2016 and Beyond

The recent IPRA board meetings have been focused on strategy planning for 2016-2020. In my last article, I focused on our 2015 accomplishments. Today, let me share with you some of our goals for 2016 and beyond.

For IPRA, 2016 will be a planning year for us. We will continue with our five-year plan, but we will take some time to research and check in with our members to make sure we are still moving in the right direction for them. For example, we will be asking members for some detailed feedback about our educational programs to ensure we continue to provide the best education for park and recreation professionals.

The board will lead IPRA through a streamlining process, looking specifically at the committees, task forces, sections, and ensure we have the best structure to serve our members, then look at terms and term limits to ensure that those who wish to volunteer have opportunities to do so.

We have opened up membership as a free benefit for students. We will redouble our efforts to connect with college and university students all over Illinois and help them to connect with each other and with professionals statewide. We will develop a brochure just for students showing them the role IPRA can have in their professional growth. A new on-line community for students and faculty will connects students with each other statewide and will become an avenue for sharing information about internships and early career positions.

We will host a Leadership Summit. We will invite the state association boards and top staff from our five border states to join us and share information reciprocally to help each other learn and grow and better serve professionals in our respective states.

We will expand our successful webinar series to serve more Illinois organizations as well as those in other states.

We will work with outside support to outsource grant writing, building on our existing and future partnerships to identify ways to help each other grow.

Our foundation will continue to develop the now streamlined scholarship program for students and professionals and raise funds to create more scholarship opportunities.

We will roll out a membership recruitment campaign to better reach more of our prospective members all over Illinois to grow IPRA’s network. We will continue to identify specific ways to serve our members in Central and Southern Illinois, hosting events and supporting our affiliates there.

The Community Campaign Task Force is getting ready to roll out the first phase of our community campaign to support professional members in educating their communities on the value of parks and recreation. In 2016, we will move to phase two, directly educating the public about the value of parks and recreation through a new website for consumers and a marketing campaign.

We will continue to develop ProConnect with our partner, the University of St Francis and ProConnect South with our affiliate, Southern Illinois Park and Recreation Association (SIPRA) through our newly formed Board of Regents.

We will continue to develop our newsletter by sharing guest articles from our partners, schools and universities, other states, and subject matter experts.

We will provide improved technology to make our job board more user friendly for our members, so that it can continue to be a top ranked member benefit.

IPRA has had a great year in 2015, and 2016 looks to be even better. It is an exciting time to be a part of serving our communities together in Illinois. If you would like to share your feedback on IPRA’s direction, feel free to reach out to me at debbie@ilipra.org and for more information go to www.ilipra.org I look forward to seeing you at the conference!

Debbie Trueblood, CAE

Executive Director