Since we are now part of the CAC we cannot have a separate blog so this blog is no longer in use and will be deleted at the end of August 2011. The CAC is in the process of updating their website (www.cac-accr.ca) and when it is complete our committee will have a page there. For the time being we encourage you to “like” us on facebook at www.facebook.com/CAC.ECC.

Best,

CAC-ECC Committee

Chers restaurateurs émergents,

Le congrès annuel de Vancouver est à nos portes!

Pour ceux qui s’y renderont, Marie-Catherine Cyr sera notre représentante sur les lieux. Elle aura à la boutonnière un macaron de l’ACRE , qui sera bientôt un item de collection! Venez chercher le/les vôtres avant qu’ils ne soient retirés de la circulation, et par le fait même faites part de vos commentaires et suggestions à Marie-Catherine. Advenant que l’ACRE devienne un comité permanent de l’ACCR (le Comité des restaurateurs émergents – CRE), nous continuerons de travailler sur nos projets en développement ainsi que de trouver de nouvelles manières de desservir les membres de l’ACCR.

Marie-Catherine sera notre représentante à Vancouver

Vote!

Il est important que tous les membres qui prendront part au congrès soient présents à l’assemblée générale annuelle, qui aura lieu entre 15h30 et 17h samedi le 30 mai dans l’auditorium C300 au 800  Robson Street. Ce n’est pas le moment de partir en ballade!

Procurations

Aux membres de l’ACCR ne se rendant pas au congrès, nous vous prions de bien vouloir remplir la procuration faisant partie du plus récent envoi de l’ACCR. Remettez-le à un collègue de votre entourage qui sera présent à l’AGA et qui pourra voter pour vous.

Les procurations générales peuvent être envoyées par télécopieur à la coordonnatrice de l’ACCR au (613) 231-4406.  Il est à noter qu’une procuration générale ne permet qu’au conseil d’administration d’atteindre le quorum (15%); seulement les procurations remises en personne lors de l’AGA ne peuvent être utilisées pour voter.

Planifier la relève

Advenant que l’ACRE soit un comité permanent à compter du 30 mai, nous serons à la recherche de restaurateurs émergents motivés qui pourront éventuellement nous remplacer à la présidence du CRE. Le ou les individus intéressés travailleront en tandem avec l’exécutif actuel de l’ACRE pendant un certain temps avant que nous ne nous retirions afin de faire place au(x) nouveau(x) président(s). Pensez-y bien et restez à l’écoute au cours des prochains mois pour de plus amples informations.

Bien à vous,

Le Comité des restaurateurs émergents, anciennement l’ACRE

Des questions? Adressez-vous aux personnes portant ce macaron à Vancouver

AGO’s collection at risk, critics charge

Claiming that the Art Gallery of Ontario’s most coveted collection is at risk creates unnecessary alarm for the public (AGO Collections At Risk, Critics Charge – Review, May 13).

We reorganized our staff and reoriented positions to allow the flexibility and efficiency required for the care of our works. Currently, the AGO collections management and conservation team comprises 19 people – more than half of whom bring nearly 20 years or more of experience and institutional history. Since 2004, the team has grown by some 20 per cent.

director, Art Gallery of Ontario

In the storerooms of the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John, the silk flags once carried by the 104th Regiment of Foot – as the New Brunswickers marched all the way to Upper Canada to fight the War of 1812 – are quietly disintegrating. In British Columbia, staff at the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel in Cranbrook dream of the day they raise the money for a building to shelter four unique luxury trains that currently sit outdoors, where temperature fluctuations are taking their toll on walnut-panelled interiors, stained-glass windows and wool carpeting.

Canada’s heritage is slowly rotting away as museums merely pretty up objects that are going on display, say museum administrators and conservators. As they mark International Museum Day this weekend, they cheerfully welcome visitors into new, gizmo-packed galleries and restored historic sites. Behind the scenes, however, in the storage areas and warehouses where the bulk of any museum collection is located, they wonder how much longer they can hold time at bay.

