Hello OCRA members! I would like to thank you very much for the opportunity as OCRA President, to attend the 2013 NCRA Conference in San Francisco. Approximately 1,200 registry personnel from across the nation attended this year. At last count, 23 Oregonians also attended! So, I would say Oregon was well represented. Claudia and I also attended the 2 day pre-conference SEER Advanced Topics for Registry Professionals. We will be sharing the information we attained through this newsletter, blast emails, and we will both be giving presentations at the OSCaR/OCRA Fall Workshop. So stay tuned!
As your President, I also attended the State Association Presidents Networking Luncheon. Each President shared the successes and challenges in their perspective State Associations. Most of the challenges shared were the same and that message was “It is difficult to get members to run for office”. Most states felt they were just recycling members who tended to volunteer. Unfortunately, time ran short and we were not able to discuss ways of improving this issue. So, as your President I do plead with you to give it a try. Run for an OCRA office. It is painless and really does not involve much of your time. And, most of all, it is great for networking and getting to know people within the organization and sometimes we even have fun and share a few laughs.
The Executive Committee has been meeting every month (via telephone) and there will be a couple of suggested By-Laws changes presented to the membership sometime in August, prior to our General Business meeting which will be held at the Fall Workshop.
The OCRA website will stay up and running! An OCRA/OSCaR Oregon Public Health partnership was approved and we now have a Oregon Public Health person (who has some website experience) appointed. This person will update the OCRA website (like Joan did). The only difference being, I will now be the contact person (middle man) who will work with the appointee since I am familiar with the OCRA website and the needs of its membership.
Enjoy your summer!!
Deborah
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OCRA President 2013