By Drew Mulhare, CMCA, AMS, LSM, PCAM Chair, CAMICB Board of Commissioners

I want to begin by expressing my sincere hope – a hope shared by my colleagues on the CAMICB Board of Commissioners – that this blog post finds you, your family and your professional colleagues safe and well. We all find ourselves, both personally and professionally, in an environment we could not have conceived of just a few months ago. As the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has impacted our businesses, our communities, our educational institutions, our families – every aspect of our lives – each of us has been faced with the challenge of defining new ways to work, interact with our colleagues, protect and serve our client communities, and keep our families safe and connected. I believe we are all realizing that our futures will, in many ways, be shaped by meeting the challenges of the present. And the stories of perseverance, courage, commitment, and compassion that are emerging all around us are powerful and heartening.

Over the course of the past week CAMICB has begun to showcase a short video saluting the professional community association managers who make up the 20,000-strong community of CMCAs, rising to the challenge of managing the communities who depend on them in an anxious and uncertain time. The message of the video is simple: what you do is important. What you do matters. If you haven’t yet seen the video, go to: https://www.camicb.org/covid19 I encourage you to share the video with your colleagues and on your own personal and professional social media networks. You are a valued part of a profession of which you can be proud.

CAMICB marks its 25th Anniversary year in 2020. The year began on a high note with an outstanding cover feature on the organization, the CMCA credential, and the anniversary year in the CAI flagship publication, Common Ground. The anniversary observance continued with regular features on social media and content celebrating the credential, shared across all CAMICB communication platforms, as we geared up for a very visible and celebratory presence at the CAI annual conference in June. We have all been overtaken by events. The CAI annual conference has been cancelled; a celebration of any sort at this time no longer feels appropriate. We have stepped back from activities intended to celebrate the 25th Anniversary year. We will continue to use our 25th Anniversary branding. And, that branding will carry forward into 2021 with a goal of celebrating our 25th Anniversary in our 26th year: in better times, we hope, leading into a truly celebratory event in conjunction with the CAI May 2021 annual conference in Las Vegas.

Our Board and, certainly, our staff remain committed to serving our credential holders and our candidates and to continuing to support and grow the CMCA credentialing program. While our staff is working remotely they continue to focus on helping managers prepare for the CMCA examination, assisting our credential holders with renewal and recertification, and maintaining the profile and the visibility of The Essential Credential in our field. On behalf of my colleagues on the CAMICB Board of Commissioners I want to recognize the efforts of our Falls Church, VA- based staff to communicate with all CAMICB stakeholders effectively, consistently, and transparently. In the coming weeks we will be launching an exciting new resource for CMCA examination candidates: follow CAMICB on Facebook and LinkedIn for the first announcement. And, we are optimistic that during May and June, carefully and in full compliance with state and local guidelines, our testing center network will begin to reopen and our candidates will be able to resume active testing.

I have always been proud of the CMCA credentialing program and proud to serve the program in a leadership role. And, in recent months, I have been extraordinarily proud of our profession and the work individual managers do each day. What you do is important. What you do matters.