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CHAIR'S MESSAGE With having completed my first year on the Chapter Affiliate Council Board of Directors as Chair-elect, I have now stepped up as Chair. This past year has been a wonderful learning experience. Having first served as Chair-elect, has awarded me opportunities to learn about all the different 27 chapters and see what tremendous efforts many have put forth in order to maintain the "ATRA grassroots involvement". I would like to express my sincere thanks to Louis Long, CTRS Past Chair of the CAC for mentoring me through this process. One key area I have noted which seemingly is a common denominator among many chapters and that is "trying to identify and mentor leadership" in order to maintain an active and functioning chapter. This has been the Chapter affiliate council Board's guiding principle in developing this year's work plan. · Providing leadership training to the chapters by providing a 3-series presentation through the well-established ATRA teleconferences program. The CAC Board will also be presenting a session on "Chapter Best Practices" at the upcoming ATRA Mid-year in Indianapolis. · Developing a Chapter Bylaws template for use by new chapters developing and to assist existing chapters with any bylaws revisions. Thanks to Louis Long for initiating this project. · Collaborating with the Membership Team Leader Stephanie Parker of NJ/EPA to define the difference in roles of the "State Representative" vs. the "Chapter Representative" and clearly communicate this to the membership. The Chapter Affiliate Council Board continues to work on your behalf. I encourage all of you to utilize the resources made available to you to ensure your chapter's continued success. ATRA leadership stands ready to step in and assist with any issues or concerns you may have. There are many benefits to being a chapter affiliate of ATRA. One of which is your direct connection with the CAC Board. You are better served by participating on the new atrachapters@atra-tr.org e-group. This is our primary means of communicating with all the chapter representatives when information needs to be shared. If you haven't done so yet, I encourage you to get enrolled on this e-group. I serve as the moderator of this e-group so if you're having difficulty activating, please let me know and I would be happy to walk you through this process. I would like to welcome the newest chapter Kentucky Area Therapeutic Recreation Association (KATRA) as the 28th Chapter Affiliate of ATRA. They demonstrate a strong foundation and promising leadership to be an active and effective Chapter. Kudos to Laura McCauley for overseeing this process! Also I would like to congratulate NJ/EPA and CHARTA for their recent ATRA award of "Co-Chapter Affiliates" of the year! They were recently recognized at the ATRA Annual Conference in New Orleans. We ask that all of you maintain contact with your CAC Board Liaison throughout the year so we can help keep you current on any issues or information of importance. By doing so, this also helps us stay current on when you have a change over in leadership. Once we know there has been a change, we can then communicate this to the national office for updating the website CAC Directory. Utilizing the e-group is a wonderful opportunity to network with other chapters and learn what is working and what is not working. Together we can trouble shoot problems and share information to strengthen this well-established network among chapters. On behalf of the ATRA Chapter Affiliate Council Board of Directors, we look forward to working with you. We wish you a Happy and Healthy Holiday Season! Becki Chilcote-McGrath, CTRS |