How to Get and Stay Organized

By Kate Bearse, Executive Assistant, Office of the Vice-Principal (Advancement)

Have you heard of OneNote? It’s a digital notebook that I didn’t pay any attention to before working remotely. Sure it popped up every now and then, and I liked the look of it (I enjoy planning and making to do lists, so it was right up my alley), but I was a paper and pen person, and I would tell you that was my plan until the very end. That is, until we moved to working from home and I found keeping notebooks and pens around annoying, as my dining room table isn’t that big and my son would always steal the pens and then promptly lose them. So what was my solution to this? It would not be the same as when I worked at Shoppers Drug Mart in the pharmacy almost 20 years ago: a pen on a string around my neck. It would be digital planning, note taking, and list making.

So what do I use this magical tool for, you ask? Mainly meeting notes and weekly to do lists.

• To do lists: I have lists dating back to the week of Mar. 17. This means that at any time I can quickly reference these older lists in case I need to. But let’s be honest, I transfer all uncompleted items to the next week’s list because no one is perfect.
• Meeting notes: I like to have a section for my meetings, and each person I meet with has their own subsection (Karen, Deanna, VP Office, etc.). This way everything is in one place and I can take a task that I get from a meeting with Karen and copy and paste it into my to do list. Or if I have a question for Deanna about something I need to complete, I will put it into our 1:1 meeting notes for that week. I have found this to be an awesome feature, as I am not opening multiple documents simply to move one item to another document. It is all in one place.

There are more videos, courtesy of Microsoft, if you wanted to learn more. Of course, I am always here if you have questions, and I am always willing to share how I have set up OneNote if you want  a place to start. Happy planning and note taking.

CCAE Development Summit 2020

One of the few upsides of working through a pandemic has been the ability to easily participate in professional development opportunities due to their online delivery. This fall, 42 members of the Development team will be participating in the CCAE Development Summit. I’m fairly confident that had the 2020 Summit been offered in-person, it would not have been practical for 42 team members to participate. We coordinated registrations and qualified for a group discount of $1,050 (a savings of almost 15%). Sessions are being held for an hour each week from late September to mid-November, conveniently on our “no meetings” Mondays. For Development staff who either have their CFRE (Certified Fund Raising Executive) or are working toward this designation, the sessions provide educational credit. For the rest of us, it’s a terrific opportunity to learn from Advancement colleagues across the country about how they are adapting to the changes in our field which have resulted from COVID-19.

 For more information about the Summit, including speaker profiles, please visit the CCAE website.

Let's celebrate – join in the holiday extravaganza planning fun

The Office of Advancement’s year-end holiday celebration will look different this year, but we are still going to make it a special extravaganza. We would like to request volunteers to plan this celebration. If you are interested in joining the planning group, please let Kate Bearse know by Thursday, Oct. 13.

Nominate a Queen’s colleague for the Flynn Award

Nominations are now being accepted for The T. Geoffrey Flynn Advancement Champions Award. This award is presented on an annual basis to honour an individual member of the Queen’s community who has made a significant contribution to linking Queen’s University’s advancement activities with research and teaching excellence at Queen’s. Such a contribution might be related to: outstanding effort, organization, and results as an Advancement champion; playing a strong leadership role in integrating the role of advancement within a faculty, school, department, unit, or volunteer organization; becoming involved in advancement work in addition to their duties; performing regular duties that assist the advancement function in a superlative way.

All members of the Queen’s community are eligible, including faculty and staff, with the exception of individuals who are part of the Office of Advancement.

Here is the link for more information and the nominations form. Nominations will be accepted until Monday, Nov.20, 2020.

For more information, please contact Kate Bearse.

Nominate an Advancement colleague for a Heney Award

It’s that time of year to nominate an Advancement colleague for the John J. Heney Award!

The Heney Award is presented in honour of John J. Heney, former director of Development and recipient of the Queen’s Distinguished Service Award. It is presented annually to the advancement employee who best exemplifies the characteristics of commitment to the Advancement profession, superb performance, and devotion to the organization. Visit the Office of Advancement website to view past award recipients. Any staff member in the Office of Advancement may submit a nomination.

