CMP | Which category does my CMP course fit into?

Following the instructions about how to report your CMP hours and actually doing may be two separate things.

I’m about to report my first extended education experience, so I thought I would bring you along with me to see the decisions that need to be made. The course I recently participated in was a two-day (16 hours total) intensive workshop on everything to do with vegetated roofs or ‘green roofs’. I took this course through an Italian company that, of course, is not ERB approved and is located in Bolzano. We covered everything from construction specifications to plant selections and water management, each subject presented by a different professional.

So, where does this course fall in the list of categories for BD&C? And how much of my 16 hours do I report?

STEP 1 | Determine what type of activity or method of delivery my CE hours fall under.

Since my course was not ERB approved, nor was it conducted through an accredited University or College, it must fall under ‘Section 2: Live Presentations’.

STEP 2 | Note the limitations of the chosen method of delivery.

Live presentations must be between 50 and 90 minutes in length. I’m assuming this means you can only report up to 90 minutes in length for each individual presentation, not that if you attend something longer you must leave the room at 90 minutes! This limitation of 90 minutes does not make a lot of sense, however, since in the GBCI’s own example “a 120 minute program earns 2 hours”. I will try to report the full length of each presentation and see how it goes.

I can report 1 CE hour for the first hour of the presentation, and then 0.5 CE hours for every full half of one activity hour (30 minutes).

CE hours earned under this method may not exceed 5 hours per reporting period. Meaning there is no way that my 16 hours will count. So I should select 5 hours of presentations in categories that I need (which at the moment is all of them!). But this is important to remember near the end of my reporting period in case substituting the presentation in water management for the presentation on plant selection helps me reach my category minimums.

STEP 3 | Verifying my documentation.

I have no idea what the statistics are for the likelihood of being audited, but I’d rather be ready than scramble to assemble the appropriate documents later. Therefore I am going to use the GBCI-issued form titled ‘Activity Validation Form: Live Presentations’ to help me record exactly what happened.

GBCI | Activity Validation Form: Live Presentations

I’m just filling it out minimally in order to remember the bare bones. I also have a folder where I save all the PDF’s of everything I was given during the presentation and my notes. This way, if I happen to get audited, I can translate from Italian on an as-needed basis.

STEP 4 | Reporting the hours.

My question, since this is my first time, is whether I can report all of my CE hours and hope that GBCI works out my minimums from that… or is I need to keep track of everything and only report the end result minimums.

For this reason, I’m only submitting the information from one of the presentations. Once I get a feel for what it looks like I will update this post accordingly. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: thanks to reader, Maria, I’ve decided to just report all the hours of everything I did. Maria said they audit somewhere around 5-7%, and it’s better to have a whole bunch of stuff reported in case they reject things. Thanks, Maria!