Champions: Dave Gourlay and Josy Burrough

For years, Dave Gourlay, the now-retired City Manager for Grande Prairie, nurtured a strong belief in lifelong learning but struggled with how he could help the City's outside workers. "That's where new opportunities lay," he recalls as he reflects on how he struck gold in 2002. "The efforts of CUPE Local 787 to offer learning resonated with me and I was moved by the testimonials at that year's CAMA conference." He was well aware that employees knew the people who were having difficulty and that managers and supervisors did not. During the next month, Dave took what he had Dave Gourlay and his wife, Marg, at learned from CUPE and CAMA and Dave's retirement party. began setting up a workplace learning committee for Grande Prairie.

Getting started, with help

He first identified a few key people who were open to new ideas, to new ways of reaching goals, and to working with their peers. He challenged them to set up a committee that shared their interests in opening up learning opportunities, especially for peer learning. Dave also made two important commitments to staff: any winner of a CAMA award would go the conference to receive the award in person and anyone who applied for a learning opportunity would get funding.

The first person Dave approached was Josy Burrough, then President of CUPE local 787 and now Parks Manager and co-chair of the Workplace Learning Committee. Josy also credits CAMA's regional literacy conference in 2005 as the spur for change. "That conference really helped us broaden our definition of literacy to include essential skills. It opened our eyes. It's not just reading, writing, and math and it's not just workplace. It goes beyond that." In fact, the Workplace Learning Committee has offered face-to-face communication, computer and income tax courses, courses on digital equipment (cameras, phones, iPods), bookkeeping, and environmental awareness, along with GED. All this happened in its first two years!