Welcome

The IAF North America Region was established on 1 January 2023 through a merger of the Canada and United States of America regions.

Within the North American region, we are committed to helping IAF members gain value at the global, regional, national and local levels. Globally, we love to see members plug into the many programs and benefits available within the Association, such as certification, mentorship and the Facilitation Impact Awards, alongside truly international attendance at global digital meetups. Regionally, we are looking ahead to the return of in-person conferences, which will include opportunities to get together with national colleagues. In the meantime, we’d love to hear from you if you’d like to lead one of our digital learning meetups this year! And locally, we encourage our members to get together in person near where they live. IAF membership offers professional development, credibility and support at multiple levels, and we’d love for you to get involved.

If you have any questions please contact Rebecca Sutherns, Regional Director for North America.

March 2023 Newsletter

Update from the Board

I was honoured to represent IAF North American members in Malaysia last month for three days of in-person Board meetings. IAF is truly an international organization! It was wonderful to meet Malaysian IAF members, staff from Managing Matters that supports the administration of our association, and Board members I’d only seen over Zoom.

We reviewed and updated priorities for the year, within individual portfolios and as a Board, within the 2021-2023 strategy document we’d created a couple of years ago. My annual priorities sit locally, regionally and globally as follows:

1. Animate our North America members at the local level through in-person meetups in 8 cities
2. Identify a group of people by June 2023 to organize an IAF Americas conference in Q1 2024
3. Ensure members are aware of global IAF opportunities such as the mentoring program, the Facilitation Impact Awards, credentialing pathway and funding support
4. Recruit people to run for open positions on the Board, including mine
5. Push for an easier way for IAF members to contact other members directly

We also developed a new standard global calendar that helps to spread key events out throughout the year rather than having most of them clustered in the busy Fall season. A few highlights relevant to you:

• Note that the elections will happen earlier this year so that the handover period can be longer
• Facilitation Week is moving to the second half of September to avoid some major holidays in October
• The Americas in-person conference timing will ideally be in the late winter/early spring in 2024
• The Global Summit is also planned for mid-2024 – it will be digital and held once every three years

Notice that in-person conferences are back! In 2023 we have Canberra, Australia in May, then Ethiopia, India and Germany this fall. It’s great to have people from all over the world attend these conferences, so do consider planning your travel schedule accordingly.

Volunteer opportunities

I heard many stories in Malaysia affirming that you get out from the Association what you put in – so here are opportunities to “put in!” Contact me for more details. We need people for:

• North America conference planning
• Global elections committee
• Board roles for two-year terms starting January 2024 (including North American Regional Director; Director of Member Experience; Director of Marketing and Communications; Secretary)
• Facilitation Impact Awards organizing committee members
• Regional communications rep
• Committee to update the IAF Hall of Fame selection process

Other news

One great idea I heard recently was that some members attach the IAF Code of Ethics to their proposals, as a demonstration of their commitment and credibility as IAF members. Maybe an idea you’d like to borrow?

I post updates on the IAF North America Facebook group and the IAF Canada LinkedIn group. Currently the IAF US one isn’t very active or large and I haven’t yet sorted out how/if to make the Canada one into North America! You can also watch for us on Twitter – new North America account coming soon, courtesy of Gerard Murphy. Be sure to keep up to date.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end! We want to make sure you get great value for your IAF membership. Our focus is on building the belonging, learning and professional credibility our members are looking for. Please let others in your network know about the IAF – I left Malaysia even more strongly convinced that our association is relevant and valuable enough to be considerably larger than it is today. I’d also welcome hearing any suggestions you have to make it even bigger and better.

Rebecca Sutherns, PhD CPF
Regional Director for North America