President's Message (September 2018)

To members of the Greater Austin Area Chapter of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses:

Welcome to Fall!  We hope all of you are enjoying the rain and cooler weather.  Thank you all for being a part of our local chapter, we are very thankful for all of your support.

We have many great things coming up in the next couple months.  First and foremost, we have our monthly meetings set up through the end of the year and a couple are beginning to line up for early 2019.  Jenn Smalley, our president-elect, has been doing a wonderful job of keeping us moving forward and helping to ensure that we progress as an organization.

As a side note:  The first Tuesday of November falls on November 6th, AKA election day.  Therefore, we have elected to hold our general meeting the following week.  Our November meeting will take place on November 13th.  The change will be reflected in the evite. 

Our community service events this fall include: Take a Loved One for a Checkup on September 22nd, it will be held from 1000-1300 at Givens Park Recreation Center (3811 E 12th St., Austin, TX 78721); We will be collecting toys for this year’s Toys-For-Tots; At our October meeting, we will be hosting the Austin Area Food Bank to discuss how nurses can assist with resources for families in need (Perfect opportunity to clean out the pantry before the holidays).   At the next meeting, please thank Tiffany Miller and Soumaly Rattanasavanh, our amazing service board members who have worked extremely hard to put these events on throughout the year!  Please contact us if you would like any more information on community service opportunities.

In keeping with my goal to make this year full of exceptional education, we have secured a couple of speakers and vendors to do educational events this winter.  One will be in October and the other in January.  Speakers will include an Infectious Disease CNS and a Pulmonologist.  We will have about 50 spaces for attendees, but also be aware that you can bring friends to this event for FREE!  Please help spread the word.  Please keep your eye out for the evite that will be in your inbox soon!

Go check out our new website at www.gaacaacn.org and make a NursingNetwork account in order to follow us.  All of our upcoming events are listed as well as any updates you guys need to know about.  We are very proud of the headway we are making on the social media and website front.  Many thanks to our previous president/new webmaster, Liz Resnick and our social media director, Olivia Baker!  We honestly would not be as functional without them.

Our Community Outreach Director, Amanda Davila, is compiling contacts with other local nursing organizations, nursing schools, critical care nurse educators, acute care course professors, etc.  If you have any contacts that you would like to share, please email us!  (austinaacn@gmail.com).

If your membership is due or about to be due, our secretary will be emailing you soon.  Please continue to support your local chapter as your dues are the only thing keeping us going!  The dues support scholarships for other critical care nurses as well as pay for events that we put on throughout the year.  Thank you Nissa Scribner and Leslie Watts for keeping our membership and bank account up to date and tidy!

Please continue to invite friends, colleagues, and students to our meetings.  Their first time is free!  The board is attempting to see every critical care nurses face at one of our meetings this year!  This is also the time for a friendly reminder that you must be a local and national member to be on our evite list for general meetings, dinners, and events.

Those board members that were not specifically mentioned are Susan Dornbusch, Chris Hill, and Mercedes Doolittle.   These board members are equally as important as those listed above, however were not included due to them having no updates at this time.  They all work very hard to keep this organization running smoothly.  As with all board members, make sure to thank them for volunteering next time you come to a meeting.  Also, if you have any interest in joining the board, we look good on a resume, school application, and we are a great group of people to meet up with once a month.  Talk to one of us! 

Charles Williams, BSN, RN, RN-BC, CCRN
President, Greater Austin Area Chapter of the AACN

president.austin.aacn@gmail.com

PO Box: 302022
Austin, Texas 78705