President's Corner

JANUARY 2007

NTRWA President, Jen FitzGerald

The State of the Chapter Address

Dear Chapter Mates,

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be president of our wonderful organization. I really love this group. It’s my “ME” thing. The one thing I do for Jen that’s not related to kids or husband or church or business. I’ve gotten so much enjoyment out of getting to know so many of you and I hope to meet those of you I’ve never met.

As most of you know, NT will be celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this year. Our chapter was founded in March of 1983 by a handful of women who loved to write and knew how important a support group of like-minded people would be. We have many different activities slated to help us celebrate and, hopefully, they’ll send us into our next twenty-five years with as much excitement and enthusiasm for writing and our chapter as the charter members had back in 1983.

We’ll kick off our year long celebratory activities in March. Most of the excitement will happen in conjunction with the RWA National Conference, which will be in Dallas this year, but a couple of them will take place over the course of the year. The board and I hope that you’ll all participate in as many activities and events that you can.

When I decided to run for president, I sat down and made a list of goals for me as the president and for our chapter as a whole. One of those goals is to increase our membership. Since I’ve been a member, our membership count has grown, but only a little. Having been on the board for the last two years, I know we take a hit each spring while we wait for everyone to renew his or her membership.

Let’s be pro-active this year and renew our memberships before the January 31^st deadline. There are several ways to do this: in person, via mail, or via Internet. You can pay your dues in cash or by check at the meeting, by check or money order through the mail, or via credit card or Paypal over the Internet. And, *please* don’t let financial difficulties keep you from retaining your NT and/or RWA membership. If you have a financial need, please contact a member of the board to discuss a scholarship to either or both organizations.

Another goal is to get more of our members writing on a more consistent basis. To that end, the Silver Anniversary Committee has been working to implement a Book In A Year program with a great incentive – a complete charm bracelet at the end of a year.

Several of my other goals, in no particular order, are: celebrate NT’s 25^th Anniversary in style & bring positive recognition to our chapter during the RWA National Conference, put some of our funds into a CD, obtain a chapter copy of Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised, 10^th Edition, complete the revisions of the Policy & Procedures Manuals, have more interactive monthly programs, and have a lot of fun this year. Let’s revisit this list in December and see if I’ve stayed on track.

I’d also like to encourage everyone else to get involved some way, some how. Even if you live far away (Hi, Jane in Australia!), there’s something you can do:

 # Be on the Newsletter Committee! (Jane could certainly work on the newsletter, although someone from the US would have to take care of the mailings.)

#Write articles for the newsletter:

~ Are you good at punctuation? What about a series of articles on various types of punctuation?

~ Most of us are avid readers – if you read all the latest releases, why not write up a review or two each month?

~ Our audio library is growing and now we have established a great collection of workshops available on CD. Commit to listening to one or two workshops a month and write a review of those.

#Be on the Publicity/Web Site Committee (Now anyone with a proficiency using Microsoft FrontPage or some other WYSIWYG web site software and an Internet connection can help out with this)

#Participate in chapter events:

            ~ Great Expectations contest

            ~ Fall Writers Roundup

            ~ Author Roundtable Critique

As for general NT business, the board will be meeting in February, June, August, & October at the Le Madeleine in Grapevine, 8am. All general members are welcome to attend.

Here’s to a fabulous year. I hope to see you all at our monthly meetings.

Jen