ILAPA News BURST! President's Greeting

	Illinois APA is currently focused on preparation for the Four State Conference at the Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles (October 4-6). Block out those dates on your calendar and plan on attending. A web site with conference details is now available at http://www.ilapa.org/2006conf.html. It should be an exciting conference. We are planning exciting sessions, interesting mobile workshops, and fun social activities. Details are included in an article by the Conference's Co-chair Rob Kowalski.. There are still opportunities to get involved on one of the various Committees. You will also notice that slates of candidates for the Illinois APA Board, and the Chicago Metro Section and Illinois State Section Boards are listed in this newsletter. Ballots will be mailed this fall and candidate statements will be posted on the Illinois APA website in the next couple of months. Please note that the Training Coordinator position with the Illinois State Section is still open. Anybody interested should contact Rob Kowalski or Michael Blue. These terms are for two years and now is a good time to think ahead about volunteering for one of the positions in 2008. Serving at the State or Section level is interesting, informative, and professionally rewarding. In the last newsletter, I provided a brief recap of some of the activities and discussions related to the leadership meetings just prior to the San Antonio National APA Conference. In this message, I would like to provide a little more information. The Chapter President’s Council (CPC) focuses on services and support for all APA members. The CPC meetings often include a “best practices” session to help Chapters do a better job at providing services. In San Antonio, the focus was on Chapter Conferences. A number of great ideas were expressed. Some of the ideas include involvement of National leadership and National APA staff for sessions and speakers, activities to entice students to participate, moving conferences around to smaller cities and including mobile workshops. When the final program for the Four State Conference is mailed, I think you will find that a number of these ideas have been incorporated into our conference this fall. Mandatory continuing (or continuous) professional development is a topic that the CPC has supported on a number of occasions. Once again, the CPC voted to support a mandatory requirement that is commonplace in other professions. Although national, regional (i.e. the Four State Conference), and local conferences, seminars, and workshops will be the primary means of meeting this requirement, APA is also exploring how additional planning related activities could supplement conferences. If involvement in a state chapter or local section as one of the officers, participating in pro bono efforts, mentoring, and other service as professional planners could be considered. Lawyers, architects, doctors, and many other professions have mandatory continuing education requirements, and it is just a matter of time before APA adopts a similar standard. At the Fall Leadership meetings, CPC will focus on fundraising and revenue opportunities for chapters. Another topic that received much discussion was plan commissioner training. Currently, a handful of states do have requirements for plan commissioners to receive yearly training. In addition, many chapters offer voluntary plan commissioner training workshops throughout the chapter area to keep citizen planners abreast with a variety of topics, both general and state specific in nature. This is an area that the Illinois APA hopes to improve on in the next couple of years. Enjoy your well deserved summer vacations. I look forward to seeing you in St. Charles in early October.
	Mark Koplin, AICP Assistant Village Manager Development Services 1900 Hassell Rd. Hoffman Estates, IL 60195 Phone: 847.781.2646 Fax: 847.781.2628 president@ilapa.org