Final Semester Recap

The IME Class has been incredibly busy this past semester, and it is absolutely crazy to think that the year is already coming to an end. It's been a wonderful year full of countless valuable experiences that have helped us all grow as young professionals. 

The class worked very hard together to organize and present the "Bowling For a Cause" Fundraiser, in partnership with the Lethbridge and District YWCA's Harbour House. The event took place on March 19th at Holiday Bowl where teams signed up to compete in a charity bowling tournament. The event also included a silent auction, as well as a wrap-up evening hosted at The Spice Grill where 10% of all proceeds at the restaurant that evening was donated. The class was also lucky enough to work with the Enmax Centre to set up a booth at the final Hurricanes Home Game of the season, as well as auction off an entire Box Suite for the Marianna's Trench Concert. Overall "Bowling For a Cause" was a great success, and together we helped raise over $1500 for Harbour House!

In other news, members of the IME class all had the opportunity to compete in the KPMG Case Competition. Three out of the Top Four teams in the competition were members of the IME Class, and we are very proud to announce the an IME team took home first place! Congratulations to Katherin Colburn-Swartz, Alex Glydon, and Jacquelyn Walker on their amazing accomplishment! Sixteen out of the past Eighteen winners of the KPMG Case Competition have come from the Integrated Management Experience Class. As you can see, this program helps us develop valuable skills that pay off!

Throughout the semester, we also had the opportunity to listen to several incredible guest speakers. Greg Stonehocker is a reputable ActionCoach for businesses, and provided us with some valuable insight into the importance of Networking. Michelle Phaneuf of Workplace Fairness Alberta helped our class learn how to 'Structure Conversations for Business Success'. Finally, Amanda Schewaga from The Marketing Girl came and spoke to our class on Marketing, with an emphasis on Social Media. Many of the IME students also attended various PDP industry nights on and off campus. These included the ATB Money workshop, marketing conferences, international business nights, finance nights and many more. All of these events provided the IME class with the opportunity to network with industry professionals, as well as learn and expand our marketable skills.

As the semester comes to a close, it is important to look back and reflect on the many doors that this program opened us up to. While it was a lot of hard work, each and every student has come out of this year stronger, more confident, and more prepared for the business world! 

IME is proud to announce that they will be working with the Lethbridge Special Olympics next year for their community projects. Meetings with future IME students are already taking place, and this years IME class is looking forward to seeing the great legacy of IME continue!

Spring Semester Here We Come!

The IME class is ready for 2016, after a nice and relaxing holiday break. All groups are back and already continuing on developing their ideas for this year's charity event planning with YWCA’s Harbour House. In other news the class has also been invited to participate in the University's KPMG case competition. Students in groups of three, will be tasked with tackling a general business strategy case. They will be expected to send in a written document for judging and if successful be entered into the finals. Winners of the competition will be honoured at the University Scholarship Dinner and presented with trophies. The IME class is very excited for the opportunity to apply their their skills in this years KPMG case competition.

Giftwrapping

On December 11, a few members of the 2015 IME class took part in the annual Giftwrapping program at Park Place Mall! This event is ran by Volunteer Lethbridge and provides a service for anyone to come in and get their gifts wrapped with all proceeds going towards Volunteer Lethbridge programs and services. This includes Project Paintbrush, Leaders of Tomorrow, Human Voice Drive and the D.O.E.S. program. The Giftwrapping program is entirely volunteer driven and the IME class was eager to lend their time to help such a wonderful cause in the community. 

The Giftwrapping booth is located near Santa's station at the Park Place Mall and will be available during all mall hours up until close on Christmas Eve. So if you would like to get your presents wrapped this year, or are looking at volunteering then head on down to the booth for more information or visit the VL website. 

