The half-day Association Day programme helmed by expert speakers from association management company MCI Singapore and destination Sarawak Convention Bureau, scored high in knowledge delivery while providing opportunities for networking during the coffee break and hosted lunch.
The opening session on “Ensuring the Future Sustainability of Your Association” drove home a new approach to membership building that suggest associations adopt a community building mindset while positioning themselves as open professional communities rather than closed membership organisations. Being more versatile, adopting technology, segmenting target audiences and allowing customers to choose their point of entry into the association are important in meeting the fundamental shifts in demands of new members who seek and are willing to pay for content that associations provide. This differs the traditional approach that posits members’ concern about the right to vote or influence association direction.
Steven Ong, CEO of Financial Planning Association of Singapore explained how this particular session stood out for him, “The take-aways have re-affirmed that the strategy I would like to adopt for my association moving forward is the right one. I found the trends discussed insightful. In addition, the networking opportunity has allowed me to connect with peers from associations across industries to discuss potential for collaboration.”
Closing topic “Learning from Success: How Sarawak won the 2016 ICCA Congress” story-told details of a sophisticated bidding process and how Sarawak took the win against Prague. Its brilliant play on strengths, creativity, understanding of the deciding committee’s priorities, targeted lobbying across government, industry and host organisation stakeholders as well as flawless execution from start to finish was made possible by a united Malaysia and the support of its federal and state governments.
Expressing satisfaction at her first Association Day session is Serene Lee, Senior Executive – Industry Development of Singapore Furniture Industries Council. “This is my first time attending an Association Day session. The overseas events I had attended focused on industry updates. This has been a different experience, and I am impressed with the speakers’ knowledge.”
The attendance of relevant and pertinent quality local Association professionals proved that the organiser’s approach to placing priority on content to deliver a stellar educational programme that would attract this elusive segment was spot on.
“The IT&CM Association Day initiative is fundamental for industry engagement with the purpose of advancing the associations sector through peer-to-peer exchange. The organisers have enabled all the key elements in this one platform to prove they have what it takes to make this happen,” commented speaker Oscar Cerezales, Chief Operating Officer – Asia Pacific | Global Director – Association Services of MCI Singapore.
Concurring with the same sentiments, speaker Dylan Redas Noel, Director of Industry Development of Sarawak Convention Bureau said, “What I experienced here is that Singapore’s association professionals are eager to learn to advance the professionalism and effectiveness of the associations they manage. I am pleased that I got to reach a good spread of associations as well as important industry players and other tourism boards.”
Venues and dates of IT&CM Events’ Association Days series in 2015 include IT&CM China in Shanghai (14 and 15 April), IT&CM India in Delhi (19 August), and IT&CMA in Bangkok, Thailand (30 September and 1 October).
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