“As we fiddle, Rome is burning,” says Calgary conservator David Daley, a representative of the Canadian Association for Conservation of Cultural Property. “… Cultural heritage is similar to an endangered species; once lost, it is gone forever.”

Daley and other museum professionals say the recession is making a bad situation worse. “Care of collections has always been difficult to finance. There are not a lot of grants or programs for it,” says Nancy Noble, CEO of the Museum of Vancouver. “It will be worse now because foundations that have supported it in the past wouldn’t have as much money.”

Conservator Carol Brynjolfson of the Museum of Vancouver examines long-ago damage to a 1938 painting of former B.C. lieutenant-governor Eric Hamber. The museum cannot afford to hire a specialized conservator to glue together threads in the canvas. (John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail)

Her own institution can’t find the funds to repair a large tear in a portrait of former B.C. lieutenant-governor Eric Hamber that occurred some time after the painting was acquired in 1989. The museum’s conservator, Carol Brynjolfson, recalls she was asked during her job interview in 1992 if she could patch it, but that she explained a patch would tug at the rest of the canvas. Each individual thread needs to be glued back together, a job she estimates would take weeks of work and specialized skills outside her area. In 2006, the museum got an $8,000 federal grant to hire a conservation intern to work on its painting collection, but could not find a corporate donor or foundation to match the money; so it never made the hire. Twenty years after the museum bought the 1938 painting, it sits in storage – with a hole in the lieutenant-governor’s chest.

If it seems a sad waste when such small projects get shelved for decades, larger and more urgent ones look like tragedies in the making. In Cranbrook, the Museum of Rail Travel has brought together the four early-20th-century Canadian-made sets of railway cars from the golden age of rail. Entire hotels on wheels, complete with observation, dining and sleeping cars, they would require at least 80,000 square feet of building to house. Although the cars were built to withstand the Canadian climate, they were not built for eternity, and outdoor changes in temperature and humidity are damaging their decorative interiors.

“The cars will return to the earth, like anything else,” says executive director Garry Anderson, who estimates that in 25 years time they will have reached a point where restoration becomes impossibly expensive, adding that his museum has received a $110,000 federal grant to cover a feasibility study for a building. “Our railway heritage is far too important to place on the back burner,” he says.

But all kinds of heritage is getting placed on the back burner, in part, museum staff suggest, because conservation is largely invisible to the public.

At the newly renamed Museum of Vancouver, Noble believes the current emphasis on building splashy new premises, redefining museum mandates and reaching out to new audiences has led to the neglect of collections. “The last decade, museums have really had to reinvent themselves,” she says. “That’s not bad. It’s what the public wants us to do, but they don’t see the conservation issues.”

Many conservators would be relieved to hear a museum director admit that; some of those contacted for this article were cautious about complaining on the record because, in the midst of a recession, they fear for their jobs. Recent layoffs in the field include four of seven conservators at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, just months after a $300-million expansion. The federal fund that helps pay for museum operations outside of Ottawa now stands at $6.5-million annually, $500,000 less than its inaugural budget back in 1972 (which in today’s currency would be about $35-million). Museums are also struggling with reduced provincial and municipal grants in many cases, and with drops in projected attendance due to the recession. Conservators fear their largely invisible work is getting lost in the shuffle.

“Access seems to be the main focus, which is great in theory, but the long-term needs have to be addressed,” says Greg Hill, president of the Canadian Association of Professional Conservators. For example, he says there’s a great stress on creating digital archives so that the public can see artifacts that aren’t on display – or see them without even visiting the museum. However, he believes his colleagues are being asked to dress up the artifacts for such photos without always providing the full treatment the object needs to survive. “You are focusing on the exterior presentation of the collection, not its long-term preservation,” he says.

Not everyone agrees, however, that museums’ building programs and rebranding exercises necessarily steal attention from conservation. At the Royal Ontario Museum, which currently employs 10 full-time conservators (but has left an 11th position vacant), deputy director Mark Engstrom says the institution’s recent $300-million expansion was the occasion for a big conservation push as the ROM almost doubled the number of objects on display.

