Greetings! There are some exciting changes happening in IPRA. First, at our recent IPRA board retreat, the board focused on early discussion of streamlining IPRA in terms of our overall structure. No decisions were made, but the board will continue in this discussion over the coming months.
Also, the IPRA board approved a proposal to streamline all scholarships for students and professionals through the Illinois Park and Recreation Foundation. We will be implementing that new structure over the coming months; a more thorough letter will go out to section leadership in the next few weeks.
Additionally, Supervisor Symposium will be moved from the fall to the spring on a regular basis, starting with this cycle, which will delay the fall 2015 event to the spring of 2016. This will make it easier on the volunteers and the staff who produce the event because it won't be in competition with Professional Development School, NRPA, and other fall programs.
Our Certified Playground Safety Inspector Course (CPSI) has taken off and this year we will be hosting a third opportunity to take the course during the summer months. As we can only accept a certain number of people per course, this opens up the opportunity to take the course to many more people each year. Watch for more information soon with details.
Our
webinar series has taken off and we have been receiving registrations for our course from around the country, including Alaska, Arizona, and several other states. This program continues to build and evolve. We hope that you take advantage of it. Remember, the cost is per agency, so you can have as many people in the room calling in together as you like, even pooling resources with a neighboring agency or SRA.
Finally, we are exciting that our
job board is showing a huge increase in available jobs in 2015, breaking records. We are thrilled that this means there are new jobs in the field. We are going to be advancing the technology behind the job board to make it more user friendly for you.
If you are looking to post a job, we encourage you to post it there. We send emails for jobs which have purchased a "featured" job ad, so there are many which are only listed on the website.
So many exciting programs happening at IPRA! Let me know if you have ideas for other changes you'd like to see.
Debbie Trueblood, CAE
Executive Director
