Merry Christmas

Well, a new filter within our school distict has cramped my blogging recently, so for that, I apologize.

But, I wanted to take this moment to say to everyone (and I believe I can speak for the entire SWATA Executive Board), that we wish you and your family a wonderful and fulfilling Christmas and a Happy New Year. Be thankful for what you have and always tell those around you how much they mean to you.

Update...finally!

First, let me apologize for so long between blog posts. Hurricane Ike put a crimp in my plans, and holes in my fence and roof, but we fared much better than many others, and I'm finally feeling back on track. To our colleagues on the hard-hit coast from Freeport to Sabine Pass, you are in the thoughts of the SWATA family; please let us know if there is anything we can do.

Second, the work of SWATA has continued since our last communication.

• We have signed the contract with the Houston Westin Galleria for the 2011 Annual Meeting.
• We have signed a contract with the NATA Research and Education Foundation to establish an endowed SWATA scholarship for Master's degree students.
• We have established a regional grant program to assist with the costs of regional AT meetings (e.g., NTATS, GHATS, SPATS, etc.).
• We are preparing to host the golf tournament for the NATA Annual Meeting in San Antonio next June.

In addition, we are preparing for the ATSA's Competency Workshop January 30 and 31 in Dallas.

We are also preparing for the Board's Midwinter meeting January 31 and February 1 in Lubbock, Texas. In connection with Midwinter, the Board is hosting a reception from 6 to 8 PM on Saturday, January 31 in Lubbock, so please plan to stop by and chat with us.

I would also like to remind everyone that we will have an election next spring for Second Vice President. Past President Melinda Terry is accepting nominations from now through February 15.

I'll try to post more frequently from here on to keep you up to date with SWATA activities.

Thanks for supporting your professional association, and we'll be in touch soon.

Think Pink, Part II

For the record, the Chargers fell to the Indians 28-14 on Think Pink night in Keller, but a check for $13,240 was presented to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The 3 Day Walk is only 5 short weeks away - plenty of time for you to get involved and help make a difference………find out more at www.the3day.org.

Think Pink!!

The Mighty Chargers from Keller Central High School are playing the Fighting Indians from Keller High School tomorrow night. Inner-city rivalry. Bragging rights. District victory at stake. Why in the world would I be mentioning this in the SWATA Blog? Well, tomorrow nights game has been designated as a “Think Pink” game in our district. Cheerleaders from both schools have been working hard to spread the wonderful color of pink to the entire student body, faculty, district administrators and parents. Why? To focus on the on-going fight to find a cure for breast cancer. Tomorrow night, hopefully, everyone in the stands, no matter what team they are rooting for, will be wearing pink t-shirts and pink bracelets that have been sold on each campus for the past few weeks. All of the proceeds will be presented to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer Research. Pink pre-wrap has been ordered to help tape up the players before the game. Even the coaching and athletic training staffs from each team will be wearing pink polos.


This offers me the perfect chance to talk about the Susan G. Komen 3 Day Walk coming to the DFW metroplex from November 7 – 9. Thousands of walkers will take three days to hit the streets to raise money for a cause that has inspired and touched so many people over the years. I had the pleasure of working this event last year and I can honestly say that it changed the way I work with my athletes and everyone that I come into contact with. The sheer determination of the walkers, no matter how much it hurt or how big and nasty the blisters were, kept on walking to reach the goal of 60 miles. If there was a case where a walker was told they could not medically continue, the sheer look of disappointment on their faces made you really feel the hard work that went into this walk and the desire they had to beat this disease. This is your chance……all that is asked is a few hours throughout the weekend. Those few hours could turn into the entire three days as this event touches your life and you get to know these courageous people hitting the pavement each day. If you would like to help with this life changing event, contact Cindy Trowbridge (ctrowbridge@uta.edu) or Ted Perry (ted.perry@gpisd.org). I promise you work harder than you can imagine getting the walkers back on the trail and that you will make a point never to miss this event ever again.


By the way, Go Chargers and Think Pink!

How Can I Make a Difference?

One of the questions that the Executive Board is asked quite often is “What do I have to do to be Involved?” You are going to hear quite a bit over the next few months about the SWATA Governance Task Force as well as some of the changes that SWATA is looking to make to assure we continue to achieve our goals as an organization. One of the changes that SWATA has made over the past few years is the establishment of the SWATA Volunteer List. It is quite simple – if you want to be involved in SWATA, whether it be on a committee or a task force, you need to fill out the volunteer form on the SWATA web site. Once that name is submitted, you are added to a list of members who want to get plugged in to the organization. When a committee member is rotated off a committee because of term limits, the volunteer list is sent to that committee chair. The committee chair goes down the list, and based on interest and order of volunteering, makes contact with certain members to possibly add them to their committee. The final appointments are made by the SWATA President, but once added to the committee, that individual is put to work. We have had 92 people sign up for the volunteer list (15 since Corpus Christi) and we have currently placed 30 people on various committees.

