Region 4s Education Plan 2013
On September the 27th members of our Regional Education Committee met to plan our next year’s educational opportunities. We did our best to try to anticipate your educational needs for the coming year. Some months ago we, the Region, emailed out a Survey Monkey, asking Local Presidents and LEC members to reply with the course choices that they would be most interested in taking. Unfortunately we received a very poor reply. We will be sending you another Survey shortly, so we hope to hear from many more of you regarding your preferred educational choices. We will then do our best to incorporate your preferences into our course selections.
Next year Region 4 is going forward with a new Educational Pilot project, which has proven very successful in Region 6. Beginning in Ottawa at the Ottawa Membership Centre we are piloting a weeklong 5 class course designed to take new activists who already have successfully completed Stewardship 1 and II and provide them with all the tools they would need to be first class activists, mobilizers and enforces of their collective agreements. Your time off will be covered, and lunches provided. The idea would be for members to report to the Ottawa Membership Centre instead of work, for their normal work hours. Overnight Hotel stays would not be covered. Nor would breakfast or dinner meals. Class time would be treated as work time. Members would not be paid mileage. The goal behind this pilot project is to involve those members who because of family and work commitments normally would not be able to attend weekend educationals. This new method of offering educational opportunities will allow our members especially those with younger children and single parents the opportunity to get educated with minimal impact on their home life. Scheduled for the week of February 25th through to March 1st and limited to the first 25 qualified enrolees, classes include Basic Grievance Handling, Advanced Grievance Handling, Interpreting your Collective agreement, Building Community through Political Action and Follow the Money! Classes will run from 830am until 430pm daily; with a half hour for lunch.
Should this Weeklong Pilot be successful and we have every expectation that it will, we will then proceed to rollout similar week long opportunities in each of our Regional Offices and membership centres.
Our next weekend educational is planned for the weekend of May 31st through June 2nd. Courses will be announced pending the results of our next Survey Monkey of Local Presidents and LEC members.
Stewardship 1 will be offered on January 19th in our three Regional Offices and in Renfrew, June 15th in our Regional Offices and the Belleville membership Centre, and September 28th again at our three Regional Offices and also at our Cornwall Membership Centre.
Stewardship 1 is also available on demand for any Local of group of Locals who can assemble 24 or more members.
Stewardship 1 will also be offered in French on all three dates, pending sufficient enrollment. Stewardship one is a prerequisite for all future OPSEU educational opportunities, here in Region 4.
Lastly our fall weekend Educational is set for October 26 through 27th at NavCan. Again courses have not yet been selected as we are awaiting the results of our Survey Monkey.
Remember OPSEU will invest in you, up to and including University level credits. Your employer won’t! Please take advantage of these opportunities and take control over that third of your life that you spend at work. Not only will you empower yourself, and your Sisters and Brothers, but by taking an active role in how your work is structured, you will be happier!
Thank you
In Solidarity
Dave, Chris and Smokey
Your Region 4 Executive Board Members
Print 
PDF
Local 433 has a facebook page
woops, wrong spot
I attended the first week long educational you mentioned above. I encourage anybody who has an opportunity to attend a future week long to jump at the chance. I learned so much and it was a great opportunity to meet and here about the other areas of OPSEU I don’t usually get to meet. From LCBO, to Corrections Officers, numerous Lab Techs from various hospitals, Court Recorders to Service Ontario workers and myself from CAAT we had great coverage.
Thanks to Dave, Chris and Smokey for making this possible and special thanks to Nelson, Lori, Lynn and Eric for sharing their wealth of knowledge with us. I feel much more prepared to go forth and represent the members I swore an oath to assist.