I had a chance to attend an employee communication conference for an organization called Council of Communication Management (CCM), of which I’ve been a members for two years now. Traveling to and from Toronto is funny that the flight is only 45 minutes, but you have to get to the airport on both sides 2 hours in advance and all the malarky that goes with clearing customs on the way back. Regardless, fun adventures ensued, as one can only imagine. Communication professionals are surprisingly un-shy.
While I really missed the few days away from the office (not at all!) I did really miss every day contact with Mom and Dad. While I’m aware there is a thing called the phone in Canada, my cell service was charging me a second mortgage to call so I concentrated on learning as much as I could and meeting as many people as I could at the conference. That and taking part in every meal and adult beverage opportunity possible.
We did have one exciting surprise event – and for me who loves charitable work and finding the ‘good’ in everyone, it was a blessing.
We were able to work together on a huge act of humanitarianism by packing and shipping supply kits that will be given to volunteer caretakers in Africa of the many AIDS victims who have no access to any healthcare and are living in dire conditions. I will post pictures of what we did and more information on the group sponsoring it. The company is called World Vision and their kits are called caregiver kits. We were surprised by the event and amazed at what our small group could do together to make a difference. I think we packed 300 caregiver kits in 30 minutes. This is hard to believe and the best part was that we got to write a thank you note to the caregiver for all they are doing to help someone else. Just imagine, taking care of your family all day – then walking to another village to take care of another person who is very ill, and sometimes even take care of their children at the same time. It was beautiful. There is a video showing how a group of thousands of employees packed and sent tens of thousands of these as a team building activity for a good cause. Their Web site is www.worldvision.org/wvcarekits for more info! More to come on this.
I also met some incredible professionals from all over the world, hopefully gaining some great knowledge and sharing time with colleagues in the world of internal (employee) communications. I also reconnected with peeps I met last year in Memphis and colleagues I’ve worked with in the past – and hopefully made some great new friends! I’m bummed it is over and I’m back to my reality.
How about that? I learned, gave and had a great time – all at this year’s CCM conference. Cool, eh?
