Chapter Leaders e-News
October 2017
To: All ONS chapter elected officers and chapter board members
Happy October from ONS Chapter Relations!
Make Plans to Attend One of the Last Two RCOPs this Fall!
ONS will be hosting two moreRegional Chapter Officer Programsthis fall! If you’d like to attend one please contact Brian Taylor (). All RCOPs are held on Saturdays from 11am to 3pm local time. There is no cost to attend other than your own personal transportation costs:
- November 4, Albuquerque, New Mexico
- December 9, Birmingham, Alabama
Breast Cancer Community Education Grants for ONS Chapters
Funded by the ONS Foundation through a grant from AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation.
Purpose: To increase breast cancer awareness in communities by supporting nurse directed patient and community focused educational programs.
Grant: Up to $1,000 is available to qualified ONS Chapters across the United States to plan and implement patient/community focused breast cancer education/awareness programs.
Application Due Date: Open applications accepted but must be received by the ONS Foundation no later than 2 weeks prior to program start date. Application will remain open until funds are expended.
Eligibility:
- Program must be an ONS Chapter activity and focus on community education.
- Grant is not intended to support work based community education programs. Program cannot limit attendance to an institution, hospital or hospital network, or nurse work setting.
- Individual programs and/or Chapters can only receive one grant.
For more information visit
Required Annual Chapter Charter Renewal – Will Your Chapter Pass the Test?
Did you know there are about a dozenminimum chapter charter renewal requirementsfor every chapter to meet each year? The minimum chapter charter requirements can be found in the Chapter Policy Manual, Section I.,Chapter Operations Guidelines.Please review these with your board to ensure your chapter is on schedule to meet all the minimum requirements before the Chapter Annual Report is released in the coming weeks.
Chapter Virtual Community Updates
We're working to transition from the current chapter virtual communities to the new chapter communities. All functionality will remain the same with extra features.
What you need to know:
- The chapter sites will have new web addresses and will no longer use chapter.vc.ons.org domain.
- The old sites will still be available, but membership lists will not be updated once new sites are live.
- Chapters can manage chapter meetings and events through the new communities. Have your banking and PayPal account information available and ONS will help you once the sites are available.
- Take some time to review the content on your current virtual communities. Download and save any information you'd like to add to the new sites; content will not move over automatically.
We are very excited about the opportunities that the new chapter communities will provide you and your members. We do not have a firm date, as we are dependent on the successful transition of other software platforms within ONS, but we will keep you updated as we continue to make this transition.
Reminder: Scammers Continue to Target Chapters
Recently several chapter treasurers and other chapter board members have experienced e-mail scam attempts that are trying to trick chapter treasurers into sending funds to a fake account in order to pay for a so-called “expense.” These scammers appear to hijack or mask their e-mail address by using a chapter leader’s real e-mail, so the incoming message looks like it’s coming from your chapter president or other board member. Often the request for funds is significant (thousands of dollars). Usually it’s easy to spot the scam attempt, but recently some scammers have become a bit more savvy and realistic-sounding in their attempts.
What should you do if you sense someone is attempting one of these scams?
- First, do not respond (don’tReply) to the scammer, and insteadcallthe chapter president (or the person on your board whom the e-mail appears to be from);
- Second, confirm over the phone that your president or board member did not send you the e-mail in question, plus alert your other chapter board members of the attempted scam (but don’t forward the scam e-mail to anyone);
- Third, delete the e-mail (and any further, incoming scam e-mails that may come in) and don’t respond toanyfuture scam attempts. By not responding, scammers will eventually ‘move on’ to another target;
- Fourth, make sure your board has a procedure in place that anytime a person, vendor, etc., requests funds or a payment that may look suspicious, totelephoneeach other to review the e-mail over the phone. If it’s not legit, delete the e-mail.
That’s all for this month – as always, if we can be of any assistance, don’t hesitate to call (412) 859-6320, or email us at !
(Chapter Presidents: please let us know if everyone on your chapter board is receiving the e-news. If not, please provide us with their email address and we’ll be happy to add them to our distribution.