PTSC-Online is very quickly reaching the point at which it will exceed the number of memberships we have purchased (300), yet we continue to receive and process new member applications on a regular basis. We are very thankful for this continuing interest in on line networking to improve emergency management and we want to give new members an opportunity to participate. Please read this article carefully to understand how this may impact your PTSC-Online membership.
Most of PTSC-Online can be viewed by the public. Anyone can, with recent upgrades to our community, also comment on articles and calendar entries etc. using their e-mail address, whereas previously one had to be a member to leave comments. PTSC-Online membership provides access to private sections to which members have been granted access, enables members to create a personal profile, write blog, wiki and discussion forum articles and create calendar entries. In other words it enables members to network with their emergency management and business continuity professional peers, rather than just reading the articles.
We know Canadian emergency managers and those interested in emergency management are visiting PTSC-Online to read articles and gather information. Our home page has received nearly 51,000 hits. Our Google Analytics tells us we have received visits from 13,000 absolute unique visitors from 362 Canadian communities which gives us coast to coast coverage in Canada.
Here is our delima. Some of our members are not using PTSC-Online as it is designed to be used. They have not completed and made their profiles visible to other members, have not contributed to our on line community by commenting on the discussion and have not writen any articles or contributed to our wiki knowledge base. We do not want to lose our existing members, we would prefere they use PTSC-Online by contributing to the discussion and the content which will make for a better more valuable community to the benefit of all. If you need some help, please sign up for our next training session.
Beginning this weekend, we will need to start deleting non active members to make room for new members who wish join PTSC-Online to take advantage of its networking capability. The deletion criteria will be NO VISIBLE PROFILE AND NO CONTRIBUTIONS TO PTSC ONLINE.
To protect your membership please complete your member profile and set your privacy settings so it is visible or comment on one of our excellent blog articles, or add an upcoming emergency management event to the events calendar or add a useful resource or link to the wiki knowledge base or simply reply to this blog article to tell us why you don't want us to delete your membership or to ask any questions about this article.
8 Comments
Thanks Denis for your comment, for completing your profile and for commenting on some other articles. I certainly understand time pressures but when one reads an article it only takes a minute to leave a comment or a question which is a great encouragement to the author of the article.
I also don't expect folks to come to PTSC-Online just for the benefit of PTSC-Online and other members. It is a networking tool that can be used to help one do ones job by asking others for help or suggestions. If there were more questions, I think there would be a lot more who are willing to provide answers. Also we should not overlook the capability we have in PTSC-Online to set up either open or secure collaborative work spaces to help members with their work. The capability is there, we just need to use it.
Thanks again for your comment.
Mr. MacKay,
I understand the importance of maintaining contributing membership and I admit that I have had PTSC-Online on the back burner while I worked on other things.
How can I contribute more to this community?
I have been actively seeking EM job opportunities in the GTA with little success. Are there any mentorships or internships available where I can receive guidance, so I may leverage my experience to contribute more to EM?
I appreciate any advice, guidance or comments.
Daniel Hefferton
Thanks for your comments Daniel. I can recommend a couple of things which might help. There is an employment blog in the student's section where you can document more about the type of work you desire and your qualifications. When entries appear in any of our blogs we use social media to promote them to increase the number of times they are read. PTSC-Online has a networking partnership with the Ontario Association of Emergency Managers and they are in the process of developing a mentorship program. Increasing your visibility and demonstrating your capabilities to those who may hire you by volunteering to assist with projects is a strategy I often recommend. I would be pleased to discuss some of these offline with you. Also please tale a look at the OAEM training section, specifically the learning opportunities, professional development workshops and training courses as they may help. There is also an employment section in OAEM-Online. I hope these suggestions help. Possible someone else will leave some useful comments for you.
To be honest, if you do not have a hefty CV, I might suggest looking beyond the GTA. The scope and budgets of any of the public agencies there are fairly significant, thus they may have minimum experience requirements more easily attained in smaller communities. Of course, smaller communities correlate to smaller budgets, thus as Mr. Mackay mentions, some amount of volunteer work may be in order. Part time EM positions, while tending to require a tad more work than their portfolios may imply, are more common it seems. (Mind you, my experience is in the public sector, and have limited experience regarding private industry EM work, at least in this country)
. Best of luck!
In the field of emergency services work, developed relationships will benefit you in a time of need. Complete your profile and benefit from a large online community of like-minded professionals.
Thank you Fraser and Paul. In addition to providing some helpful advice you have assisted me in demonstrating how PTSC-Online should work. It is all about sharing information to help our fellow community members.
So your information would be seen by those who would benefit most from it, in addition to Daniel, I posted Daniel's question and our three responses in the Student Employment Blog and sent a broadcast message to all members who have identified themselves as students.
Thank you all for great advice.
At this stage in the game, through my volunteering with the Red Cross, I am gaining experience as a Disaster Response Team Lead, Personal Preparedness Workshop Presenter, and as a member of a Professional Emergency Management Support Group (working with other EM professionals in the red cross to develop new ideas, workshops, and exercises).
I understand that budgets are limited and everyone is seeking the same EM positions.
I am seeking all opportunities for employment, in the areas of training, planning and/or analysis within any sector that fits with my background and where I can contribute.
Upon joining a team, I would then get onboard with the health and safety committee (and anywhere else that would allow me to leverage my experience). And, continue as a CRC volunteer as well.
This would allow me to promote EM within an organization and do two jobs if it means getting EM experience.
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