Quite a few people have asked why they volunteered over a year ago and have not been asked to join a committee yet. One of the criteria committee chairs look over as they evaluate the list is whether the member put preferences on which committee they would like to serve or if they simply put “Any”. There is a good chance that the openings have been on committees that you have not expressed interest in when you initially volunteered.

This organization cannot survive and continue to grow without the ideas and the hard work that comes from the membership. We, as an Executive Board, will do everything possible to make sure we put those willing to work. As more opportunities arise in the future, rest assured that you will be plugged in as soon as the right spot opens up for you. If you would like to get plugged into District 6, I encourage you to fill out the volunteer form on http://www.swata.org/. If you have any questions about the volunteer list or want to change some of the committee preferences you might have submitted to us, please let me know (david.traylor@kellerisd.net).

Athletic Trainers affected by Hurricane Ike

Last Friday night and early Saturday morning Hurricane Ike came ashore on the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts and left incredible damage in its path. The area around Galveston was hit the hardest. The Greater Houston area, Golden Triangle area, and western coast of Louisiana were also adversely affected. Because of that many athletic trainers were forced to evacuate their families from their homes. Now that the storm has passed these athletic trainers and their families are returning to their homes, but many are still without the certain necessities like electricity, safe drinking water, sewer, and other important things that we all take for granted in life. Also because phone service (both land lines and cell service) is spotty it has been difficult at best to determine if our friends in these areas are in need of anything.

The NATA, SWATA, and TSATA families would like to use this forum as a way for fellow athletic trainers to communicate their whereabouts, if they need assistance of any kind, and also for anyone who wants to help can do volunteer to do so. If you need assistance please do not hesitate to ask because your fellow athletic trainers can and will help you. Whether it's athletic training supplies or something as simple as clothing for your children please do not hesitate to let someone know. If you do not feel comfortable posting this in the general forum please send me a private message or e-mail me directly michael.carroll@sville.us

Also if anyone wants to make a general donation there are several organizations that would be good places to start.

Red Cross - http://www.redcross.org/

Salvation Army - http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/

Finally the NATA has set up a forum in the Think Tank titled "Urgent Information" it can be found at http://forum.nata.org/thinktanks/index.php . This Blog, the SWATA Young Professionals Blog, and the NATA Think Tanks are all excellent places to go to get information.

Also know that everyone in that region is in our thoughts and prayers.
__________________
Mike Carroll M Ed, ATC, LAT
Head Athletic Trainer/Assistant Athletic Director
Stephenville HS
2650 W. Overhill
Stephenville, TX 76401
254-552-6426 (office)
254-413-2407 (cell)
michael.carroll@sville.us

Midwinter in Lubbock, Jan 31-Feb 1

The SWATA Executive Board will have its Midwinter Meeting January 31-February 1 in Lubbock, Texas.

We will also have a reception for SWATA Members and on the evening of Saturday, January 31. The details are still being worked out, but it will be similar to last year's reception in San Antonio--those who were there can testify that it was a good evening. This is a great opportunity to meet the Executive Board and fellow Members in an informal setting, so put it on your calendar if you're able to attend.

The Midwinter date is Superbowl weekend, but we had to work around the NATA District Secretary/Treasurer's meeting, NATA Hit the Hill Day, and TSATA Hill Day, and we have to meet early in the year to prepare for the Annual Meeting.

At Midwinter, we typically focus on the Annual Meeting, such as setting the Annual Meeting registration fee and discussing future Annual Meeting dates and sites, but we also review some of our programs (for example, Honors and Awards, Athletic Training Student Association, etc.), and meet with committees who have pending issues or who were assigned tasks from the previous summer. This year, we will also be addressing issues related to our role as the host District for the NATA Annual Meeting (San Antonio) and reviewing a report from the Governance Task Force regarding potential restructuring of our Association, similar to what NATA completed this past year. As always, the Executive Board meetings are open to everyone, so feel free to come by and observe. We'll post information about location and agenda as the meeting approaches.

As always, thanks for your continuing efforts to improve our Association.

