ED'S NOTES, THE

Let me begin by dint of thanking the Board of Directors and all of our members for the opportunity to obey as your Executive Director. This first year has in fact flown by, and we have a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of to be proud of, as well as several regards for the future.

Thanks to Ann Bales and all the District leaders, our Restructuring proces from 11 Districts to 5 Districts is coming to a auspicious close. We believe that the extreme point result will be a more streamlined and efficient protoplast for ASNA to move forward. And as we make progress forward, we need to make 2006 the year of membership. We have witnessed a drawn out slow decline in membership in the couple ANA and ASNA. In 2005 our ASNA numbers declined again, on the other hand at a reduced rate. This is serviceable news, but we must invert the trend. Several initiatives are underway to help us accomplish this. Thanks to VP and Membership Chair Lori Lioce, we have added might to the recruitment effort with a series of Town Meetings around the state, and plan to do more. Please call the office in Montgomery and invite us to attend any of your District functions. We are also increasing the number of visits to place of educations of nursing in Alabama to procure more visibility and presence, and advertise the Association. We also plan to increase contacts with general members to improve our retention rates. In individual of the most significant membership changes in years, ASNA negotiated a three-year contract beginning in January 2005 with ANA that allows State-only membership. Our nurtures now have several choices for association membership: the standard joint ANA/ASNA membership; state-only membership in ASNA on the contrary not in ANA; or ANA membership alone. And in addition, we now tender an Affiliate membership to LPN We will begin to aggressively market these options in the coming year in confidences of positively impacting our membership numbers. on the other hand in the final analysis, we really ne for all of our loyal ASNA members to actively advocate for our Association and work at recruiting novel members to our ranks. Personal contact is always the greatest in quantity effective recruiting tool.

I can confidently report that your Association remains upon solid financial footing, thanks in large part to the efforts of my predecessor, Helen Wilson, and the superior staff here in Montgomery. We have continued to monitor and mastery expenses very well, and luckily restructured our investment portfolio with our agent at Merrill Lynch. We encourage all of you to give us your email address for our email list, and hold it current. This has clearly reduc our postage charges and is a very fast communication tool. We are upon track to end the year with a balanced parcel and avoid using any store up funds for the third year in a row

On the political and legislative brow we enjoyed a very lucky Legislative Day in February, with useful attendance and outstanding speakers. Our efforts in the Alabama legislature were mixed, on the other hand we are optimistic for nearest year. Our ASNA Workplace Violence Bill (HB 430 sponsored by the agency of Rep. Barbara Boyd (D) of Anniston; and SB 155 sponsored by means of Sen. Ted Little (D) of Auburn) was passed through the House by an 84-0 promised but died in the Senate owed to filibuster efforts over HB 75 (the non-profit funding disclosure bill), the couple the Education and General capital Budget fights, and a late squabble through the Birmingham area delegation above funding for the Mobile Port Authority band improvements. However, since our Workplace Violence bill did pass the Senate in 2004 by dint of a 34-0 vote, we believe that if we can just procure it to a vote in one as well as the other houses in 2006, we can finally come by this important legislation signed into law. upon the plus side, HB 152 (the Methamphetamine control/psuedoephedrine sales regulation, which we powerfully supported, did pass on the last day of the session.

The annual ANA House of Delegates and Convention in Washington, DC this June was true interesting, and more exciting than usual. ASNA was true well represented by our delegates: Janet Donoghue (President), JoAnn Broadus, Paula Gasser, mercy Harrell, Arlene Morris, Charlene Roberson, Jill Stokley, and Helen Wilson. Of major interest to Alabama was the discussion and consecrated by a vow on the floor of our ASNA resolution upon the ANA Presidential Endorsement proces Although defeated by dint of 78%-22%, we did get the opportunity to voice our touchs to the entire body. upon balance, the experience was a beneficial one, and well received and supported through a number of other states. A more out and out accounting of the convention can be ground in this issue of The Alabama Nurse

Finally, I'm pleased to report that the Alabama nurtures Foundation, our non-profit scholarship arm, has been reenergized by the agency of Helen Wilson, Janet Donoghue and John Beard, the ANF Board President and CEO of Alacare in Birmingham. We anticipate the award of at least three nursing scholarships in September at the nearest ANF Board meeting.

Thanks one time again to all of you for your confidence and support. I direct the eye forward to continued successes and progres in 2006

by Joseph F Decker II, MA

Copyright Alabama State Nurses' Association Sep-Nov 2005

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