Author: Thierry Altenhoven, PMP
On the 10th of February, PMI invited the members to the Annual Members Meeting. This event was organized online and lasted from 18h00 to 20h00. It was moderated by the fantastic Pia Henzelmann. After 20h00, a session of virtual networking was opened for the participants.
The event was structured in 2 parts:
- The first part presented a summary of the year 2021 and an outlook of 2022 for our PMI Switzerland Chapter.
- The second part was a keynote called “Impact Warrior Excellence: How To Master Tough Times!”, presented by special guests Michelle Xue Wang and Florian T. Hochenrieder.
This article will cover the first part of this meeting.
Stefan Vesenmeier, our VP Events in 2021, now the newly elected Chapter President, introduced the event with a retrospective of 2021 for the Chapter.
A lot of things happened in this special year. Here are some highlights that he pointed to:
- 1st virtual annual members meeting
- Growing Social Media channel reach: 2’500 followers on LinkedIn
- First in-person evening event in August after 19 months of online events
- Tremendous celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Chapter
- Successful 10th PM Conference in Zürich with 115 attendees
- Fruitful on-site “Volunteers Day” with 18 volunteers
- New sponsorship agreements achieved: STS, ProPM-P and the new gold sponsor, PwC, for 2022
After this retrospective, Claudia Rassalski, our VP Finance, presented the annual financial report of 2021. To summarize it with trends, it would be as following (the appreciation is compared with 2020):
- Membership fees: less less less
- Event income: plus plus
- Total income: less
- Expenses: less
- Net income: less
- Assets: =
Of course, Claudia showed a detailed overview of the accounting of the Chapter, followed by the observations done during an audit conducted in 2021:
- A decreasing trend in membership revenue in the last 3 years
- Lost income without sponsorship in 2021
- A positive uptick of income from Events in 2021
- As a trend, expenses for events are higher than the income
- Administrative costs have decreased mainly due to tasks being taken over by the Operations volunteers team
- Budgeting practices are not well defined which have contributed to an unrealistic budget for 2021
- Lack of reserve policy
After announcing the identified risks and the audit opinion, Claudia could initiate the vote for this part of the event. The financial results were largely accepted by the members.
The vote completed, Stefan could share the gratitude of the Chapter through the next section of the event: "Volunteer of the year".
First of all, he explained that at the beginning of the year all the volunteers were asked to nominate one volunteer who did a tremendous amount of work in the organization. Normally, each year, one volunteer is nominated. But in 2021, the board decided to enlarge their recognition to more than one person. Three of them were pointed out as outstanding volunteers: Benoîte Grisouard in the Social Good team, Ala Lutz in the Members team and Thierry Altenhoven, in the Branding team. Thanks a lot for your dedication in 2021 and enjoy further the journey by PMI.
The award "Volunteer of the Year" went to Pia Henzelmann. She has been a PMI member since October 2019, acting as the director of the Virtual team. Since she joined the virtual events team, Pia was an indispensable team member, and has been instrumental in making our virtual events a great experience for all involved. Well-deserved for you, Pia! Congratulations!
Next to this award, the president also rewards one special active member. The President's Award for 2021 went to Philippe Soupart. Karolina Letowska, Chapter President 2021, said about Philippe’s total engagement and motivation for the Chapter:
"Volunteers like you help make our Chapter a better and fun to be place with your time and efforts. Honestly, I don't think things would have run as smoothly without your help. Thanks a bunch". All of the volunteers can just confirm her sayings about his commitment. They are also very grateful to receive his advice and his support when needed. Congratulations Philippe!
Place to the game… In 2021 it was also a special year for the Chapter because it was its 20th anniversary. To celebrate this particular thing, the board decided to organize a game during the whole year. At the beginning of each event last year, the moderator communicated a word, describing a power skill of the project manager. The goal for the participants was to collect all the 20 words by the end of the year. The winner of this game would be the one collecting the most of the words: Pia Henzelmann won the prize "A weekend in the Swiss Alps". Excellent! Well done, Pia!
Finally, it was time to talk about the future. First with the election of the members of the board for 2022-2023: Adi Muslic, Stefan Vesenmeier and Joachim Dehais. We wish you a successful start for 2022! The board of director for 2022 was presented with Stefan Vesenmeier as our new President, Claudia Rassalski, as our VP Finance, Philippe Soupart as our VP Operations, Agnieszka Skalska as our VP Brand Management and Development, Joachim Dehais as our VP Volunteers, Adi Muslic as our VP Sponsors & Partners, Ala Lutz as our VP Members and Pia Henzelmann as our VP Events. We will have for sure an exciting year with you on board. We wish you all lots of great achievements in 2022!
To close this part of the event, Stefan, as new president, expresses his vision for this new year: it's all about VOLUNTEERS. The heart of the Chapter is our team of Volunteers. He will guide the Chapter to keep this heart beating with passion and commitment in 2022.
He also communicated the outlook for this new year 2022:
- Resume on-site events as soon as possible
- Offer additional opportunities for networking
- PMI Switzerland Conference 2022, on-site (September)
- Continue our successful online events and keep them free for members to attend
- Grow mentorship & experience exchange
- Implement a Volunteer training program
Before the break, our PMI Brand Ambassador Team (Alexander Seeger, Lourenco Nunes and Loïc Hascher) was ready to welcome the participants of this event at the AMM Virtual Networking. A virtual chat room was at disposal to visit and to have a chat with the other visitors.
Are you interested to watch all the details of this event? Please watch the video on YouTube: [Click here]
Do you want to know more about the second part of the Annual Members Meeting 2022 with its keynote “Impact Warrior Excellence: How To Master Tough Times!”? Please enjoy the article: [Click here]
BR
Thierry Altenhoven, PMP