“We are keeping our heads above water,” he says, describing conservation as an endless task to which one could devote infinite resources. “Actually, the urgency of doing all the galleries allowed us to review a lot of materials we might not have had time to do otherwise. We were able to do a lot of assessment and treatment.”

For example, the museum spent about $100,000 restoring the Paradise of Maitreya, the 14th-century Buddhist temple painting, one of the jewels of its Chinese art collection. Conservators discovered that wooden spacers between the panels of the painting were damaging it through expansion and contraction, and replaced them with inert plastic ones. They also removed the creative retouching of missing paint that had been done in 1933, replacing it with less-intrusive brown shading.

Even the recession has its upside for conservation. At the Atlas Coal Mine National Historic Site in Drumheller, Atla., the labour needed to continue restoration of a coal mine has become more readily and cheaply available, even as provincial grants have been cut. Last year, a team that included former oil-patch and construction workers restored a tunnel that leads into the mine, one of many in a coal-rich area largely abandoned by mine operators in the 1970s. The team suffered three cave-ins during the job; engineers said if the tunnel had been left another year it would have been lost. “Getting qualified labour is hard in boom times,” notes executive director Linda Digby, who highly recommends historic restoration to recession-battered governments looking for stimulus projects.

Unemployed construction workers can’t be put to work mending tears in paintings, however. The solution for museums looking to hire specialized conservators is often to begin a fundraising drive centred on a particular object. The ROM’s Friends of Ancient Egypt and a corporate donor, for example, recently raised $40,000 to bring three experts from the University of Bonn to restore and translate an Egyptian book of the dead – a six-metre-long papyrus scroll that had remained rolled up in storage for 100 years. Two German papyrus conservators had to humidify the crumbling, 2,300-year-old scroll, carefully unroll it, flatten it, and then piece the fragments together.

At the New Brunswick Museum, meanwhile, history curator Gary Hughes is looking forward to 2012. The 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 will give the museum a good reason to start raising the tens of thousands of dollars to pay for the delicate repairs needed if the 104th Regiment of Foot’s colours can ever be seen again.

Dearest Emerging Conservator,

The 2009 Vancouver Conference is almost upon us!

Look for CAEC Rep Marie-Catherine at the conference

Those attending, please look for our rep Marie-Catherine Cyr.  She’ll be sporting some soon-to-be collectors-items, the CAEC buttons!  Get your CAEC mini-buttons before they’re locked away, and while you’re at it be sure to leave your comments and suggestions with Marie-Catherine.  Should the CAEC become a CAC standing committee (the Emerging Conservators Committee) we’ll be continuing with our current projects as well as looking for new ways to serve CAC conservators.

Vote!

Remember that we’ll need all those attending the conference to be present and accounted for at the 2009 Annual General Meeting which will take place between 3:30 and 5:00 pm on Saturday May 30th in theatre C300, 800 Robson Street. That’s not the time for sight-seeing!

Proxies

To those CAC members not attending the conference, again please make every effort to fill out the proxy form that was included in the most recent CAC mailout.  Give it to a like minded individual in your area who will be attending the 2009 AGM and ask them to vote on your behalf.

General proxies may be faxed to the CAC Membership Coordinator at (613) 231-4406.  Remember though that a general proxy only assists the CAC Board in making quarum (15% of the membership) at the AGM.  Only proxies held by someone who is actually present at the AGM may be used to vote on an issue.

Succession Planning

Should the CAEC become a CAC standing committee we will be looking for energetic emerging conservators to eventually take our places as Chairperson(s) of the ECC.  The individual or individuals with such an interest would shadow the current CAEC board for a period before we step down to make room for the new ECC Chairperson(s).  Please consider yourself for these positions and stay tuned for more information.

Yours Truly,

Emerging Conservators Committee, formerly CAEC.

