Membership: Ivy Fangyu Lin (McGill '17) – Chair, Kerri-Lyn Chong (UBC '18), Sunny Virdi (Manitoba '16), Olivier Marceau (Laval '17), Deborah Niles (CDSPI) – consultant, Dean Smith (CDA) – consultant, Monique Bouchard (Secretariat) – staff support

Activities

Since the last AGM, the ICC has completed the following tasks:

• Incorporate logo into the Facebook page and website
• Develop a letterhead and business cards
• Update and distribute the FCDSA PowerPoint presentation
• Develop a e-mail template to invite all students from member associations to “like” the Facebook page
• Feature a FCDSA representative on the Facebook page periodically
• Gather and post articles of interest gathered from different schools’ website on the Facebook page
• Explored options to organize a Facebook contest
• Participate in the first National Forum and propose ways to improve it

Results

The Facebook page continues to gain an audience and has 576 “likes” as of June 1, 2016 and the number of people engaged has significantly increased. The total number of individual post likes reached 1.4k between June 10th 2015 and June 1, 2016, with peaks corresponding to the posting of FCDSA members’ biographies. In fact, each of these members’ biographies gathered more than 1k reaches each.

Business cards have been printed and distributed to members of the FCDSA Executive and Committee Chairs. The letterhead has been distributed to use for all FCDSA representatives.

All new students in the member associations have been given the FCDSA PowerPoint presentation in the beginning of the year.

Summary and Reflection

The number of Facebook reaches has increased tremendously in the past year, but the engagement number is still relatively low. All Council members are invited to visit the page and “Like” the page if you haven’t already done so and to engage in the Facebook posts by liking and commenting. We need to find ways for students of member associations to become more involved in the Facebook page, including how to contribute to the postings.  

The Facebook contest is postponed due to lack of funds for the prize. Future ideas for Facebook contests can include: contests encouraging dental students to share news of interest from their universities, prizes offered to encourage participation in a FCDSA survey for students, and contests challenging dental students to address their mental and physical well-being.

As a committee dedicated to connect with its member associations and their students, it would be a good idea for the Internal Communication Committee to inquire their opinion on a more regular basis, starting with, for example, a survey to identify national issues that are affecting them that the FCDSA can potentially tackle.

Since there has only been one introductory National Forum web-conference, the report was postponed until there are a few more meetings where participants discuss specific issues. Feedback should be obtained from participants after each meeting to keep track of the web-conferences’ efficiency and usefulness, and to address any areas needing improvement. The future web-conferences should also be advertised on the Facebook group and website, in order to keep the students informed about the FCDSA’s actions and to give them the opportunity to voice their suggestions.

Next Steps

1. Increase student participation in posting to the Facebook page by setting up a system for post submission by students.
2. Continue to feature committee members and student leaders on the Facebook page to increase visibility.
3. Work with the finance committee to organize contests on the Facebook page to increase its visibility.
4. Conduct survey among member associations to identify issues that FCDSA can potentially tackle.
5. Attend future National Forum web-conferences, create a survey to get feedback from the attendees, and write up a report.
6. Advertise web-conferences by creating a poster and by scheduling Facebook posts and website content.

June 1, 2016

Ivy Fangyu Lin (McGill ’17)

Internal Communications Committee Chair