Does CPD have a meaning?!

Gosh – my first ever Blog. What a responsibility!

This is a month of firsts! Last week saw the first ever CPD day, organised entirely by myself.  The objective was to get as many franchisees as I could to attend, and provide them with a day that would whet their appetite for attending future events.

Perhaps someone could enlighten me on the meaning of CPD.  I have heard the term Continual Personal Development, but surely in commercial terms Continual Professional Devlopment is more appropriate? Whenever someone asks I do a classic harrumph “continualperferoessionaldvlopment” and hope for the best.  Commonly known as “blagging it” (as opposed to “blogging it”!

Anyway, I digress.  The Fire Compliance & Safety CPD day was about to begin.  The room was full, a mixture of old and new franchisees, the atmosphere was electric and fraught with possibility.  What were they going to learn? Was their new franchise manager going to fall at the first hurdle? Was this going to be a waste of a day when they could have been out pounding the streets looking for work?

A morning of marketing training was before them.  They had all encountered Ken Norman of New Tricks before on other training days. Could he pull something out of the hat and show them something new? Well, ye of little faith, of course he can.  The agenda for that morning included the “Newtricks” of the trade for online networking, the importance of blogging and other online media, with a smattering of writing effective sales copy and PR thrown in for good effect.

But it was after lunch that the real entertainment started.  At the request of one of our group, Dave Thompson from Fire Compliance & Safety Northern Ireland, a company called Envirograf were due to present their fire safety products to the group.  Little did we know that the MD of Envirograf, Mr Derek Ward, was to exhibit his passion for fire safety, and his dedication to the improvement of the slipping standards of craftsmanship which contribute to poor fire safety, with such vigour! I’m sure Derek won’t mind me saying that, at 78 years of age, he has more energy, passion, drive and integrity than anyone I have met. His story about the “fantastic fire-proof paint that just won’t stop growing” had us falling in the aisles.  Derek – you are an inspiration to us all and we all left the day feeling empowered and enthused.

The only downside to this was that the incredible presentation from Derek pushed the remaining agenda for the day back and so a couple of items had to be relegated to our next CPD day. A lesson learned for me – when inviting external speakers to an event, research the length and relative interest of their presentation before allocating them a timeframe in the agenda!

So, all in all a successful day.  Lots of learning, lots of laughter, and lots of positive feelings for the future. And I guess, that’s what CPD (whatever it does actually mean) is all about!

Tags: CPD, fire safety, franchise, training