Look for CAEC representatives sporting the CAEC logo buttons

Cadre de référence (CdR)

• Le cadre de référence rédigé et proposé par l’ACRE a été accepté par le C.A. de l’ACCR avec quelques modifications mineures. Cet acte signifie que le C.A. adopte l’idée d’avoir un comité axé sur les besoins des professionnels émergents; le comité doit maintenant être entériné par un vote à l’AGA de Vancouver pour devenir permanent.
• Si le vote est favorable, les projets en développement sous l’ACRE (guides de survie, etc.) seront accessibles à tous les membres de l’ACCR.
• Le CdR sera expédié aux membres de l’ACCR en avril. Puisque le document ne sera officiel que lorsqu’il sera approuvé par le vote, nous ne pouvons le rendre disponible aux non-membres pour l’instant, mais ceux-ci pourront y avoir accès s’il est accepté lors de l’AGA.

Changement de nom!

Advenant que l’ACRE devienne un comité permanent, son nom devra changer afin de réfléter le statut du groupe au sein de l’ACCR:  Comité des restaurateurs émergents de l’ACCR (ACCR-CRE) / CAC Emerging Conservators Committee (CAC-ECC).  Ce n’est peut-être pas aussi accrocheur qu’ACRE, mais comptez sur nous pour concevoir des jeux de mots appropriés dans le futur.

Vote à l’AGA de Vancouver

• Il y aura deux votes, un pour créer le comité permanent et un deuxième pour entériner les règlements qui y sont associés.
• Votes par procuration: Le formulaire sera expédié aux membres lors de l’envoi postal d’avril, avec le rapport annuel et le CdR du CRE.  Si vous n’êtes pas en mesure d’assister à l’AGA en personne, nous vous prions de trouver un collègue qui y sera et qui pourra remettre votre formulaire. Il est à noter qu’un seul vote est alloué aux membres institutionnels et que le premier arrivé sera le premier servi.
• Avis aux membres étudiants (tarif étudiant): Selon les règlements de l’ACCR, ceux qui bénificient du tarif étudiant ne peuvent voter. Les étudiants ont par contre le droit de vote s’ils détiennent une adhésion en tant que membre individuel. Si vous n’êtes pas éligible au vote à l’AGA, faites connaître votre soutien à l’ACRE (CRE) en affichant “Votez OUI au CRE” ou un message personnalisé sur notre blogue. Souvenez-vous que si le CRE est entériné il sera en mesure de représenter les membres n’ayant pas le droit de vote auprès du C.A. de l’ACCR.
• Nous ne voulons pas seulement que le vote soit accepté: nous désirons que le nombre de votes soit une indication du nombre de membres de l’ACCR intéressé par et approuvant la formation du CRE. Assurez-vous d’utiliser votre vote par procuration si vous ne pouvez assister à la conférence!

Groupe de renouvellement du site Web

Le groupe de renouvellement du site Web de l’ACCR est formé de l’exécutif de l’ACRE (CRE) et de plusieurs membres du C.A. de l’ACCR. Ce groupe a révisé les aspects positifs et négatifs du site existant et en est actuellement à déterminer les besoins requis pour le nouveau site.

Développer un nouveau site Web est un long processus, mais nous avons déjà fait beaucoup de progrès depuis que cette initiative a été remise à l’avant-plan il y a quelques mois. Vos commentaires et suggestions en tant qu’utilisateurs actuels (ou potentiels) du site Web de l’ACCR sont toujours les bienvenus. Vous pouvez nous les faire parvenir en affichant un commentaire sur le blogue ou par courriel au caec.acre@gmail.com.

Prix du restaurateur émergent

Le comité de l’ACCR chargé du prix du restaurateur émergent a révisé les dossiers de mise en candidature d’excellentes candidates provenant de trois programmes académiques différents. Le comité a été impressionné par le niveau de compétence des candidates et est heureux d’entamer une tradition visant à reconnaître les accomplissements de restaurateurs émergents canadiens. La gagnante a été choisie son nom sera dévoilé lors du congrès à Vancouver. Elle recevra un certificat, une bourse de 100$ et l’inscription gratuite au congrès et banquet de l’ACCR. Plus de renseignements au sujet de ce prix sont disponibles à l’adresse suivante:  http://www.cac-accr.ca/french/f-CAC-awards.asp

Programme de mentorat de l’ACRP

Le groupe de travail du programme de mentorat est composé d’un représentant de l’ACRE (CRE) et de deux représentants de l’ACRP. Ce travail a été suspendu et reprendra après l’AGA.

