What a wild ride this year has been! As we approach December, I realize I’m half-way through my term as president and it’s good time to reflect on what we’ve accomplished together. I started off my term by speaking about legacies and this year has shown me where a number of new legacies are emerging.  

My first official event was to Green Trade Expo, hosted by the Ottawa chapter. It is one of the best, most polished chapter run events I have ever been to — like a mini Congress — and I really hope you get the chance to attend in-person in the coming years. The awards dinner and presentations were a great way for me to meet the people and companies driving the Ottawa chapter.

The next milestone in my calendar was supposed to be Canada Blooms, an event I look forward to every year. But this year was going to be different — I was looking forward to spending time at the show and really getting to see it from a different perspective. And then Covid-19 reared its ugly head and we all began shifting gears. The typical meetings and public events that a president is involved in quickly became daily meetings of members of Landscape Ontario's Covid-19 Taskforce, complete and endless phone calls with members, politicians and staff. The need for a strong, undivided voice was, and is, as important as ever. It was a tough line to walk, balancing all the interests at play, and we caught flak from both sides… as you do when politics are involved. But together, we navigated with the greater good as our North Star and our efforts prevailed. We got the profession back to work and in doing so gained some needed connections with the provincial government. A huge thank you goes to the LO Task Force members and Landscape Ontario staff who worked tirelessly to make it all happen.

Building on that success, we are now leveraging those new connections to tackle the insurance issue that is affecting many members. The Snow and Ice Sector group has done an amazing job of keeping the ball rolling, despite all of the other distractions this year. I believe that we create our own opportunities and as an association we are doing that now.

Among the unfortunate outcomes in 2020: we didn’t get to use our beautiful, new office and education centre. We built it to bring our profession together, yet it sits unused as we learn to use technology to meet and learn. I think we can all agree that there’s really no substitution for face-to-face networking and relationship building.

Despite this year’s challenges, I really am looking forward to 2021 and the fresh, new approaches we can apply to our profession. Like you, I can’t wait for the new normal.