The Professional Development Collaborative has had quite a spring season. It was a season of opportunity and of significant pending change.
In the Opportunity column was an invitation from Metro-Southwest Employment and Training to produce eight workshops geared toward helping Department of Transitional Assistance clients prepare for work and improve their life and stress management skills. PDC accepted this assignment and, in a very short turnaround time, recruited presenters, prepared handouts and successfully delivered the trainings. Each presenter received outstanding reviews and grateful acknowledgement from participants for their efforts. The workshops, repeated twice, were: Completing Resumes and Applications, Effective Interviewing, Customer Service and the Five Pillars of Staying Positive.
Another plus in the Opportunity column has been our offering of new courses in 2017. Our presenters drew sizable audiences for such courses as Speak With Confidence, Branding On a Budget, Promoting Your Small Business, Project Management Certification Test Preparation, Developing and Delivering Effective Training and Google Analytics. We are also introducing for the first time Mastering LinkedIn for Career and Professional Growth (Aug. 4), and Networking Skills for Professional Growth and Career Advancement, (Aug. 11). Each workshop touches on a familiar topic but from a new angle, growing your networking skills and LinkedIn abilities to use for your professional growth, not just for a job search.
In the Coping with Change column is the fact that the career centers where the PDC has a working relationship are being taken over by new management starting in July or October of this year. None of the three centers (Career Source in Cambridge, and ETR Career Centers in Framingham and Norwood) has the new management in place. This leaves the PDC in limbo in terms of our ability to plan workshops for those venues.
This is where we need your help! We are now actively engaged in looking for new venues in which to hold our training. These venues could be hotels, conference centers, corporate offices, churches, temples, etc. Ideally each venue should have parking, be near public transportation, have air conditioning, be handicapped accessible and, most important, be affordable or even free. As a nonprofit dedicated to providing professionals of all ages with affordable training, we need rental costs as low as possible. Please send along any suggestions, networking contacts, etc., to Larry Elle. Thank you!
Also in the Coping with Change column belongs the departure of two of PDC’s most stalwart contributors over the last several years, Bruce Hemeon and Jeffrey Stevens. Both were participants in the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), a federally funded employment program to help workers 55 and older grow their skills while working part-time, earning money and contributing to a nonprofit or government agency. Bruce handled PDC’s computers and technology, while Jeffrey maintained PDC’s database. We held a farewell party for Bruce and Jeff in June, as a “thank you” for all they contributed to our organization.
If you are over 55, unemployed, of low income and would like to work part-time for the PDC, as part of the SCSEP, please contact Larry Elle.
Finally, we couldn’t get along without the contributions of our volunteers. Here, in alphabetical order, are the folks who make the PDC the special organization it is, growing the skills of those in transition, while supplying local employers with the skilled help they need.
Abbey Dodd on our marketing team, Bimal Nepal, PDC’s photographer, Edie Fossey, a PDC Post writer and registration staff member, Emily Hutchinson, PDC’s vice president, Jenny Olsen, on our marketing team, Lee Daum, a new PDC teacher, Ralph Valente, PDC’s marketing director, Stephen Morgan, PDC Post editor, Subash Srinivasan, a PDC ambassador, Susan Munter, a new PDC teacher and marketing team member, Tom Archer, PDC’s treasurer, keeping PDC in the black, Tyler Putnam, a PDC ambassador, and Victoria Carter, a PDC Post writer and registration staff member.