Dear ADRIO Members and ADR Enthusiasts,
Happy Spring Season! I trust that you are all doing well as you have eased into 2024.
ADRIO has had a successful membership renewal campaign season as the staff team supports all current members as well as new members joining this strong community of practitioners this year. We continue to support each person on their ADR journey of continued professional development, application for designations, member benefits and career opportunities.
ADRIO hosted 2 first of its kind well attended events in the last few months: Authentical Allyship and an International Day Women’s event.
The Authentic Allyship session for current and prospective Dispute Resolution Practitioners focused on how practitioners could better understand their role and responsibility in reconciliation and explored, from a practical lens, how to fulfill such.
Our “Female Leaders in Dispute Resolution” event welcomed Afsana Gibson-Chowdhury, Alicia Kuin, and Shaaron Jones-Crawford as the guest Speakers. It was truly a fantastic event! These incredible female leaders came with inspiring insights, thoughtful advice and profound stories to share. Attendees left feeling inspired, encouraged and heartened. The energy was amazing all around as we celebrated International Women’s Day 2024 and encouraged everyone to make this a daily celebration in support of all of the work that women contribute to in our world.
We also hosted an in-person Networking Mixer presented in collaboration with Lightstone Academy for Conflict Resolution.
Like the cherry blossoms across the province of Ontario, networking was in full bloom at our Spring ADR Networking Mixer! Experienced mediators, arbitrators, investigators, facilitators, ADR trainers, new graduates and students came together for a wonderful evening of socializing and community-building. Thank you to everyone who made time to attend. It was great to meet you all to chat about the ADRIO community and the many pathways to success in this vibrant and meaningful ADR sector.
A special thank-you to Lightstone Academy for Conflict Resolution for collaborating with us to make this event a success!
In preparation for that event, I was reminded of a quote from Brene Brown, “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” I would like to encourage all of you to have the courage to show up each time, let yourselves be seen and contribute in a way that those daily steps will compound exponentially to ensure your gift in peacebuilding will be seen and recognized across the province and ripple across the world. Let us use this quote to keep moving forward daily.
As you embark on the next few months and are moving towards the fifth month of 2024, let us be proud of the actions and activities that you have accomplished and that you can build on. Identify new steps that you can take in the coming months so you can look back and know that you have made the most of the time that you did have to build up your ADR career.
The ADRIO team is excited to offer the 39th Annual General Meeting of the ADR Institute of Ontario Inc, online and accessible to all members. Please join us on June 13 at 9:00 am to hear from our President, Treasurer and Staff about all the fantastic things that have happened at ADRIO over the past year, and hear of our plans for the upcoming year! There are many exciting initiatives happening at ADRIO and we look forward to presenting them to you at this meeting.
Every year our Professional Development Committee is committed and dedicated to planning an amazing annual conference and this year the focus is on The Evolving Demand for ADR: Insights, Skills and Strategies to Meet the Moment – our biggest event yet!
The conference format is dynamically designed as follows: June 4, Pre-Conference Workshops and Networking, In-person at the MaRS Discovery District in Downtown Toront; and June 5-6, Live Online Conference, Presentations and Workshops via Zoom.
13 successful, highly credentialed, and experienced Dispute Resolution Experts will join forces in this 3-day program to offer their hard-earned wisdom and insights on what it takes to manage and transform conflicts within sectors that are experiencing some of the most disruption in our contemporary social, political and economic culture.
Every quarter, our team invests our time and energy to continue to meet with members to provide value as you are on your pathway to success.
Wherever you are on your roadmap, please remember our ADRIO team is here to support you.
I look forward to seeing many of you online or in person at one of our exciting engagements as you continue to be focused and take action in the next 2 quarters!
Sincerely,
Pramila Javaheri, C. Med. Q. Arb, WFA
Executive Director, ADR Institute of Ontario