What Has the Board of Directors Been Up to Anyway?
Dear fellow AHSE members,
Your Board of Directors thought it might make for a nice gesture to give you all some insight as to what goes on behind the scenes. Here’s a brief synopsis of the Board’s activities of late.
Our primary focus over this year has been to get the new AHSE website up’n running, with an eye to improving the functionality and appearance of the website. Additionally, we have tried to improve member benefits, while reducing AHSE expenses and developing strategies for growing our membership.
Our new website was launched mid-April 2011 after an extensive (and may we add, exhaustive) search for a suitable web developer. This involved a comprehensive vetting of a handful of companies during our selection process. There were many factors to weigh and quite a bit of trial and error by the Website Development Committee, by Board members, and by volunteers who all pitched in to develop the overall content and design of the website. This remains an ongoing process as continued improvements to the website will add new pages to offer members and the public more information about the AHSE.
Once the site was up and fully functional the Board voted to give members the ability to describe their personal practice on the Members Profile. Few decisions are ever straight-forward, and this too necessitated the creation of a set of guidelines for members to follow in composing optimally effective profiles (if you haven’t yet created your expanded personal profile please feel free to do so anytime). In addition, your new website has been designed to include a place for members to post their own sponsored events. There is also a members only section open to all members including student and associate members. Finally, the website now offers sufficient storage space to obviate our previous need for physical office space and eliminate the annual expenses incurred in renting office space, for an overall reduction in operating costs.
Aside from our intensive focus on the website development, we have also turned our attention to membership, with a membership drive targeting both newly certified graduates of N.I. and former members who for one reason or another may have never joined, or who have been disaffected over the years. In an initial effort to coax inactive members back to membership status the Board has voted to extend membership through the 2012 fiscal year to anyone who renews or rejoins during the remainder of 2011. Conveniently, members can now (re)activate their memberships online at the new website. Yea! We are continuing to develop strategies for enhancing membership on both these fronts.
One exciting development is the (obvious if you’re reading this) relaunching of the SomaTimes as an e-newsletter. Hopefully, the SomaTimes can serve as a central meeting place (albeit virtual) for all members to share and participate as they will. Please be advised, the SomaTimes seeks your active support and participation with articles, book reviews, letters to the editor, etc. Right off the bat, the SomaTimes would engage your help in helping us to update contact information for a number of former members who have fallen out of the loop – you’ll receive a email about this in the next couple of weeks.
In other news, Director at Large, Gabriel Posner has agreed to be the 2012 Convention Education Chair. He will meet with Susan Koenig to prepare for this role. Members are urged to support him in this role by offering any education suggestions directly to Gabriel or to the Board.
That’s all the news for now. The work goes on with monthly board meetings and active committees. We welcome your engagement.
Sincerely,
Your AHSE Board