSA). In the days that follow, you will hear of the challenges and triumphs of comic Big Daddy Taz and Michael Redhead Champagne , which will make you laugh and cry at the same time.
Other exemplary examples of courageous leadership in Winnipeg this week, are speakers Kevin Lamoureux, Aimée Craft, Fred Kelly and Elder Harry Bone at our National Gathering pre-congress. And don’t miss the CSBA Annual Presentation and Cross County Check-In where provincial presidents and myself will present the work we have all been doing across the country on both a national and a provincial scale.
Kevin Waugh, Minister of Parliament from Saskatchewan will be present at congress on Saturday morning if you would like information or be interested in supporting his bill to legislate full refund of GST to school boards. Another story you should hear about is the disturbing theme of the threat to school boards as a democratic right. At CSBA, we stood by Quebec to help defeat Bill 86 abolishing school elections. But come to congress and you can hear from the school board associations themselves, how they faced this challenge and won.
There will be plenty to keep you engaged at this year’s event. Please visit the congress website csba2016 for more information on program, registration, accommodations, extra tickets, etc. for both the annual conference and the National Gathering.
Hope to see you there!
Janet Foord
President