Plaidoyer: une action démocratique

La Lettre de la présidente du Bulletin de l’ACCR de mars 2009 par Dee Stubbs-Lee aborde habilement un sujet qui représente un intérêt clé de l’ACRE (CRE) depuis ses débuts: le plaidoyer pour la profession. Tel que Dee le souligne dans sa lettre, “Les arts et la culture ne sont pas des luxes dont nous pouvons disposer. Ils sont ce qui nous définit; qui nous sommes, quelles sont nos valeurs et d’où nous venons. En cette époque de difficultés économiques, il est doublement important de croire en ce message et de le communiquer dans nos vies quotidiennes.” Elle ajoute aussi que “Notre force, en tant qu’association, est directement proportionnelle à la passion et à l’énergie de nos membres.”  L’ACRE (CRE) a été enchantée par le degré d’enthousiasme et de passion chez les individus que nous avons croisé au cours de la dernière année. Nous nous joignons à Dee en vous invitant à partager votre passion à votre manière; votre contribution, qu’elle soit grande ou petite, aide à renforcer notre profession au Canada. Ne soyez pas timides, parlez de ce que vous faites à votre entourage, inspirez et soyez inspirés! Soyez de la partie afin de répandre le fait que la restauration n’est pas à craindre, elle doit être célébrée!

Le Bulletin de l’ACCR de mars 2009 est disponible au: http://cac-accr.ca/pdf/Bulletin_March_2009.pdf

Terms of Reference (ToR)

• The proposed Terms of Reference written by the CAEC were accepted by the CAC Board after some minor modifications. This means that the Board has embraced the idea of having a committee focused on the needs of new professionals and all that remains for this standing committee to come into being is the vote by the CAC membership at the Vancouver AGM.
• If there is a favourable vote the projects that are underway (Survival Guides, etc.) under the CAEC will become available to all CAC members.
• The ToR will be sent out to CAC members in April. Since the document is not official until voted on, we cannot provide it to non CAC members at this point, but it will be made accessible if approved at the AGM.

Name change!

If the CAEC becomes a Standing Committee, its name will change to reflect the group’s status within the CAC:  CAC Emerging Conservators Committee (CAC-ECC) / Comité des restaurateurs émergents de l’ACCR (ACCR-CRE). It might not be as catchy as CAEC (cake!), but you can count on us to find some appropriate puns for future use.

Vote at the Vancouver AGM

• There will be two votes, one to create the Standing Committee and one to pass the related bylaw.
• Proxy Votes: The form will be sent in the April CAC mailout, with the Annual Report and the ECC ToR. If unable to be there in person, please find a colleague who is attending the conference to give your proxy to. For those who rely on an institutional membership, please remember that only one representative per membership may vote and it’s first come first served.
• A note to those with Student memberships: According to the CAC Bylaws, those holding student memberships are non-voting members. Students do however have voting privileges if they register as Regular Members. If not eligible to vote at the AGM, please voice your support by posting ‘Vote Yes to the ECC’ or other personnalized message on the blog.  Remember that if the ECC comes into being it will be able to represent non-voting student members to the CAC Board.
• We don’t just want the vote to pass: we want the total number of votes cast to give us and the CAC Board an indication of just how many CAC members are interested in and approve of the formation of the ECC. Please be sure to use your proxy if you are unable to attend the conference.

Website Renewal Working Group

The CAC Website Renewal Working Group consists of the CAEC (ECC) Board and members of the CAC Board. The group has discussed the benefits and shortcomings of the existing website and is now in the process of determining requirements for the new and improved site.

Developing a new website is a lengthy process, but we have already made great progress since reinvigorating this initiative a few months ago. Comments and suggestions from the CAC website users (or potential users) are always welcome, either via our blog or through email (caec.acre@gmail.com).

