Each quarter the current ASET President in office writes a personal message to the membership. In this article, Susan Agostini addresses issues currently affecting ASET members.
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My fellow colleagues,
I want to start by reminiscing about our 59th Annual Conference this past August in New Orleans. What a great conference! There were a total of (drum roll, please!) 737 attendees. Since 1992 only five annual conferences achieved attendance greater than this year’s conference. The NOLA spirit was felt in every corner of the conference space. I got to meet some great colleagues and spend quality time with great friends that I had not seen since our last year’s conference in Tucson. I am sure that all of you had a similar experience. Beyond the excitement that friendships and relationships brought, there was also the excitement of learning new technologies and sharing our knowledge with others. I saw so many new faces attending for the first time and I want to thank those of you who have attended our conferences before for approaching them and providing them with a warm welcome and assistance. I would like, once again, to recognize the hard work of the ASET staff, the program director/co-director, course directors, and Faye McNall for producing a great educational program.
I am happy to announce that ASET will be participating at the 2019 ACNS Annual Meeting in Las Vegas on February 6th-10th, 2019, with a great symposium: Setting Up For Success in LTM.
Equally exciting is to share our membership count year-to-date is at 6,080! We continue to grow as a Society and this means that hopefully more volunteers will emerge. We need YOU!
Recently, there were some social media postings related to ASET’s transparency and visibility. Some of the points related to dissemination of information relevant to our field were very well taken. Transparency is part of ASET‘s values statement. The concept of transparency, however, should not be interpreted as a decree to disclose every document and discussion, but rather, to be responsible and proactive in making information available when appropriate. Admittedly, based on some of the Facebook postings, sometimes we don’t always get it right when identifying “when appropriate.”
As presented at the Year in Review during our business meeting, we are in the process of redesigning our entire website, and we believe that we will better showcase the legislative action center with the new design. We have also recently retooled our Marketing & Social Media Initiatives Committee, and provided content training for the committee members for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, with the goal of heightening the members’ use of the ASET Facebook page. Since the first of the year, our Facebook following has increased seven percent. We will post on the ASET Facebook page links to the ASET webpage on a regular basis, containing relevant updates.
I want to thank the ASET Executive Committee as well as the ASET Board of Trustees for their excellent volunteer work as stewards of our Society. The ASET Board of Trustees is comprised of volunteers in our field that have a true desire to serve our profession in a manner that goes beyond our daily service to our patients and colleagues at our workplace. When we swear, under oath, our commitment to serve our Society and our members, we accept all the responsibilities — and challenges — that come with it and act with the best intention and best interest of our Society at heart.
I would like to encourage you as an ASET owner/member, to:
1. Get involved. If you want to see changes and be part of the growth and progress of our field and Society, you need to cross the comfort zone threshold and participate in a committee of your interest or any other role where you feel you can be challenged and contribute the most.
2. Exercise your right to vote on our next elections. This is a vital role for all Society members. Every vote counts! If you would like to nominate someone that you think has the leadership qualities needed, please do.
3. Stay connected. We invite you to regularly visit ASET.org for new developments and to also engage with us on social media, especially the ASET Facebook page. We are also present on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Pay attention to emails that you receive from ASET and add [email protected] to your address book to prevent our emails from getting lost in the spam folder. This newsletter, ASET News, provides you with quarterly updates from myself, the Board of Trustees, ASET Committee Chairs, the ASET Staff, and more. This is one way to stay apprised of related issues to the Neurodiagnostic community and ASET. You may have noticed that you can now login to this site with the same credentials that you use for ASET.org, as we recently implemented a single-sign-on (SSO) solution. We are are continuously striving to make it more convenient for our members to stay current.
4. Contact the ASET office when you have questions, concerns, issues with an ASET initiative or action. It is your right as a member to raise concerns and ask questions directly with ASET. I ask that you feel free to share your ideas and potential solutions to problems that affect your Society.
I would like to emphasize that ASET is and will continue to be committed to serving our members, to advocate for our patients and to ensure that quality care and patient safety are achieved by providing education tools, by constant vigilance of any legislative actions that threaten our scope of practice and, most important, by collaborating, connecting and integrating efforts with all other organizations that share a vested interest in the future of our field.
Together we are stronger.
May this fall season be one of positive changes and renewal just like the different colors of the fall leaves bring a different scenery and beauty.
Cheers,
Susan Agostini, R. EEG T., R.EP.T, CLTM, FASET
ASET President
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