Section Chairs provide the overall supervision and administration of the affairs of the Section and ensure that all policies and actions approved by the general membership or by the executive Committee are properly implemented.
Section Chairs preside at general meetings of the Section and chair meetings of the Executive Committee. They also represent the Section on the CPA Committee on Sections, to the CPA Board of Directors, and to external bodies.
Section Chairs are responsible for providing an annual report to the members and to the CPA.
Yes. As per CPA By-Laws, every member of the Executive Committee must be a member of CPA. If you are not a member, you may apply online by visiting: https://secure.cpa.ca/apps/Forms/FormEntry/Collect?pageRenderType=Bootstrap3&formId=1268.
Chair terms are normally 1-year unless specified otherwise in a Section’s Terms of Reference. Chairs may stay on in the position beyond a term as voted on by the Section Membership during the Section’s Annual Business meeting during the CPA convention in June.
Approval to establish a Section within CPA may be granted by the Board of Directors when a group of at least 25 (any combination) CPA Fellows/ Members and Affiliates of the Association submit a petition which includes: 1) a statement of purpose and goals of the proposed Section; 2) the name of the Section; 3) the name of the founding Chairperson or Coordinator; and 4) the name of any other founding officers.
Additional information on forming a Section can be found on this page, https://cpa.ca/sections/how-to-form-a-cpa-section/.
Yes. Within one year of obtaining approval to establish a Section from the CPA Board of Directors, a Section is required to pass Terms of Reference (by email vote or at the Section's annual business meeting held during the Convention) in conformity with the Model Terms of Reference. These Section-passed Terms of Reference shall be forwarded for Board approval to the Chair of the Committee on Sections via email at sections@cpa.ca.
Section Terms of Reference may completely parallel the Model Terms of Reference structure, or expand on them as the Section sees fit.
Sections establish their own membership fees, discussing/voting on them at their Annual Business Meeting in June during the CPA convention. Fees are collected by the CPA during the course of membership renewal. Three times per year, January, April and October, the Financial Coordinator direct deposits into the Section’s account the total collected.
No. CPA keeps an administration fee for each member: $2.00/Section member/special or international affiliates, $1.00/student/international students.
People can sign up for a Section when they register for CPA membership or at the time of renewal by logging into their account (https://secure.cpa.ca/apps/Pages/membership) or by contacting CPA by email at membership@cpa.ca or by telephone.
Space in each issue of Psynopsis is made available to Sections in order to provide a formal mechanism for communication to Section members and to all other members of CPA. The Editor may solicit content for the space by direct correspondence with each Section prior to each volume; however, Section contributions may be sent at any time directly to the Editor. Psynopsis is published in January, April, July, and October of each year. The deadline for submissions is the 1st of the preceding month.
Newsletter: Sections are free to develop and circulate their own newsletters. However, each newsletter must carry the following disclaimer: "The opinions expressed in this newsletter are strictly those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Canadian Psychological Association, its officers, directors, or employees".
Letterhead: Since Sections do not represent the Canadian Psychological Association as a whole, they are not supplied with CPA letterhead or stationery.
No. Position vacancies must be posted on CPA’s career page. All requests for postings are reviewed by a staff member and the fee for posting is commensurate with how long the posting is up on CPA’s website. Once a job is posted on CPA’s website, Section members can be notified of the position and referred to CPA’s website via the listServ.
Direct editing access is not currently available. Any edits to the contents of the Section pages can be sent to the CPA’s webmaster@cpa.ca who will take care of making the edits on your behalf.
The Section Management System is an online tool hosted on CPA’s website, for which login access is required. You can access the SMS through CPA’s Members Only Area on the website: https://secure.cpa.ca/apps/Membership. The SMS allows you to manage all of your Section’s administrative tasks, including: updating your Section’s executive’s list, sending emails to your membership, displaying financial reconciliation, displaying the address list for your members, submitting invited speakers, accessing the submission review system/submission, accessing the Review Coordinator system, accessing resources such as the Operations Manual, Model Terms of Reference, Template for certificates, etc.. For more detailed information, please consult the Section Spaces Chair Manual
Yes, CPA must have an updated list by July 2nd.
Yes, the CPA has a staff member devoted specifically to providing Administrative Support to the Sections. She can be reached at sections@cpa.ca. The Sections Administrative Assistant is available to provide assists with various tasks, including but not limited to: convention submissions and programming, administration, financial reporting/management, and website editing.
Additonal resources are available for the Section Chair on this page: https://cpa.ca/aboutcpa/cpasections/sectionchair/.
The CPA has compiled the following documents to aid Chairs of CPA’s Sections in the formation, responsibilities, and running of a Section.
Section Terms of Reference
Within one year of obtaining approval to establish a Section, a Section is required to pass Terms of Reference (by email vote or at the Section’s annual business meeting held during the Convention) in conformity with the Model Terms of Reference (2016). These Section-passed Terms of Reference shall be forwarded for Board approval to the Chair of the Committee on Sections via email at sections@cpa.ca.
Section Terms of Reference may completely parallel the Model Terms of Reference structure, or may expand on them as the Section sees fit.
CPA By-Laws
Sections have official status under the By-Laws of the Association (see CPA By-laws).