Message from Carleen MacKay, CMA
CEO,CMA Manitoba

Summer has arrived as well as the beginning of a new fiscal year.  We have enjoyed many successes in 2007-08 including a number of member services and post secondary recruitment events.  A great thank you is extended to all of our volunteers who attended, worked at and contributed to the success of the events and to all the sponsors who continue to support CMA activities.

Last fall we had our highest number of enrolments in the Accelerated Program, the one-year, part time program providing the foundation for students to write the CMA entrance examination.  We enjoyed record attendance at our fourteenth annual provincial conference, and we recognized nearly five hundred long term members with twenty-five to fifty-five year pins.  It was an honour and a pleasure to invite long-term members to an evening of re-acquaintance and networking and acknowledge their long-standing membership.

The marketing and accreditation teams at the office together with a number of CMA volunteers have had a busy year with our first Career Fair held for post secondary students last January at Canad Inns Polo Park, an information evening at Bergmann’s held for prospective Executive program candidates, a networking evening for post secondary faculty from Manitoba’s universities and colleges, and several lunch and learns held at the Asper School of Business to give students an opportunity to learn first hand the variety of work that CMAs are involved in.  The Society held an annual connections event for members and prospective students from the university and community college in Brandon.  As well, staff participated in secondary school career symposiums in Winnipeg, Brandon, Dauphin and The Pas, made many dozens of presentations to students in the universities and colleges and high schools, and did dozens of individual counselling sessions at the office.  Much of the Society’s resources, including staff time, are spent on promoting the designation and bringing an understanding of the CMA differentiation to students and to the workplace.  But always, you the members are the best ambassadors.

Many members have contacted the office in the past four weeks with comments about the recent CMA ad campaign.  There has been both positive and negative reaction, but overall, more positive.  We are creative accountants; we do not engage in creative accounting.  Members are encouraged to visit the website to get a clearer understanding of the message in the ads and may look forward to the next phase of the campaign that will further enhance the CMA Brand.  CMA Canada and the provincial partners are working together for the benefit of all members to ensure that Certified Management Accountants are the owners of management accounting and that the CMA Brand is strong.