Register and meet between 4:30 and 5:00PM. The meeting runs from 5:00PM – 7:00PM
Located at the City Training Centre at the Vancouver City Hall.
(North side of the City Hall at the foot of the Captain Vancouver statue)
453 West 12th, Vancouver. (Cambie & 12th)
Parking on the street or in the rotunda area of the City Hall

Description: This session will be an opportunity to learn about the Building Community Organizations initiative that has been undertaken by the BCODN. The first community consulting team, their consulting mentor and their client will all share their experiences with the process, the outcomes and their learning. In addition, we will have two of the founders of the Seattle Community Consulting Project provide their perspective on our first initiative. They will also be able to share with us what they have learned over the past six years of the Seattle project in recruiting mentors, volunteers and projects; their successes and the impact on the community. Of interest, they have experience with a commercial application of this consulting process with Microsoft in the USA and Europe.

Background: The BCO initiative is a mentorship program for emerging practitioners of Organizational Development (OD). Under this program, emerging OD practitioners volunteer to work on organizational issues with non-profit client organizations in the lower mainland. Their work is shadowed and led by a senior consultant who provides them with coaching and mentoring as they work collaboratively with the non-profit client generally on 2 – 4 month long projects.

The team of volunteer OD practitioners are members of the BC Chapter of the Organizational Development Network (BC OD Network). Their backgrounds range from students of Organizational Development programs to professionals in related fields who are making a career change. The senior consultants have at least 10-15 years of Organizational Development experience.

The Vancouver BCO is modeled after a successful program that has been running in Seattle for six years. For more information on their program please visit their website at http://www.scn.org/ccp/main/index.htm.