Filing a three-year plan is one of the many bureaucratic hoops Andrea Watson has to jump through as executive director of HIV West Yellowhead. To help her organization plot strategy for the near future, Watson is hoping to get some guidance from the community.

With that goal in mind, HIV West Yellowhead has set up a comprehensive strategic planning process that will take place on Friday evening (July 28) and all day Saturday (July 29). Although the service organization is technically responsible for Edson, Hinton and Whitecourt, the session in Jasper will be the only planning workshop. Watson is hoping that some representation from the other communities in the area will be in attendance, as well as any interested parties from Jasper.

The plans are a required element of a lengthy process HIV/AIDS service groups across Alberta must undertake in order to be eligible for provincially-administered funding. It’s this grant that allows Watson and the other HIV West Yellowhead staff to tackle the task of educating the public and providing resources to people living positive and at risk for infection.

The idea of the two-day session, which will run from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. on Friday evening and from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday at the boardroom in the train station, is to lay out a set of goals for HIV West Yellowhead to achieve over the next three years. The workshop will begin with a review of the organization’s mandate and an outline of their recent successes and challenges. Once the group begins setting goals for the future, the focus will be placed on having a strategy to make sure things happen as planned.

According to the agenda for the event, for each strategy developed, participants will identify the following: who will lead the specific action? When do we want to have this done by? What resources will be required?

By collaborating with other organizations and members of the community, HIV West Yellowhead will be able to offer more concrete plans with the demonstrated backing of the community as part of their funding proposal. 

Those interested in attending can inform Watson beforehand by stopping by the HIV West Yellowhead offices or calling 852-5274, or by showing up to the workshop on Friday evening.