Message from the President

A New Year, A New Day for APRA-FL

Hello Everyone!

We are now well into 2007, and I want to let you know about some of what to expect from APRA-FL this year. Last year was a year of transitions, and although things may have seemed quiet, we had a lot going on. In addition to our chapter’s significant participation in the 19th Annual APRA International Conference held in Orlando, the board of directors began planning for what will be a banner year for the chapter.

We are excited to now get things rolling for 2007, and hope you will find this year’s APRA-FL activities professionally rewarding and fun.

Membership
We continue to look at ways of adding value to your membership with APRA-FL. A lot of you had asked in the past about membership materials upon joining. In response, we are moving to electronic confirmation and a welcome letter via email. The reason for this format is to save on printing and postage costs. These savings will be passed along to you in the form of programs and APRA-FL scholarships. Last year we were able to offer a scholarship for the APRA-International Conference for the first time. As funds permit, we hope to award a scholarship again this year for the APRA International 20th Anniversary conference.

Website & Communications
The new APRA-FL website is now live! It is completely redesigned and has some exciting new features such as the APRA-FL blog and a new members-only section. Our hope is that you will make visiting www.aprafl.org a part of your daily routine. APRA-FL webmaster, Audrey Geoffroy, will be communicating with all of you very soon the new features of the website and how to navigate and maximize your experience while on the site.

We will be resurrecting the APRA-FL newsletter beginning this spring, and running it quarterly to keep you informed of chapter news, new professional resources, and member features. We will be canvassing for topics to cover, and hope that some of you may be interested in volunteering to write features to share with the membership.

Programs
This year the board decided to do something a little different. We will be having a Spring Conference at Rollins College in Winter Park tentatively scheduled for May 4, 2007 (Save-the-Date information will be forthcoming very soon), and a Fall Conference in Southeast Florida, with location and dates still to be determined. We hope you will like the flexibility of this year’s two-conference format. Additionally, we will continue to have site-hosted Virtual Seminars…but with additional programming built-in to bring you greater value and more reasons to attend! There are other program concepts in the works, so stay tuned.

I hope you will join me this year in making a stronger, more interactive APRA-FL. As you know we are in our annual membership renewal period. If you have not yet renewed your membership, I encourage you to do so. It is going to be a good year for advancement research in Florida!

Regards,

Steve Knight
President, APRA-FL