For more information on Volunteer Lethbridge or if you are ever in search of opportunities to volunteer within the community, visit www.volunteerlethbridge.com  

Just About Christmas

Before we all prepare to wrap all our presents, decorate our trees, and drink all the eggnog, IME class had our final presentations for our YWCA projects this morning. Everyone did an absolutely amazing job providing their solutions to the YWCA's Duty To Accommodate problem. Hopefully Kristine can use some of the solutions to help the YWCA create a policy that works for them! 

All the teams will continue to work on their sponsorship ideas over the Christmas break, but hopefully we all get some time to relax and spend time with friends and family! 

Until January, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the IME team of 2015. See you in 2016!  

Risk Management and Safety

As the IME class begins thinking of concepts for a sponsored event, it is important to keep in mind the risks and safety concerns with these off campus events. Toby Clark, here at campus safety has spoken to us, and gave a presentation on managing risks associated with these events. This presentation went into depth on larger concepts such as liability and safety to the little things like whether we can have either Coke or Pepsi products at our event. The first step to managing risks is taking the "no fun" approach and thinking of everything that can go wrong at an event. After that is to come up with ways that we can reduce the chances of such outcomes from happening. This is a very large part of event planning, and can ultimately ensure a much happier time for everyone.

Overall this was a very insightful presentation, and valuable knowledge when planning out any large events for any purpose.

Marketing IMC Workshop

Today we had the privilege of having Bob Cooney here in our IME class to talk about communication. Cooney works in the field of communication, helping other organizations communicate with other organizations, or media. He came in today to tell us how to market ourselves, our school and any sales pitches. Ultimately, he told us how to say all the right stuff! After telling us how to get in the news (do good and smart things, not bad and dumb things), he continued by telling us what counts as news (unusual conflict will always make news), and finished off by giving us a few helpful hints when talking to reporters (everything, and he did mean everything is always...ALWAYS on the record!).

All in all, a very exciting day in the IME class! Thursday brings us a new guest speaker and a new workshop! Things are always moving forward!

Follow Bob Cooney on twitter! @bobcooney

Follow us on Twitter:  @ime_uleth             or Facebook: University of Lethbridge IME

YWCA Project

The University of Lethbridge IME class is excited to be given the opportunity to work with the YWCA Lethbridge & District - a local non-profit within the community. After meeting with Kristine Kassie, CEO of the organization, our class has been tasked with developing a Policy and Procedures handbook to handle the issue of ‘Duty of Accommodate’. Specifically, management is looking for us to help create a process chart in order to simplify the steps that need to be taken when dealing with accommodation issues within the workplace. Additionally, they are looking for help in communicating with physicians in order to better understand what activities a person can do based on the physical demands of their job. This project has been designed as a live case that each of the groups within IME have an opportunity to develop a solution that they will present to the class and Kristine. We are looking forward to applying our existing knowledge into a real-life situation with the hopes of implementing this into the YWCA!

PD Workshop - Colours (personality)

The class was recently given the opportunity to have our personalities tested to find out which colour or plaid pattern each student possessed underneath the True Colours test. The colour personalities being orange, blue, green and gold. The assessment asked students to identify their “color spectrum” using four cards that represented key personality types. Each color has particular strengths and each analyzes, conceptualizes, understands, interacts and learns differently. It was explained to us by these differences, if not acknowledged and understood, can become barriers to interpersonal communication, making understanding between people of different types difficult. It was a great experience for the students and it gave the separate groups insight on how to communicate and work together more effectively.

Welcome to IME!

We are the Integrated Management Experience class of the 2015 semester! Several members of the IME class (hereafter known as Risky Business Consulting) have put in blood, sweat, and tears to put together a website that provides information, videos, pictures, biographies, and other relative and interesting information!  Being management students we believe that this program is a great opportunity to apply the knowledge we will learn in class and apply it in real world settings. For example making this website; an experience we would have never had the chance to be a part of without IME. While requiring effort from the entire class, this website will have the potential to reach people throughout the school community and hopefully the Lethbridge community! We are very excited about the experiences that await us, and we hope you follow us on our journey through IME.