My first 100 days as President of ICPA

By Peter van der Sande - December 16th, 2011

In September, in Singapore, I was elected as President. This was a great honour for me, and I had the opportunity to adress the Conference. Three months later, I still feel the same. I would like to share with you some of my experiences to date.

ICPA is a wonderful organisation to be involved in, with challenging business to deliver and very many inspiring colleagues around. There is no real competing group in the advancement of professional corrections world wide, and we have the ambition to become still more prominent. That creates obligations. As new President, I started networking and visited strategic contacts in countries that can be considered as major "new frontiers" for ICPA: Romania, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey. I also visited the Middle European Correctional Roundtable (MECR) in Switzerland. I am happy to say that many countries have told me that they are really willing to come to ICPA meetings and share good practices. Further, at the European level, the official launch of EuroPris in October and subsequent actions took our attention. EuroPris may be seen as an example of a regional structure with ICPA affinity. EuroPris might also become a vehicle for the further growth of ICPA in South and Eastern Europe. There may be comparable developments to other regions within ICPA.

Together with the Board, I am striving to take further the strategic discussion on the aims, objectives and direction of ICPA. The presentation in my closing remarks in Singapore called for the creation of four key Strategic Committees to take forward the development and direction of the Association. Over recent weeks the Strategic Committees have begun to elaborate how they intend to do this. At the next Strategic Planning meeting of the Board in March 2012 we will develop these initiatives into concrete proposals that I will share with you. You might quickly go through the Presidents Acceptance speech on this website again (view presentation).

One of the tasks of the President is to chair the ICPA Board Meetings. There have been three of them to date: September 16th in Singapore with everybody still enjoying the memory of our great Conference; thereafter the conference calls in November and December. The meetings are very interesting to chair. It feels good to know everybody from different parts of the world and in different time zones present to work together and bring things forward. (It is the fate of Australia to be the most unlucky in their timezone). Also with Board colleagues, I am discussing the issue of fundraising and finding new ways. Probably needless to say, I regularly meet Ed Wozniak, the Executive Director, and the Belgian and Dutch members of the Secretariat. Tineke DeWaele, as Executive Director Designate, and Koert Swierstra are having the challenging task to take over Ed's work for ICPA in due course. We are working on the optimal division of tasks.

Of much relevance during the past 100 days also, has been the closing and handing over of responsibilities as Director-General of the Dutch Custodial Institutions Agency, a role that I have been in the opportunity to fulfill during the last years.

Now after this short review, may I wish you all, ICPA members and visitors of this website, a pleasant ending of the year 2011 and a fruitful 2012! It will be a challenging and inspiring period for ICPA again. I hope that together we can all contribute to that.

Peter van der Sande
ICPA President




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