Presidents Letter
Dear MCPA Member:
On behalf of the Board of Directors I would like to thank you for being a member of the Minnesota Crime Prevention Association.
2020 brought challenges to everyone, especially crime prevention. With so many unknowns, crime prevention practitioners were looking for ways to reach the community from afar. Many of you found creative ways to stay engaged with your community through videos, online trainings, drive thru events and try this at home ideas. In true crime prevention fashion, you were also more than willing to share it all with your fellow practitioners.
As the board looked for ways to stay engaged and to assist our member, we started to host monthly zoom meetings where everyone could share all of your ideas with others. This was a great way to stay involved, stay connected and learn from each other.
Fortunately, we were able to hold our Crime Prevention Practitioner course and a Day 1 Crime Free class virtually. We learned from this experience and evaluated the pros and cons of virtual events. Since the Day 1 class reaches a wide variety of people, we are considering continuing to offer a virtual option for this training.
Due to the fall conference being canceled, we were unable to hold the annual Board of Directors election. The board voted to extend the terms of the current board members for an additional year, through 2021. Currently, we still plan to hold the annual conference in Mankato, October 3rd – 5th. We will continue to monitor social distancing guidelines and departments’ decisions to allow their employees to travel and attend in person trainings. If budgets are a concern, the MCPA has scholarships for agencies to attend the conference at no charge. This funding was provided through a grant from the Land O’ Lakes Foundation. Scholarship applications are available on the webpage under conference information.
As the COVID restrictions change, please check our website and your email for updates regarding any of our upcoming events, such as the annual Night to Unite kick-off breakfast, baseball trading cards, trainings, and the conference.
We hope we can see you (in person) at one of our events this year!
Sincerely,
Alicia Mages
Minnesota Crime Prevention Association, President
Waite Park Police Department, Community Outreach Specialist
MCPA Annual Conference
The MCPA hosts an annual statewide conference in October of each year. This conference features; educational breakout sessions, exhibitors, silent auction, Bingo, and several networking opportunities. The conference is a great way to learn about crime prevention topics and network with a variety of officers from many different agencies throughout Minnesota.