Friday Nov. 21st was the first local GPUG chapter meeting held in the brand new offices of Microsoft downtown Montreal. The meeting was scheduled from 8:30am to noon, but I showed up there five minutes before eight to be sure that everything was ready in time. I arrived at the door at the same moment as the nice lady from the reception and we had a short chat about the company I’m working for, which she found very interesting (who’s not fascinated by CSI Miami😊?), before she led me to the room that was reserved for the meeting.
The new conference rooms are really nice and the setup was quick and easy (kudos to that new control console for the projector in form of a mini touch pad). The first attendees arrived already ahead of time at 8:00 and were promptly headed to the room.. At 8:30 we had 4 attendees in the room, out of the 8 that had registered to the meeting… so we waited a little moment more, starting to chat about GPUG and the recent Summit in St-Louis. Shortly after arrived the catering service with coffee, some pastries and fruits.. Thank You GPUG for this sweet attention.
As no other participants showed up, we decided to start the meeting and went on with the opening of the session and starting the discussion about kicking off a new local chapter in Montréal. The discussion went on well for about 20 minutes to explain what the purpose and the benefits of a local GPUG Chapter are.
After that brief intro, we moved to the actual meat of the morning, an educational session about Disaster Recovery Planning for Dynamics GP, a session that I had presented at the GPUG Summit in St-Louis last month. The PowerPoint material can be found here : GPA01-GPUGSummit2014_SessionDeck_DisasterRecovery.
After the session presentation and a short cofee break, it was time to have a brief review of the previous month’s GPUG Summit 2014 in St-Louis, MO. The video below will provide you a quick glimpse of what the event was like.
Here is also a short presentation of the next GPUG Summit 2015 destination, the beautiful Reno Lake Tahoe in Nevada.
The meeting went on with the presentation of member’s showcase, as I made a half-hour introduction of Ultra-Electronics Forensic Technology Inc., also known as FTI. I went thru the history of the company and our current position in the market, with a presence in more than 60 countries around the world, and being a leader in the domain of ballistic identification. More about FTI can be found here : http://forensictechnology.com/about/
I think I was able to capture the audience with the presentation of our company, especially when considering that most people associate Forensics with the CSI TV show (see more about this here). However, not many people know that the ballistic identification system that is used in the TV show is really an full working IBIS station that FTI sold to the producer many years ago. For those who want to know more about our company, there is a full load of brochure to download from our site.
As we came to the end of the morning, it was time to wrap the meeting and head back to our respective offices. My feeling is that it was a first step into what I hope will be a long successful local GPUG Chapter. Despite the fact that we were only five people attending this first meeting, I’m confident that we’ll be able to build a strong chapter. From the discussion that I had with one of the present partner, there seems to be way over 300 customers using Dynamics Great Plains in the greater Montreal area, so there is definitely room for more members :-).
For now, there were no nomination to fill the position for the local chapter, but I welcome any member to register and fill for a position.Below is an excerpt from the GPUG Chapter manual :
Local Chapter Leadership Roles
Persons leading Chapters must be Microsoft Dynamics GP Users. The roles defined below, provide guidelines
for what common duties are necessary for a smooth running chapter:
Chair Person
- Oversees delivery of and facilitates Chapter Meetings
- Serves as a point person to GPUG and represents the chapter
- Communicates final agenda, location, schedule and other items needed to execute the meetings
- Helps find and selects subject matter experts who can help present
- Oversees survey/feedback/continuous improvement of their chapter
- Provides feedback to GPUG on topics, presenters, member participation
- Participates in GPUG Chapter Leadership calls and training when possible
Co-Chair Person
- Will assist in sharing duties with Chair Person
Vice Chair for Membership
- Oversees chapter membership roster for accuracy and completeness
- Welcomes attendees, updates attendance reports and submits to GPUG
- Generates creative ideas to drive User and Partner attendance
- Participates in GPUG Chapter Leadership calls and training when possible
Vice Chair for Communication
- Oversees communication to members at a local level via GPUG Collaborate, social media, etc.
- Assists in driving attendance by utilizing the GPUG membership directory, partners, ISVs
- Document activities of meetings, presenters and topics and record Chapter history
- Submits summary of meeting for GPUG Magazine (photos are great)
- Participates in GPUG Chapter Leadership calls and training when possible
The following openings are available :
- Co-Chair Person
- Vice Chair for Membership
- Vice Chair for Communication
GPUG has a great wealth of material to support the regional chapters and provides also the logistics to help organize the meetings, so there isn’t really a giant amount of prep work, except to plan at least two presentations for each meeting.
The 2015 Meeting Dates have been set and should help everyone to plan accordingly their attendance :
1. Wednesday Feb. 18th, 2015
2. Wednesday April 15th, 2015
3. Wednesday Aug. 19th, 2015
4. Wednesday Nov. 18th, 2015
The meetings for Q1/Q2 will be held in Microsoft’s offices downtown Montréal, from 8:30 to Noon again. For the second part of the year, we might be able to have them organized at one of the members corporate office and take the opportunity for a member showcase.
Some of the 2015 Meeting Topics that were suggested:
1. GP 2015 & GP 2013
2. GP Web Client
3. Support Debugging Tool
4. BI & Reporting/Project Accounting
I want to Thank again here the people from Microsoft Canada in Montreal, especially Stephan Mondoux for inviting us to use their brand new meeting rooms, and of course Whitney Derks & Jennifer Dufresne from GPUG for arranging the catering. Thank you also to the participants that took some time off from their work to attend this event.
The goal for next year is to spread the word and try double the number of attendees we had for this first meeting. Until then, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Your truthfully chapter Chair Person.
PS: Bellow is the link for the regional GPUG Chapter certificate.
The Dynamics GP Geek Blog 
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