Increasing Value to Members: Capacity Changes at the ABCFP

Introduction
After many months of work, council is pleased to present to members its plan to improve the ABCFP’s performance. Council has made a decision to move forward with the plan laid out below, and would like members to be fully aware of it. Any comments members may have on the plan or its implementation are welcome.

Why examine capacity?
For some time now, members have made it clear that they want more out of the ABCFP in a number of areas including support for professional reliance, professional guidance, forest policy advocacy, raising the profile of the profession, professional development and member services. These messages have come through strongly in direct member contact and through various other forms, including:

2000/2001 Next Plateau Consultations
2004 External Communications Task Force Report

Member Surveys:
2002 Member Survey
2004 Member Surveys
2005 Professional Development Survey

In addition, the changes to the Foresters Act in 2003 established a mandate for advocacy for our association – we are no longer simply a regulatory body. Your council and staff have been carefully considering these things and have reflected these goals in recent iterations of the association’s strategic plan. Over the past few years, it has become apparent that as the association seeks to do more, it is having increasing difficulty living up to the goals embodied in the strategic plan.

Concurrent with these concerns, the ABCFP has also experienced very substantial membership growth, especially in 2005, as forest technologists joined the association in substantial numbers. In fact, close to 1,000 new members joined the association in 2005. While this development further taxed association resources in relation to admissions and member services, the increased revenues and economies of scale provided opportunities to address performance issues.

Faced with the performance challenges and the opportunity presented by our strong financial outlook, in mid-2005 council engaged Western Management Consultants (WMC) to review the organization, its mandate and its goals and bring forward recommendations as to how we might improve our performance in serving our members and the public. WMC’s report was considered at the November 2005 and January 2006 council meetings and their recommendations have been endorsed by council.

What did WMC’s report recommend?
The primary recommendation made by WMC was for the association to adopt a leadership model of management. Under this model, the association will seek to be more proactive and less reactive in the fulfillment of its mandate. Working under the leadership model, staff will be encouraged to proactively manage and initiate improvements to business practices. Staff will be held accountable to outcomes rather than processes.

Under this style of management, several changes must be made to the current organization of staff and resources in order to grow into the value-added activities such as forest stewardship and advocacy. These changes include the realignment of senior staff portfolios, the hiring of one additional senior staff person, and the hiring of one additional support person.

A major systems upgrade is also required due to the age and reliability of our current membership database. The recent increase in our membership is a contributing factor to the need to move to a more robust database.

Members should note that no additional resources are needed to bring the recommendations to fruition. Due to the increase in membership numbers and some careful financial management, the association has budgeted for all the recommendations in the WMC report without the need for a fee ballot for some time.

Download the full WMC report:
Capacity Review for the ABCFP: Prepared by Western Management Consultants (2005)

What are the next steps?
The executive director is finalizing an implementation plan that will be presented to council at the March meeting (March 30 and 31 in Vancouver) for approval. This implementation plan will focus on the new and expanded staff roles. The systems changes are high priority and research has already started in the search for a replacement for the membership database.

Member Feedback
While it will take some time to realize improved performance, council is interested in members’ feedback on the plan to get there. We are really looking forward to a new era for our profession and feel we have a great opportunity to impact the course of forest stewardship in this province.

There are several ways members can provide feedback to council: