New Year. New Mission. New Theme.

Last November, the PMI-CIC Board held its annual Strategic Planning meeting for 2023 where each member discussed several topics with the most important one being our chapter's future. 2023 is a special year for us as a chapter...we are now 25! Yes, we received our charter from PMI back in 1998 and have been serving Central Illinois ever since. Our profession, PMI, and the overall business environment nationwide and globally have changed a lot since 1998 and especially so with the COVID 19 pandemic.

During the January 10th Kickoff meeting, Pamela Clapp, our Chapter President, shared our new mission and theme. PMI-CIC’s longstanding mission statement has been "To support local product, project, program, and portfolio managers in all methodologies including but not limited to predictive, agile, and hybrid approaches."?Starting this year, our new mission is "To empower Project Professionals to make ideas a reality.?Through local advocacy, networking, collaboration, research, and education, PMI-CIC prepares organizations and individuals at every stage of their career journey so they can drive success in a world of change."??

Our families, employers/businesses, and chapter have seen a lot of changes in recent years, and with the pandemic, they came fast and sometimes all at once, which really tested our agility. So entering our 25th year as a chapter and if we think about the overall future, including what it means to be a Project Professional regardless of our actual job titles or number of PMI credentials under our belt, it only makes sense to enter 2023 with a theme.?So, for 2023, our theme is?"Expanding our Toolkit: Surviving and Thriving."??

To deliver on our mission and theme, the Board voted on the following as our High Level Planned Objectives for 2023:

• Increase our volunteer base
• Provide additional membership networking opportunities
• Implement our 2023 theme in all offerings
• Partner with PMI Central Indiana and Iowa for ProDevDay 2023
• Continue to leverage the lunch and learn format with at least 1 evening meeting each quarter
• Partnerships (with businesses, institutions, and other chapters)
• Membership retention and growth

To conclude, I want to leave you with a quote from Pamela's comments around our new theme--"...We are no longer in that surviving space; it's time to take our surviving lessons learned and pair them with thriving. Our goal as a Board this year is to help you expand your toolkit through the offerings so that you can not only survive but thrive. We hope you engage with the chapter via our events and social media."

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Thanks,

Florence Rene, VP of Publicity/Sponsorship