Our Summer Workshop in North Georgia has just ended with great success and satisfaction! Everyone who spoke in Community Meetings expressed their heartfelt appreciation to Barbara Nama and Z Rosenzweig, Co-chairs, and to the whole committee for all of their hard work and attention to detail. I am particularly grateful to the members of my family group, and a few important others, for meeting my request of them in such a generous way. I was certainly “changed for good,” as I hope all of you who attended were as well.
Speaking of changes, Jessyca, our executive director, has resigned from Cap Hill and will no longer be our point person there. While this is a good career move for her, it forces us to manage through another change at our Central Office. I indulged in self-pity for about a day but then realized that we are all experts at this sort of change by now, as we have considerable experience with it.
Alyssa Adams, an employee of Cap Hill, will be our new Account Executive. She has experience with association management and with planning national meetings for groups like ours. I’m excited that they have given us someone with even more expertise and experience as we continue to mature as an organization and provide excellent meetings for ourselves and for the interested public.
Your Executive Officers and Committee Chairs are already consulting about their priorities with Brian, as am I. We are all dedicated to creating as smooth a transition as possible. And, while there may be a few hiccups, we will be fine. Jessyca was very open that her resignation has nothing to do with her relationship with us and everything to do with looking for a new career opportunity. She said that she enjoyed working with all of us and will miss us. And we are sure to miss her sweet, competent self. I thanked her in the name of the Academy for all that she has done for us and wished her well on her new adventure. I’m only sorry that we weren’t able to say goodbye to her in person.
The Executive Council and Committee chairs had a satisfying meeting before Summer Workshop in that we came to consensus about the difficult issue of changing our dues structure to meet our budgetary needs. I will go into detail about this in the next issue. Our plans were well received by the attendees of our annual Business Meeting, held each summer. In fact, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the standing ovation you gave me and the whole team for the work we had done. You blew my mind!
We have been hard at work for about two years planning ways we can raise enough income for AAP and the teamwork has been exceptional. Many councilors and chairs have given considerable time and energy to developing this new plan. I continue to be very grateful for the support and dedication of everyone involved. You all make my work so much easier and more enjoyable. Thanks for teaching me in such a loving way to ask for help and support.
As everything is changing all the time, it is my hope that we can accept change gracefully and sometimes even embrace it. As resistance is the path to unnecessary suffering, mindfulness and courage can lead us to greater joy and wisdom for ourselves and for AAP.
Lorrie Hallman,
President, AAP
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