Please Update Your Contact Information

Whether you are a school based athletic trainer or not you probably know that the new school year is upon us. Many of you (school based or otherwise)have seized an opportunity and have a new job. Because of that your contact information may have changed over the summer. As you may know improved communication with the general membership is one of the main goals of the SWATA Executive Board. We can only communicate with you if we know where you are and how to get in touch with you. If you've changed jobs, have a new phone number or e-mail, or simply want to make sure that your current contact information is up to date please take a few moments to go to the NATA website and update your information.

Without your accurate information we won't be able to inform you about all of the great initiatives that SWATA is working on to enhance your job, your profession,and your association.

The Future is Bright

As a new school year approaches quickly and educators nationwide are sitting through in-services on their respective campuses, it leaves a lot of time for the mind to wander and gives one time to reflect on certain things. As I look back at Corpus, many things come to mind – as it was with the Little Rock BBQ, the Lexington reception is something that SWATA members will be talking about for years to come. Another highlight of the meeting that sticks out to me were some of the speeches made by our award winners at the Honors and Awards Banquet – I can honestly say that I have never heard a speech end in a prayer, but it still brings chills to me thinking about it. There were a lot of personal and professional highlights for me from Corpus Christi, but there is one highlight that stands out in my mind.

On Saturday evening, after visiting a few alumni gatherings and having dinner, my wife, some friends and I found ourselves heading to a restaurant on the water. Well, the wait was quite long, so we ended up at an ice cream shop across the street. There, we had the opportunity to visit with some athletic training students and recent graduates from the University of Texas at Arlington. For forty five minutes or so, we were able to talk with this group, share some stories and hear some of their experiences and goals. We have the privilege to work with UTA each year as some of their students come to our campus each semester to work with our staff. This allows them to some secondary school and football experience, so I am a bit biased by saying that the students from this program are exceptional. But I had the opportunity to talk to quite a few of our collegiate ATEP students at SWATA, both from Arkansas and Texas, and each of those experiences encouraged me about the future of our profession.

In a day and age where some people are leery of talking about “Generation Y” (and I have been guilty of that in the past), I can safely say that I am the opposite now. I look at the energy and love these young professionals have for athletic training and I am convinced that the future of this profession and of SWATA is in good hands. I encourage you to look in on the Young Professionals blog and see some of the things they are talking about. Carissa Spraberry and Kim Faterkowski have done a tremendous job with this group over the past few years and it is encouraging to see some of the things they are doing. I encourage you to look around your community for recent graduates who might be in their first job as an athletic trainer and give them a call – offer any advice that you might have to offer or just listen. I guarantee you will make a difference in their school year and that five minutes will make an impact in their careers. Take a few extra minutes to teach one of your student athletic trainers a new skill or hint – you never know when that extra five minutes sparks the love for this profession and snowballs into a future leader within the NATA or SWATA.

This is a difficult post for me, because frankly, I still consider myself somewhat young. However, when I look at the few areas on my head where hair still grows and see a light shade of grey, I come crashing back down to reality. But I can say that I truly believe that the best years for this organization are yet to come, and that is a broad statement because of the amazing history of SWATA for the past 54 years. Take some time to make a difference or impact in one of our young professionals lives – they are the future and I know that the future is bright.

SWATA Dues Unchanged for 7 years!

What does the Executive Board do in their meetings at the Annual Meeting?

A couple of the (many) things we do in the course of these meetings is review the last few years' expenditures and revenues, approve a budget, and then set the SWATA Member dues for the year.

The budget process takes about 4 or 5 hours. The Finance Committee reviews previous years' expenses and revenues and then prepares and presents a budget to the Board. The Board reviews the Finance Committee's report and (often) makes minor revisions to accommodate SWATA's overall goals and anticipated activities for the upcoming year approving the budget.

Without getting into detail (although we have details for days if you want them), the Board also voted on your District Dues for the upcoming year (2008-2009) in Corpus. This year, we voted to set District dues at $90, which means that your District dues have not changed since the Membership set that amount at the 2001 Annual Meeting. Thus, your District dues have not increased since 2001. The last several SWATA Executive Boards (going back before my time) have worked hard to increase Membership value without increasing Member costs, and I think they (we) have been successful.

As a reminder, your District dues are part of your NATA dues that you pay in December. The NATA portion is $150. Of the District portion ($90) $40 goes to the District (SWATA) and $50 goes to pay your membership dues to the state associations (TSATA and AATA).

Please subscribe to this blog (below) and remember to check the Web site for updates and information about all things SWATA.

Thank you for your Membership and your contribution to making our profession better.

