It's been a month since my last letter to you.  

The aim is to keep you informed of Chapter activities you may or might have missed from other platforms we operate from.

Chapter Updates

Well, three months ago, we had our PM Summit. Though it's taken us a while, we have now issued all the delegates a certificate for participating in the event.  

There are a few aspects of the Summit close-out we are dealing with, and I am confident all these will be completed before the next letter to you.  

The Chapter is in the process of electing its new executive leaders for the next three years. So we encourage you to be on the lookout to influence the next cohort of elected leaders. A call will go out soon.  

And at our Annual General Meeting (AGM) holding on 28 September 2023 we will announce our newly elected leaders for 2023/2024.

The Chapter events will continue as you know them. We have this month’s  Webinar already taken place. We also had the Youth event – Creating a Readily-employable Workforce as a webinar on 29/06. On the same day, we had the Construction Webinar hosted by the PMI Africa Team but supported by the Chapter.  Our monthly  ATP information session for  CAPM & PMP candidates also held recently on Wednesday, 26/07.  

Our collaborations with Corporates are proceeding well as more and more corporates are connecting with the Chapter for some value-add. This is quite exciting for us as a Chapter.

Chapter membership currently sits at 1388, though we target to increase this substantially as we move closer to the end of the year.   

Our Chapter board remains firm in its governance objectives and oversight role at the operational level.

Chapter’s New Direction

The Chapter has a new direction on the horizon. It aligns with providing you with better value for continuous exploration of much-improved ways to serve your interests. Currently, we have one part-time paid employee of the chapter in the position of Programme Coordinator. But we are now in the restructuring phase with the creation of an intermediate-level PM with a splice of greater youth involvement. All these will yield better outcomes for you.

Our target for more youth in our midst presents an avenue for innovation and robust engagement in our new ways of working. As a volunteermanaged organization,  the chapter now provides platforms for more youth members whom we will sponsor into membership, train, and mentor into becoming trainee PMs to give them access to develop themselves professionally.  

As my term ends in Q3.2024, I plan to see more corporates taking up opportunities for membership of their staff which we believe presents an avenue for better engagement with PMI and in turn, sustained support for staff and a good ROI for the organisations.   

Upcoming Events

PMI holds its annual conferences for Project Management practitioners at regional and global levels this year. Hence, there is a regional event taking place in Nairobi in September. It’s the 2023 PMI Africa Conference. Preceding this is the Leadership Institute Meeting (LIM) which targets Chapter Leaders in the region. This will hold at the same venue from 07/09 to 09/09.

We also have the PMI global conference in Atlanta, Georgia, from 22/10 to

25/10. Your access to further information is at  https://www.pmi.org/global-summit.  

The Chapter Cluster Engagement has not progressed as we envisaged. But we now look forward to some of you signing up for the appropriate clusters nationwide. As we depart from branch model of operations, Clusters are small groups of members who meet up to equip, network, and explore matters of common interests under the banner of PMI. Though members are grouped in close proximity to one another, a cluster exists for every member irrespective of location in the country.   

Some of our events planned for later in the year for your involvement are proceeding well. I look forward to your participation in our Gala event in November and later also is our inaugural Golf Day event in the same month.  Details will be shared in the coming months.  

Whilst we continue our training and mentorship programmes in the Universities and ALA, we hope to see some of these students take on project management roles in their personal development and professions.  

Be the Ripple. Embrace Curiosity. Be Welcoming.  

Till next time.

Tunde Ojo-Aromokudu, PMP

Chapter President  PMI – South Africa president@pmi.org.za