BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - AS the Caribbean Association of Administrative Professionals (CAAP) celebrates its 25th anniversary, the entity continues to hold fast to its main purpose of exploring the unique skill set of Administrative Professionals and ensuring that they dominate their field of work.
The CAAP is currently holding its 25th Council Meeting, which is inclusive of a Professional Development Workshop geared towards training persons in the field of Administration in Business Etiquette.
Administrative Professionals from several Caribbean islands are currently participating in the Workshop which is being held at the Ocean Terrace Inn (OTI).
The training sessions are entitled "Building Effective International Relations in a Multi-Cultural Environment" and is being facilitated by Jennifer Hinkson of Barbados, who is a past President of CAAP and the current Assistant Registrar at the University of the West Indies (UWI).
The Administrative Professionals are being schooled on topics including Cultural Differences and Faux Pas, Communications Excellence, Receiving Lines, Flag Code Etiquette, Seating Arrangements, Dress Code, Recognition of Honoured Guests and Order of Precedence.
At the opening ceremony yesterday (Jul. 11), Jodi Peeler, Assistant Dean at the Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, spoke to the Administrative Professionals in the capacity of a motivational speaker.
She spoke to those in attendance about SIMPLE Leadership, which she termed as Lollipop Leadership.
She explained that the elements of SIMPLE are Sincere, Impress, Motivate, Perception, Learn and Enthusiasm. Peeler, in a very entertaining manner, elaborated on the elements.
She emphasised that there are simple solutions to many problems which could be easily addressed while encouraging the attendees to exercise SIMPLE/Lollipop Leadership.
Speaking exclusively with this publication, President of the CAAP Cyndie Demming provided details of the topics that were scheduled for discussion throughout the course of the day.
"The presenter will be going through teaching us the proper way for Protocol and also sharing with us information on Cultural Differences and How to Entertain and How to Recognise People, as well as What should you do as a woman if a gentleman is shaking your hand; and that is information that is needed in today's world.
"Of course, the Administrative Professionals are expected to guide their executive on how they should behave at social functions, whose name should they call first when they are introducing somebody, and that sort of thing would be discussed..."
Demming went on the explain what would be taking place today (Jul. 12) during their Business Session.
"We will have an open council meeting for each participant. They can attend and go through their agenda items which we have discussed and then later on there will be a closed session just for executive members, where we will further strategise the way forward for the organisation."
When asked about the motivation behind the CAAP, the President said: "Our goal is to ensure that Administrative Professionals in the region reach a certain level of qualification and professionalism. A long time ago people looked at the Administrative profession as just a secretary, and it has evolved. As a matter of fact our name suggests how it has evolved, because first we were the Caribbean Association of Secretaries and we have moved away from that to include the Administrative Professionals. So we are the Caribbean Association of Administrative Professionals.
"One may ask what is an Administrative Professional? It is the persons who are in middle management. People in Information Technology, people in general office, people in customer service, people in marketing, people in networking, and so it varies. It encompasses everyone and we try to work with them to build their skills."
Demming disclosed that one of the Council's documents that would be looked at today would be for the CAAP to provide training for the entire Caribbean in any discipline, as "we have a wealth of resources in our Association to train other professionals".
Demming stated that the CAAP's general theme is "United towards a better world" and the theme for this year's Council Meeting is "One Caribbean, one people, certification for Administrative Professionals".