Emerging Conservator Award

The CAC adjudication committee reviewed applications of great candidates from three education programs. The committee was impressed by the level of competency of the candidates and is thrilled to start this tradition to recognize the achievements of Canadian emerging conservators. The winner has been selected and her name will be revealed at the Vancouver Conference. She will receive a certificate, $100 in prize money, and free registration for the CAC Conference and Banquet. More details about this award can be found at http://www.cac-accr.ca/english/e-CAC-awards.asp.

CAPC Mentorship Program

The Mentorship Program Working Group consists of one CAEC (ECC) representative and two members of the CAPC. This work is suspended until after the AGM.

Advocacy: A Democratic Affair

In the March 2009 issue of the CAC Bulletin, Dee Stubbs-Lee aptly addresses in her President Letter an issue which has been a CAEC (ECC) key interest from the very start: advocacy for our profession. As Dee outlines in her letter, “Art and culture are not merely dispensable luxuries. They are what defines us, who we are, what we value, and where we come from. In these times of economic restraint, it is more important than ever that we need to have faith in that message and live it in our individual daily lives. ” She adds that “Our strength as an organization is directly propotional to the passion and energy of our members.”  We at the CAEC (ECC) have been delighted by the high level of enthusiasm and passion of the many individuals we have met in the last year.  We join Dee in inviting you to share your passion in your own way; your contribution, however big or small, helps to strengthen our profession in Canada. Don’t be shy to talk about what you do, to inspire and to be inspired! Take part in getting the word around that conservation isn’t to be feared, it’s to be celebrated!

The CAC March 2009 Bulletin can be found at http://cac-accr.ca/pdf/Bulletin_March_2009.pdf

Below please find our responses to questions posted to the Comments area of the Front Page:

I was surprised about the results of your survey – who was this survey sent to? I never received it.

The survey was provided to those people, mostly recent graduates and students of Canadian conservation training programs, who joined our mailing list prior to March 14th 2008. The survey was created to provide the newly formed CAEC with feedback as to the potential interest of emerging Canadian conservators in an association such as we were proposing.

The feedback that was received as a result of the survey and the many messages received via the blog and the gmail account solidified our decision to continue with the formation of the CAEC. The survey results also told us that while interest in a group focused on the needs of new conservation professionals was high, no one, least of all the CAEC founders, was interested in creating division among our professional organizations. It is for this reason that we have pursued relationships with both the CAC and CAPC, and continue to pursue our goal of becoming an integrated part of the CAC.

The survey and its results were made available to all those who requested a copy via email, as posted on this blog in April 2008. The results of the survey were tabulated by one of the CAEC board members comfortable with analyzing statistics.

This survey was also provided to the founders of the American counterpart to the CAEC, the AIC Emerging Professionals Network, who used a modified version to solicit opinions from their potential members.

Should anyone wish to view the survey we are happy to provide copies. Simply send a request to us and the information will be forwarded to your email address.

The CAC has a job posting section on it’s website.

We are of course aware of and appreciate the job postings section of the current CAC website. It is our position however that due to the onerous amount of volunteer time necessary to keep this section up-to-date, it is not at this time a useful tool for the CAC membership.

We understand this issue as we ourselves do not have the manpower to gather and post all relevant job postings on our blog in a timely manner, and so instead post links to the web sites that we find most useful when searching for job and internship opportunities. As one can see by viewing the Job Resources section there are quite a few sites to keep track of, and we do not claim that this is an exhaustive list.

We think that the CAC membership would appreciate a one-stop-shopping location for job seekers in the conservation field and believe that with an investment in technology and manpower this is possible.

As job-seeking is one of the main interests of the emerging conservator, we the CAEC intend to advocate for an improvement to the job posting section of the CAC website, including postings geared toward emerging professionals (pre and post program internships, junior positions, etc.). It will be up to the CAC membership to decide whether this is a service that is worth paying membership fees for.

What are your plans to support new Conservation professionals outside of Ottawa?

