Thank you!

Keynote presentations and concurrent session presentations can be found through the conference app which will continue to be available. A reminder to presenters to please upload your presentations if you have not already done so. If you need assistance with uploading your content, please email: anika@evoque.ca.
Videos from the Keynote Speaker Presentations are now available! Watch Here

Message from the President

It is with great pleasure that, on behalf of the Canadian Evaluation Society, I welcome you to Calgary/Yellowknife and to the 2018 CES Conference. This Conference is inspired by prospects of working together; evaluators, program implementors and partners, to achieve successful programs

This partnership and collaborative approach is one pursued by many. At this conference we hope to learn from these collaborative undertakings and share those learnings with others. I feel I have lots to learn and look forward to hearing from you.

I would like to welcome warmly those of you from outside of Canada. I hope that you feel welcome here where prairies, foothills and Rocky Mountains meet. Our keynote speakers address the issues associated with co-creation and collaborative evaluation. I look forward to listening to and learning from the speakers.

The next three days will surely constitute a milestone for our profession. For me, the annual Conference is always an opportunity to reconnect with colleagues and to meet new people. This year will undoubtedly be inspirational for me as your out-going President. I look forward to meeting new people and to renewing my acquaintance with old friends. I intend to continue to build my network, but I also want to help feed yours. Thank you in advance for meeting with me and for allowing me to put you in contact with other evaluators to help you refine your own practice. Social events designed by the organizers to showcase Calgary will facilitate our task. Moreover, Calgary is a city of the mountains and prairies with much history to share. For those of you who join us in Yellowknife, the smaller city and smaller group of participants should provide an opportunity to learn from Northerners about their unique community experience.

I am thankful for the commitment of the CES Alberta-NWT chapter to host and organize this conference. One of the pleasant surprises for me as president has been seeing the amount of time our volunteers commit to the Society. It has been a challenge for me to keep up. I witnessed the drive of this CES chapter in organizing this Conference. I want to celebrate the many volunteers of the Host Committee as well as the vendor representatives who gave it their all to make this Conference a great success. I thank them from the bottom of my heart, in particular the Co-Chairs, Debbie DeLancey, Trish Paton, and Tara Preston, who were deeply inspiring and effective leaders. It is also important to note the substantial input of sponsors who contribute to the financial success of this project.

As your out-going president I wish you a memorable Conference. Your comments are always welcome.

Harry Cummings, PhD., RPP

President, Canadian Evaluation Society

Message from the Organizing Committee Co-Chairs

Welcome to the Canadian Evaluation Society Annual Conference in Calgary!  We are thrilled to host this year’s conference in Alberta, and gratefully acknowledge that we are meeting on the traditional territories of the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta, which includes the Blackfoot Confederacy (comprising the Siksika, Piikani, and Kainai First Nations), the Tsuut’ina First Nation, and the Stoney Nakoda (including the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Wesley First Nations). The City of Calgary is also home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III. We want to thank the First Peoples of this land for their hospitality.

As Co-Chairs, we are incredibly excited about this year’s Conference theme of Co-Creation.  With this theme, we challenged evaluators to reflect on their privilege, and explore what it means to be a methodological expert, facilitator, critic, ally and strategic thinker who can move evaluation to enable change while sharing jurisdiction.  The response has been incredible, and as a result you will be able to choose from almost 200 thought-provoking presentations by evaluators from across Canada and around the world.

Co-Creation is about jointly producing a mutually beneficial outcome. It’s about being the student as well as the teacher. It’s listening to understand and acknowledging that there are often more questions than answers and many pathways towards solutions. It’s determining how we will walk together on the journey. Will we walk together, or will one lead and one follow, or will we take turns leading and following? Co-Creation is about relationships and collaboration with the expectation of action. What are we creating and who is benefiting? Are we changed as a result of our experience?

It is our sincere hope that we have provided a stimulating and safe environment where we can meet together to explore and gently push the boundaries of our perceptions and notions.  If we find ourselves in an uncomfortable space, let’s remember the spirit of our core, common values that we embrace as human beings. Let’s support each other as we share time and place on this learning journey.

Many of you will also be attending the NWT Evaluation Symposium in Yellowknife.  The Alberta/NWT Chapter of CES is breaking new ground by providing this opportunity for conference participants to explore new approaches to evaluation in the context of Indigenous knowledge and methods, in partnership with Dedats’eetsaa: the Tłı̨chǫ Research & Training Institute of the Tłı̨chǫ Government.  We gratefully acknowledge that this event is being held on Chief Drygeese Territory, the traditional home of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation.  

Finally, we want to recognize the efforts of the many volunteers who have worked so hard to make both these events a success.  We hope you will enjoy yourself as you take advantage of the learning and networking opportunities and social events over the next few days.

Debbie DeLancey, MA, CE

Trish Paton, MA

Tara Preston, MACT, PMP, CE

  

CES 2018 National Conference Sponsors

Platinum Sponsors

Gold Sponsors

Silver Sponsors