Thank You

To all the members of SWATA, thanks so much for the fun time in Corpus Christi. This past year has been a whirlwind of activity and such a fulfilling one!! I have asked many of you to take on more responsibilities whether through committee positions or task forces and I think we are a better and stronger association due to your commitment. Your executive board is a quality group of people that work hard all year long and do the little things to try to make our profession as good as it can possibly be.

Please don't hesitate to call or e-mail anyone on the board for help, guidance, concerns, or to just chat.

CEU's and Early Birds

I’m going to be honest with you – this is my first blog…..ever. So, there’s a lot of pressure on me right now. I am going to start by saying that it is a very humbling experience and an honor to be the 2nd Vice President of this great organization. While I am a few weeks removed from my first Executive Board meeting as 2nd VP, I am still learning the ropes of how SWATA runs on a daily basis. So I am going to take this opportunity to talk about something I am quite familiar with and try to answer quite a few of the questions I have received from you over the past few years…….How is the SWATA Program put together?

I have been blessed to have been a part of the last five SWATA Programs, either as a committee member or as a chair, so I can only speak for that time frame. It has been a great experience for me and I have learned quite a bit – so let me share some of that with you. The skeleton of the SWATA symposium usually is put together before we leave SWATA the year before. There is a basic structure that has been followed for years and it makes things a little easier. There are a few staples in the structure that have to be put in each year: Texas and Arkansas State Forums, Keynote Address, NATA Forum and the SWATA Business Meeting. We also allow some of our SWATA Committees to sponsor speakers on a rotating basis with these committees being responsible for a speaker every other year. To be honest, that is half the schedule. What about the rest of the schedule? Once we shut down the surveys, a list of suggested topics was usually made from membership suggestions. That list was trimmed down based on how long ago that topic may have been covered as well as some other factors. At that point, that list is sent to the Program Committee for input as well as to see if they know of anyone who might cover that topic. Usually, the topics that come out of that discussion as well as other input from the membership is enough to fill out our schedule.

Membership ideas have been a huge benefit for the Program Committee for the past few years. Many of our topics, from the Secondary Schools Roundtable to the Diversity Roundtable, have come from member ideas. The Trailblazers session was a direct result of listening to the stories told by SWATA Hall of Famer Eddie Lane at the Honors and Awards Banquet that he presided over. Once those ideas have been plugged into the schedule skeleton, the rest is downhill. Speaker invitations, travel planning, transportation arrangements and audiovisual requirements fill the rest of the year. The rough draft for the printed program is due by the first of June to assure they are printed in time and delivered for the members. After that, we just look after the small details and hope that 1) our speakers show up and 2) my computer and technological ignorance does not mess up the program.

Now, on to every ones favorite topic…….Early Bird Sessions. While the 7:00 am sessions are not a favorite to many of our members, they are vital to assure that we offer as many CEU’s to you as possible. Over the past four years, we have offered an average of 23.5 CEU’s a year to our members, and for NATA Members paying $80 for the Symposium, it roughly comes out to $3.40 a CEU……..I fully believe that this is one of the best benefits for your money that you can find out there. Therefore, in order to offer as many benefits to you, I don’t see the Early Birds going anywhere.

You don’t see a lot of the things that go on behind the scenes that help SWATA run smoothly…..without the dedication of those who handle exhibits, registration, convention planning, relocation and AV, the annual SWATA meeting would be a mess. I wish I had time to recognize them by name, but they know who they are and that they are appreciated.

Well, my first blog is over and I hope I have answered some of your questions about how SWATA is put together. I truly hope that you will utilize this service to answer some of the questions you have about your organization. Please do not hesitate to let us know how your Executive Board can better serve you!

SWATA Executive Board has lunch with NATA Office Staff

Fellow SWATA members, we have something in our district that no other NATA district has. We have the NATA national office. It’s in Dallas and if you’ve never been there and have the time to go just stop in to meet these hard working men and women. Because of that tremendous luxury all SWATA members have ready access to meeting NATA office staff in person. Something that just one week after SWATA several of us on the SWATA Executive Board took the opportunity to do. For those of us on the Board who had the ability to clear our schedules for a few hours we drove over to Dallas and said “Thank You” to the NATA office staffers by buying them lunch. A friendlier group of people than the NATA office staff you’ll never meet. While to my knowledge none of them are athletic trainers they are the perfect people to represent us and they work hard every day to insure the success of not only the profession of athletic training, but you and I at our practice settings as well.