While the CAEC was founded in Ottawa it has always been our intention to serve a national membership, hence our relationship with the CAC and CAPC. It is our sincere hope that our successors (future CAEC board members) will participate from all parts of Canada as CAC board members do.

In the meantime we forward national and international job postings, and have been soliciting volunteers across the country. This being said, we recognize the issue of Ottawa-centricity that exists within our field and our country as a function of the concentration of government jobs (in politics and in conservation) in Ottawa. It is part of the CAEC’s action plan to research and promote new ways and means of overcoming this issue.

As we’ve stated before, one of our main foci is to promote the creation of a virtual homebase for the CAC and thus the CAEC, should we become a CAC standing committee. We believe that such a homebase will be able to better reach and serve members across the country, regardless of their (and our) location.

An important vote!

The CAEC is currently in the process of drafting a Terms of Reference document that after being debated by the CAC Board will define the functions of the CAEC within the CAC.  It is the goal of the CAEC to become a fully integrated part of the CAC, thereby strengthening the organization from within.  The CAEC feels that the most streamlined way of achieving this integration is to become a full fledged standing committee of the CAC.  This can only happen if the motion to approve the CAEC as a standing committee is passed by the CAC membership through a vote that will take place at the Vancouver conference (29-31 May) annual general meeting (AGM).

In the months leading up to the conference we will be reminding you to vote on this issue by either attending the AGM or by sending your vote via a proxy.  Instructions for CAC members on voting by proxy are available on page 28, section 10.4 of the CAC Directory.  You will be required to fill out the proxy form that accompanies your conference registration package. Current members will receive details about the vote one month in advance of the AGM, so that they may have time to raise questions about the issue beforehand.  The CAEC will be prepared to answer your questions should you wish to post them to the blog or send them via email.

We’d also like to remind current members that CAC membership renewals are due on the 28th of February and that all those who consider themselves to be part of the ‘emerging’ demographic should check the CAEC specialty box on their membership renewal or application form.

Another milestone

On another note, CAEC celebrated another milestone on February 14th:  the blog’s first anniversary! Thank you for continuing to visit, posting comments and showing your support!

Un vote important!

L’ACRE s’affaire présentement à rédiger un cadre de référence qui, après avoir été examiné par le conseil d’administration de l’ACRE, définira le rôle de l’ACRE au sein de l’ACCR. L’ACRE vise à faire partie intégrante de l’ACCR afin de renforcer l’organisme, et croit que la façon la plus logique de s’y associer est d’en devenir un comité permanent. Ceci ne peut se produire que si la motion d’approuver l’ACRE en tant que comité permanent de l’ACCR est acceptée par les membres lors d’un vote qui aura lieu à l’assemblée générale annuelle (AGA) du congrès de Vancouver (29-31 Mai).

D’ici là, nous vous rappellerons de voter sur cette question, soit en assistant à l’AGA ou en votant par procuration. Les directives informant les membres de l’ACCR sur la procédure de vote par procuration sont disponibles à la page 29, section 10.4 de l’annuaire de l’ACCR. Vous devrez remplir le formulaire de procuration jointe à l’avis de l’assemblée. Les membres actuels recevront cet avis un mois avant la tenue de l’AGA afin qu’ils puissent examiner les propositions. L’ACRE sera prête à répondre à vos questions au sujet du vote la concernant si vous choisissez de les afficher sur le blog ou de nous les faire parvenir par courriel.

Nous aimerions aussi rappeler aux membres actuels et potentiels que la date limite pour les renouvellements de l’adhésion à l’ACCR est le 28 février et que tous ceux et celles qui considèrent faire partie des professionnels émergents devraient cocher la case du code de spécialité ACRE de leur formulaire de renouvellement ou de nouvelle adhésion.

Un autre anniversaire!

L’ACRE a célébré un autre jalon le 14 février dernier: le premier anniversaire de son blogue! De toute l’équipe, merci de continuer à vous rendre visite, à afficher vos commentaires et à nous démontrer votre soutien!