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By Mary Ellen Cosenza, ACT President
Dear Colleagues,
It is amazing how quickly time is flying by! Before you know it the Summer will have flown by and it will be Fall! Of course that will bring us closer to our Annual Meeting November 8–11, 2015 in Summerlin, Nevada. So I hope everyone has registered or is planning to register for the meeting soon. We have several special events planned for the meeting that you will not want to miss, so be sure to register for these as well! These include our Golf Outing, 2nd Tox Trot, our Welcome Reception, and the Member Mixer. All of this is in addition to our scientific program and Sunday’s Continuing Education courses. I want to thank all of those volunteers who have worked so hard on the Program Committee, Education Committee, Council and staff at AIM who have been working so hard over the last several months to prepare for another great meeting.
Coming this Summer is a new Mentoring Program being developed by the Young Professional Outreach Subcommittee led by Councilor Nancy Bordelon. Watch for an upcoming announcement that will call for Mentors! Exciting activities are being developed for this new, free program for members only.
Also coming soon is the new ACT Awards Fund Endowment! Thanks to the very hard work of former Councilor Alan Brown, ACT Treasurer Alan Hoberman and the Finance Committee, ACT Council formally approved the creation of the new endowment last month. Suggested bylaw changes will be posted next week for member comment to include the creation of an ACT Endowment and Institutional Fund Committee that will oversee the investments of these funds. More details on this exciting new chapter of ACT will be outlined in the Fall newsletter!
I would like to thank the many members who completed the recent Membership Survey. Council was very pleased with the positive input that supports many current initiatives as well as some new initiatives in development. Your input is appreciated and is already being used by Council in making strategic decisions about the organization, such as during Council's two-day strategic planning meeting last month. At this year’s strategic planning meeting we reviewed the Strategic Map developed at last year’s meeting, reviewed progress made by the Tracks of Work groups, made some minor modifications to the Plan based on work completed and on the Membership Survey results. Overall, the Council and I were pleased with the progress made on many of the goals that came from our Strategic Map as outlined last year. Some of the objectives were obtained (example: Developing a Long-Range Financial Strategy) and removed, others were modified and some new ones were added. A more detailed update on the Map will be presented in the next newsletter.
The ACT Nominating Committee has assembled an impressive ballot for the 2015–2016 ACT Election. Please view the ballot and vote now! The deadline to vote is August 14, 2015.
I want to encourage all ACT members to get involved in the College. If you are not running this year for an elected committee think about throwing your name in the ring for next year. There are also appointed committees that you can volunteer to help with. Send an email to acthq@actox.org and we’ll get you involved! This is your College and ACT is made stronger every year by members like you!
I want to take this opportunity to thank the staff at AIM. They may not be as visible to those not on Council or Committees but I can assure you that they are constantly working behind the scenes to keep the College running. This includes on-going Committee meetings, Council activities, Educational Courses that ACT runs throughout the year, liaisons with other societies, and of course planning for our annual meetings each year. I want to recognize our Executive Director Nancy Rollman, Program Manager Elisa Turner, Meeting Manager Elsa Cannon, and Senior Program Coordinator Jordan Ballance.
Enjoy your Summer.
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