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!)