Last night, after a quick change from capris and bare feet to Little Black Dress and heels, I attended IABC/Toronto‘s OVATION awards night in downtown Toronto, “applauding excellence in communications.”

I’m pleased to say that I was part of a team accepting an Award of Merit. Over two years, Cyrus Mavalwala, Veronica Feihl, Lee Weisser and I were the executive team directing IABC’s Alliance of Independent Practitioners (now called Professional Independent Communicators).

Our award recognized that we helped breathe new life into this special interest group and took it from 44 members in 2004 to 84 in 2006. The group recently hit the 100-member mark and is going strong.

What is probably most satisfying about the work we did is that (a) we were all volunteers and (b) we had virtually no budget. As the judging comments said, “Great results given resources and budget challenges. Sound programming using research and addressing various audiences.”