In February of 2006, a group of regional district emergency program managers met in Kamloops to explore the possibility of forming an association to facilitate the sharing of information, ideas and resources. At that historic meeting the decision was made to proceed with the formation of an association and open membership to everyone in BC in the emergency management field.

The first meeting of the BCEMA (as we were originally called) was at the EP conference of 2006. 65 people attended an open forum discussion on the association. The forum was intended to gauge interest, solicit support, and understand the role such an association could fullfill. From this meeting, a committee was formed with the mandate to explore all options of formalizing an association.

Timing was good: seed money and non-profit society requirements were provided to us by the Canadian Emergency Preparedness Association-BC (CEPA) that was in the process of disbanding. This allowed BCAEM to inherit CEPA-BC's status as a society and a small amount of funds which greatly helped the new board get the association off the ground.

At the 2007 EP Conference, our constitution and bylaws were adopted and the old CEPA-BC executive handed over the association to the new board. At this point, the association officially became known as the British Columbia Association of Emergency Managers (BCAEM) and all official paperwork was filed to change the name.

In 2008, bcaem.ca was launched as well as the online discussion list BCAEM-d. These 2 critical resources have been instrumental in enabling EM professionals to communicate with one another and for the association to begin the process of providing online resources to the membership. This website and mailing list was developed and hosted at not cost to the association by a member. While fullfilling a gap during the first few years of the association, the board soon realized a more permenant solution was required and began exploring its options.

2009 was a milestone in many ways with BCAEM taking on the funding/sponsorship of all EM training previously provided by the Province of BC. This program consumed most our time and resources. Much was learned and the legacy is evident in the online resources presently available in the training and development section of the website.

In the fall of 2010, the Association released a professionally designed and hosted website and membership management system. This system will facilitate updating the website and managing membership workflows including registration, payments, renewals, and membership record management. This will greatly reduce the time required for volunteer board members to perform basic back office tasks in support of the organization and will provide a more efficient method for members to interact with the association.

If you have any ideas or concerns moving forwards, please let us know! Get involved and help define the upcoming years of BCAEM history!