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.