Join us at ADVR's February Meeting!

February's discussion on leadership and advocacy will be lead by speaker - Martha Parker. 

Date: Wednesday, February 9th 2011

Time: 8:00 - 9:45 a.m.

Location: 921 - 68th Avenue SW Calgary 

(The Salvation Army Glenmore Temple)

Parking is free. A continental breakfast will be provided. 

Leadership and advocacy….. to accomplish what?  …..to influence what?  Stronger organizations? Better support for your volunteer programming? A strong professional association? A well respected profession?  A strong understanding for knowing and understanding the trends and issues impacting volunteerism and how you can apply that knowledge?  A dream job – one that makes you proud to say I’m a director of volunteer resources?   Let’s talk about leadership and advocacy to determine if as professionals you want to be influencers – if leadership and advocacy are in fact core competencies to aspire to?   

Biography –– Martha Parker

Martha Parker retired from her sixteen-year position as the Executive Director of Volunteer Calgary - one of Canada’s most successful Volunteer Centres - in October of 2004.   Martha served on literally dozens of community initiatives during her career. She was a member of the Joint Coordinating Committee of the National Voluntary Sector Initiative and was one of the founding members of Volunteer Alberta, the national Advisory Council of Volunteer Centres, The Canadian Federation of Voluntary Sector Networks and the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations.  Martha is a past co-chair of the Alberta Nonprofit/Voluntary Sector Initiative – an Alberta leadership initiative focused on building a new relationship between the provincial government and the nonprofit/voluntary sector.  She was chosen to receive one of the first five fellowships presented by the Muttart Foundation (Edmonton, Alberta) in 1997.  The title of the book published as a result of her research is Partnerships: For Profits and Not-For-Profits Together. 

In the last year, Martha has been engaged with Volunteer Canada and the Centre for Excellence in Corporate Community Involvement developing and testing a number of emergent tools for encouraging strategic employee community engagement.  Both Volunteer Calgary and Vantage Point (previously Volunteer Vancouver) have been supportive of this exciting new work. Martha has been actively involved with all three of these organizations as well as Volunteer Alberta in advancing discussion and understanding of skills based volunteering.

Martha loves trashy novels and movies that make you cry.  She continues to “practice” retirement - most days unsuccessfully.