What is the Officer Certification Program?

National has introduced a new set of initials into our Association and they are “OCP”.  Some of you may have already heard these initials being thrown around by some of our members and you may have heard some fact or fiction as to what they mean.

OCP stands for “Officer Certification Program”.  This is a new program that has been rolled out by National to provide the knowledge and tools necessary to help our volunteer leaders to be more effective in their position as officers in the association.  The program is designed for all officers, from National down to the Chapter level.

The program is a day and a half long course that consists of 9 modules covering the Officer Handbook, a knowledge exam, 4 modules consisting of expanded, advanced seminars especially for the GWRRA Officer and an additional module geared specifically for Region/District Directors and their Assistants.  Upon successful completion of the course, the officer will receive a designation as a “certified officer”.

Beginning on March 1st of this year, all future officers must be “certified” by completing the OCP before they can be appointed as an officer.  To meet this goal, the Districts and Regions across the Association will be adding and scheduling OCP courses to their training curriculums.  In Tennessee, as probably in most other Districts & Regions, the timeframe for the majority of OCP courses offered will be in the Fall in order to facilitate a pipeline for our future officers.  Additionally, any member that would like to take the OCP may do so, you don’t have to be stepping up to an officer position.  Of course, as with everything, there is an exception to the norm, and here it is…  There is a second part to the rollout of the OCP, one which is even more time sensitive than the certification of future officers.

All current operations officer’s must take the OCP and become certified by August 31, 2010.  That’s right, your ACD’s, CD, ADD’s, DD & RD will be taking the course before the summer is over.  When you consider the amount of time involved; the members, Chapters, Districts & Regions schedules that are already in place; the logistics; the limited number of Trainers and the cost to accomplish this goal, you can see that it’s a major undertaking – and it’s happening across all of GWRRA.

Tennessee has already scheduled two of these courses to be held in March and will schedule a third before the end of August to pick up any current officers that haven’t yet participated.  Due to the deadline of August 31st, we’ve established a priority system for people attending these first three OCP’s.  Our first priority is Tennessee Operations Officers and their spouses, 2nd priority are Operations Officers from other Districts and our third priority will be for Rider Educators that would like to attend now.  All other members that would like to attend but are not currently officer’s will have an opportunity in the Fall after we’ve met our August 31st deadline.

The spouses of officer’s are not required to attend the OCP; but we encourage you to do so since most couples work as a team.  For those Tennessee Officer’s that may find it more convenient to take the OCP on a different date, you can click here for a listing of some of the dates that other Districts and Regions will be holding OCP’s.  You can contact the appropriate POC and see if they have room.

That’s it in a nutshell.  Now when you hear the initials “OCP” or hear your CD saying that they’ll be attending the Officer Certification Program, you’ll know what they mean. We’ll keep your CD’s informed as we find out changes or additional information and they in turn will keep you updated.