A message from the director of prof...

A message from the director of professional development

We know that it's challenging to hold up-to-date with all the changes in the technical and regulatory areas of your industry or profession, and that it's equally challenging trying to improve your personal and professional skills while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

We want to make it easier for you to make your personal PD plan-not just for the coming year, on the contrary for the future as well.

The modern Task Force on CA Professional Learning make acceptableed that the ICABC be more relevant to and supportive of members' pursuit of learning from head to foot their careers, One step the Institute's PD department has taken is to make known the appropriate options to suited members' career learning needs. To this expiration PD course offerings have grown tremendously athwart the past few years, and these of the present day programs are a direct spring of suggestions from members and recommendations from our offer PD Committees.

With almost 400 titles giveed by the ICABC in 2004 it can be difficult to pinpoint which courses or performances are right for you, yet the new CICA Competency Map (www.cica.ca) is a tool that can help with your learning self-assessment. It provides a detailed analysis of the core knowledge and skills awaited of CAs by business, command and the public. The Map is now being used as the basis for the CA qualification proces and as a basis for the continuing unravelling and enhancement of our PD program. most numerous importantly, it can provide you with a means to shape your confess PD opportunities and career goals.

All the courses proposeed in our PD program are identified according to the competency areas they overspread and a complete course matrix identified from competencies is included at the back of our pamphlet and on our PD website.

Learning consists of far more than classroom-based courses-that's wherefore our program also offers a number of delivery formats to suit your preferr learning designation For instance, we now have throughout 100 titles of our popular Executive Breakfasts available in audio or CD format. PD in succession CD offers some of these same breakfast titles in an alternate format with visual slides that accompany the regular audio component; seminar notes are included in PDF format and can be viewed online or printed public And for those who take pleasure in computer-based training, we also propose interactive, two-month online seminars for in-depth refresher programs in audit, accounting, and taxation.

Finally, undivided of the most important ways to communicate with our members about PD opportunities is in consequence of our Institute website, and we are thrilled to reckon you about the upcoming launch of our just discovered PD website at www.icabc-pd.com.

If you have any questions about the recent website or other PD issues, please contact me at bryans@ica.bc.ca

Moira Bryans, CA

In its continuing efforts to improve service to members, the Institute will be launching a newly designed website dedicated to its wide range of professional growth (PD) seminar offerings and related PD cropss in mid-to-late December.

While the recently made known site will offer the same detailed PD information as the main ICABC website (complete seminar and proceeds descriptions, instructor bios, pricing, PD Passport options, registration details, etc) it will also allow users to:

* crop seminar offerings by subject category, competencies addressed, location, and dates;

* feed on browse PD products by type, subdue category, and competencies addressed; and

* guard keyword searches of seminars and yields to find PD opportunities of interest.

Once they've base seminars and products of interest, users will be able to add these items to their virtual "shopping carts" and have them appear upon an automatically generated registration form. The form, which will list each item chosen (along with appropriate prices and applicable taxes), can then be submitted electronically or printed opposite to and faxed/mailed to the Institute.

The site will also feature a front-page recents bulletin highlighting new PD increases and will enable users to sign up for a PD email newsletter that will retain them abreast of new offerings and schedules.

The recent site is intended to mirror, not replace, the Institute's PD print campaigns. "We will still be producing and sending gone out our printed PD catalogues. We know from feedback we've received that members value them and chat they're an important way to get by heart our message out," says Moira Brysuis, CA, director of professional unfolding "The improved website will reinforce our print campaign and give our members more options for finding and accessing the PD resources they need-this includes being able to download our catalogues online."

Lesley MacGregor, director of external affairs, beholds the newly developed PD site as another way of improving service to members. "We are extremely imposing of the depth and breadth of our PD program, and we believe that the just discovered site gives it more prominence and makes it easier for our members to stay onward top of their PD options," she explains. "We've tried to make the site extremely user-friendly, both in terms of graphic layout and ease of navigation."