The John J. Heney Award Selection Committee, composed of current Advancement employees who have won the Heney, made revisions to the John J. Heney Award Fund Terms (established 2001.) These changes are in keeping with the original intent of the award and include:

Who can be nominated:

• All staff members of the Office of Advancement including continuing and term employees are eligible to be nominated.
• In keeping with the original intent and spirit of the Fund, the award is to recognize one individual and not a unit, group or team.
• Previous award winners may be nominated and receive the award more than once, at the discretion of The John J. Heney Award Selection Committee.
• If the individual in a previous year was not selected, they can be re-nominated.

Award criteria:

• Nominations are based on the employee’s previous 12 to 18-month work period and demonstrate concrete examples to support the application criteria.
• The nominator must address the rationale for the nomination, based on any of the following criteria:
  • Commitment to the advancement profession, professionalism, and compassion.
  • Superb performance in achieving the strategic objectives of the Office of Advancement that embodies the Advancement mission and any of the university’s 12 competencies.
  • Devotion to the organization and/or the broader university.
• The nominator must include how the employee has demonstrated initiative above and beyond the regular call of duty in their work.

There is a new online nomination form. All nominations must be submitted no later than 4:00 pm on Friday, Nov. 20, 2020. Late applications will not be accepted.

Please take some time to nominate today. If you have any questions, please contact Carla Ferreira Rodrigues or Katelyn Siu.

Queen’s United Way campaign

Thank you for all you do in advancing the culture of philanthropy with our alumni and friends. You understand the importance of creating a community that comes together in support of a shared vision.  In that same spirit, we are thrilled to announce that in mid-October, we will kick off our annual Queen’s United Way KFLA Workplace Campaign.  

New this year: Our Advancement Office campaign will be led by a fantastic team of United Way champions from each of our units: 

• Kate Bearse – VP(Advancement) Office 
• Gage Benyon – Alumni Relations & Annual Giving 
• Patricia Falzon & Maura Doyle - Development 
• Laura Leeman – Advancement Services 
• Begona Pereira – Advancement Marketing, Communications, Donor Relations and Events 

There’s no doubt that 2020 has been a challenging and unprecedented year and  many of us are looking for ways to help. As you can imagine, the United Way is on the front line of helping those in our community most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This year especially, we hope you will consider supporting the United Way, at whatever level you can manage.  When they say 'every dollar counts,' they mean it!

In early October, you will receive an email from the United Way with a personalized link that you can use to make a pledge or gift online. Please ask your area champion for more information about how the community benefits from the United Way. You can also learn more about the United Way’s work with agencies and programs to meet our community’s immediate needs.

This year, throughout these difficult challenges, our whole Advancement team has shown remarkable resilience, determination, and humour in keeping ourselves motivated and inspired.  

As your champions, we will be harnessing that great sense of fun for this year’s United Way Campaign. How? We will be measuring the success of our campaign based on a goal to set the highest rate of participation among the units at Queen’s. 

So prepare yourselves for some smack talk and some serious competition! 

We hope that we can count on your support.  

Thank you, 

Your 2020 Advancement Workplace Champions 

K, G, T, L, B, and M!

Advancement Values – what is next? 

By Kate Bearse, Executive Assistant, Office of the Vice-Principal (Advancement) 

The values for the Office of Advancement were decided in the summer by all of us: Accountability, Collaboration, Customer Service Focus, Inclusion, and Integrity. So what has been happening since then? In early September, the Advancing IDEAs group, along with some other Advancement staff, took part in a brainstorming activity facilitated by organizational development consultant Lisa Sansom, to identify: 1) how we would define each of the values in the Advancement context, and 2) when we have seen others in Advancement demonstrate these values.  These responses and the staff input from the activity we did at the Advancement Staff Meeting on May 29 will be used to come up with some draft definitions for your feedback.  I am putting the finishing touches on the plan to define, validate, socialize, and formalize these values, which I will be discussing with ALT in the next couple of weeks. Keep an eye on ALTogether Now for upcoming information and activities that I hope you will participate in. 

Jobs with Advancement

We need your recruitment help. Know great talent that would be a good addition to our team? If so, please promote the vacancy below with your networks and let’s find some amazing new team members.

Applications (including a cover letter and resume) must be submitted through CareerQ. For additional information on this posting, please reach out to either Katelyn, Carla, or the hiring manager for the position you are interested in.

Available Position:

Fun fact

Last week the VP Office met for a social distance walk!