The CFES Summer Meeting took place in St. Brieux, Saskatchewan June 22nd to 24th. It was a productive weekend for the entire officer team to meet in person and work on current and future projects. This year at Summer Meeting, the focus was on preparations for President’s Meeting, finalizing our communications plan, and begin revision of our long term Strategic Plan.
Most officers arrived on Friday evening to St. Brieux, 2 hours out of Saskatoon, where VP Academic Mitch Cassidy kindly hosted us at his family cabin. We were joined that night virtually by Vanessa Raponi of EngiQueers Canada, where she presented great ideas on how CFES and EQ Canada can collaborate. We are happy to begin a soft partnership with EQ Canada, and you can expect guest blogs from them on issues relevant to the LGBTQ+ engineering student community here soon. Their first post is up here: EngiQueers Canada Chapters March Pride Parades Across Nation.
Zen Yoga with Zenon (trademark pending)
The first working day on Saturday began with an early breakfast at 8am, and some Zen Yoga with our President, Zenon. We then jumped right into updating each other on our work since Spring Meeting. On Saturday, significant time was also committed to discussing our annual priorities on improving education advocacy, service sustainability, and bilingualism in the CFES, with each working group updating us on their efforts. Furthermore, we discussed our internal and external communication plan, and reevaluated our avenues of communication. We also put the final touches on our new website, which you are seeing before you! Please do not hesitate to provide us feedback on our Contact page.
The Summer meeting is the last time the officers meet before the President’s Meeting, so preparations for President’s Meeting were a major discussion. President’s Meeting serves as the in-person meeting of the new society representatives (‘VPXs’), and a plenary session is held. Our members will be updated on the officer team’s work to date, be able to provide feedback to the team, and the rest of the year will be planned out leading up to Congress.
Finally, Saturday concluded with a discussion on our Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan includes the long term goals CFES works towards and provides necessary direction for the organization. The Strategic Plan is renewed every three years, and we are working to present the new plan at Congress 2018.
On Sunday, a Board of Directors meeting took place, but most of the day was dedicated to Small Group Discussions. Some discussion topics included our activity agreements, this blog, international relations, and social media efforts.
After a quick dip into the icy lake, it was sadly departure time for the officers. However, we all left Saskatoon motivated and determined to complete our action items, and I hope you are as excited as we are about the upcoming months.
The conference dates for the next year are as follows:
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All photos from the weekend.