My name is Mike Carroll and I am your SWATA Vice President. Since I was elected to the SWATA Executive Board a year ago it I’ve been asked on more than one occasion “What does the SWATA Board do the rest of the year when they’re not at the SWATA convention?” The short answer to that is that we work with our committee chairs and members to hopefully try and improve the work settings, jobs, and lives of athletic trainers in NATA District Six. We also meet with groups and people who may share our goals. Often times we on the Board will attend functions to not only represent all of our hard working members but to meet them as well. Believe it or not many SWATA iniatives started as just a conversation at a regional meeting. These functions include the GHATS and NTATS student trainer workshops, the AATA state meeting, and many others.

Just three short days after we returned from the SWATA convention in Corpus Christi four members of SWATA & NATA leadership had lunch with and met with NATA staff about many topics. The four in attendance were National Director Brian Conway, SWATA 2nd Vice President David Traylor, NATA CEPAT chair Kathy Dieringer, and yours truly Mike Carroll SWATA Vice President. While most of the time that we spent at the NATA office was to simply thank the staffers for all of the behind the scenes hard work that they do throughout the year not only for the profession of athletic training but also for SWATA and its’ members. An example would be if you’ve ever called the national office (800-TRY-NATA) and asked a question or needed to get some information I would be willing to bet that the right person for you was found.

After lunch we also had a great opportunity for the four of us to sit down with NATA Executive Director Eve Becker Doyle in a kind of brain storming session. For those of you who have never met her Eve is a wonderful lady and a tremendous person to be in charge of our association. She truly cares about the athletic trainer and is open to anyone’s thoughts and ideas. What Eve wanted to ask our opinions on at this impromptu meeting included a better way to bill for dues so that it’s not as hard financially on the athletic trainer. She also wanted to talk about the best way for willing volunteers to get involved with the new Involve and Evolve program. I always feel like my dues dollars are hard at work after I’ve met with the NATA staff because it’s obvious that they have our best interests in mind and truly strive for us to be successful. While at the NATA office we also talked about ways to help improve the experience of attending the national convention in 2009 in San Antonio. As more events become available for the convention you’ll be the first to know in this blog and also in e-blast.

A SWATA Blog!

Greetings, fellow SWATA Members.

The Executive Board has started a "SWATA Blog" to enhance communication of SWATA initiatives and information. We hope to post messages at least every 7 to 10 days to keep you informed of "what SWATA is doing" for you in between our Annual Meetings (we just completed our 54th Anuual Meeting last week; look for more details about that in future posts).

I am Dan O'Connor, the current SWATA President. In this inaugural post, I will discuss something that is often asked: How does SWATA's Executive Board make decisions?

We use two sources of information: responses to our Member surveys and the SWATA goals.

The Member survey provides us with what is important to SWATA Members. Over 400 of you responded to our survey last year--thank you! Our current agenda is a reflection of those survey results, including things like the programming of the Annual Meeting, the location of our Midwinter Board Meeting (coming soon to a town near you!), the creation (or elimination) of committees, our voting process, and setting our Association goals. You, the Member, are determining the direction of SWATA by participating in these surveys. You're responses have been great, so please keep providing that information.

With respect to goals, SWATA most recently revised the Association goals in 2007:

1. Improve communication with Members.
2. Increase and improve public relations, including the promotion of our Association to fellow Athletic Trainers and the general public.
3. Develop online CEU opportunities at low cost for SWATA Members.
4. Increase Membership, and retain the Members we have.

The Board uses this goals structure when deciding how to use resources and develop programs. Proposed ideas and programs are reviewed in light of these goals. In other words, we ask ourselves how an idea or program might help us to achieve these goals relative to other ideas and existing programs.

Over the past year, some examples of decisions and achievements that were a direct result of Member surveys and the SWATA goals include:

• This blog
• A redesigned and updated Web site
• More frequent e-blasts with Association information
• Maintenance of our Membership enrollment (we actually had a net gain of 6 Members)--all other NATA Districts had a decline in Membership
• SWATA logo merchandise (check out the Merchandise link on the left side our Web site--it's some good-looking stuff!)
• A fair and consistent way to identify Members who want to serve on committees (also on the Web site)
• We filmed two educational sessions at our Annual Meeting; Members who were unable to attend our meeting can view these presentations and obtain CEUs at a nominal cost (more info available this fall)
• Development of the Young Professionals Committee to communicate how our Association serves newly credentialed Athletic Trainers
• Approval of a small grant program to support regional AT meetings (more details very soon)

Finally, we track our achievements and progress to make sure our decisions are leading SWATA in the direction we intended. Hopefully that gives you a better idea of how our Board works.

Please consider "subscribing" to this blog. Check back every week or two to keep yourself informed of your professional Association's activities.

Thank you for being a Member of our great Association! (not an NATA Member? JOIN NOW!)