Thanks to the efforts of our organizing committee, we had a fantastic turnout at the November 24 Inaugural Meeting of almost 70, which far exceeded the expectations of the organizers and (almost) the capacity of the room.
Thank you to the attendees for braving the Viter that evening to make the inaugural event a success. We have attracted a broad spectrum of lawyers and paralegals from the Ukrainian community with interest in this organization, young and “experienced”, Canadian and Ukrainian-born.
Thanks to Lesia Chyczij and the Advocates’ Society for being our hosts for the evening, and for some, the wee hours of the morning. Great to see that the attendees took the opportunity to stay and socialize.
Thanks to our speakers Paul Grod from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Jason Woycheshyn on behalf of the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Federation – Toronto and Eugene Zalucky on behalf of the national federation.
Now begins the hard work of sustaining the success we have achieved so far.
For those who couldn’t attend here is the plan announced at the meeting:
- We will be having our first official event in February 2015. Stay tuned for details. We will plan each of our events to have a social component, and a CPD-Professional Development component.
- At the February event we will be approving an Executive and a constitution.
- I was appointed as interim President and Andy Balaura as interim Treasurer, so that we can bank the member’s cheques that we have received to date and to help organize the February meeting.
- Lesia Chyczij, Eugene Zalucky and Jason Woycheshyn were appointed as a nominating committee for the Executive.
If you are interested serving on the Executive please let me know. The organizing committee wanted to give all our new members an opportunity to volunteer to be on the Executive.
We particularly encourage young lawyers and students to volunteer, because we need your energy and your expertise with social media. We want this to be your organization as well.
We have a LinkedIn group already established under the name “Ukrainian Canadian Bar Association”. We encourage you to join the group to help us communicate with you. Just search within LinkedIn under “Groups” and you will find us.
If you have provided us with your membership form and your cheque thank you very much. If you have not, send it to my attention.
The “practice areas” section on the membership form is particularly important, because it helps us tailor CPD programing for our membership, and to coordinate mentorship for our younger members.
Welcome aboard, and stay tuned for future events.