SEEKING HEDS OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE CHAIRS!

[Mara Gittes]

As our wonderful conference nears, it means that we will soon elect new HEDS officers to officially begin in April.  The openings for HEDS officers are as follows: Treasurer and Secretary.  In addition, there are openings for chairs on our various committees.

I highly encourage you to consider taking on one of these roles!  It is a terrific way to network with a superb group of professionals as well as further our mission as an organization.  A short description of each office and committee is below.  Please contact me  at mgittess@aol.com if you would like to consider a position and/or if you have questions.  Board meetings are bimonthly.

Descriptions of roles available in HEDS:

Treasurer:  monitors HEDS bank account, expenses, and reports on status (we have an accountant who handles tax filing, etc.)

Secretary:  creates meeting agendas and takes minutes at meetings then distributes the minutes to board members

Parliamentarian:  ensures we are following our by-laws, policies, and procedures

Membership chair: responsible for 1) processing new member applications, 2) conducting annual membership renewal; 3) maintaining website listings and listserv participants

Conference Co-Chair: This role  is a two-year commitment and involves planning a yearly conference. This alternates between Community Conference and Professional Conference. This role includes, but isn’t limited to:

• Finding and booking a conference venue
• Marketing the conference, such as managing social media, sending out emails to HEDS members and other organizations that could benefit from the conference, developing marketing materials (both digital and print)
• Collaborating with sponsors, developing sponsorship tiers and what is included at each level, organizing booth placement, sending W9s
• Putting together and distributing blind proposals and select speakers in conjunction with the HEDS board
• Manage conference spending, submitting budget proposal to be approved by HEDS board, and staying on track with budget
• Organizing airfare, hotel, and travels for out of town speakers
• Communicating with speakers, attendees, and volunteers
• Maintaining and updating the HEDS conference website
• Creating various volunteer committees to support conference planning
• Brainstorming conference ideas with HEDS Board
• Putting together badges for conference attendees
• Screening presentations to clarify alignment with HEDS values
• Selecting conference date and day of schedule
• Determining if in-person vs virtual conference is most appropriate
• Collaborate with education chair on CEU approval and distribution
• Defer presenters that were not chosen to speak at the conference to education chair for other speaking opportunities

Education chair: responsible for securing speakers and sometimes corporate sponsors for HEDS membership meetings.  The chair receives proposals online from programs that offer to provide a presenter and host meetings.  The chair also encourages our own individual members to present to the group.  The chair collaborates with the conference chairs so that speakers who are not selected for the conference can have an opportunity to speak at a meeting.  Viable presenters and hosts are presented to the board at board meetings for board approval.  Information about presenters and their presentations are shared with the website chair and/or Billy Levy to post on our website as soon as possible for members to see so they can register.  A reminder is sent out to members a few days before the registration deadline. The education chair obtains or prepares an introduction of the speaker and makes the introduction or finds someone to do so if they cannot attend the meeting.  When we were meeting in person, and we first started inviting individual members to speak, without a corporate sponsor, the education chair also arranged a venue (Council on Recovery) and ordered box lunches (optional for attendees).

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory Committee chair:  The work of the chair and committee will be to strategize, make recommendations to the HEDS board, and help implement intermediate and long-term changes on issues surrounding diversity and inclusion such as:  How can HEDS become more inclusive and accessible to all our members, especially those from the BIPOC and other marginalized communities?

Media chair:  Responsible for helping HEDS increase their media presence on Facebook, Twitter, and other formats to be determined.  The chair can also work with Billy Levy on any updates over time that will be needed to the HEDS website.

 

Once again, HEDS hopes to have you “on board!”

 

Sincerely,

Mara Gittess, HEDS President

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