REPORTS TO: / Board of Directors
REPORT OF: / Director, Region __
SUBMITTED FOR: / 2018Interim Board Report
PREPARED BY: / Pat Tille, Region V Director
DATE: / February 19, 2018
Regional Director Activities since October, 2017
  • Participated in Diversity Advocacy CouncilConference Call
  • Participated in two Update Optional Board Calls.
  • Participated in two Long Range Planning Committee Conference Calls
  • Attending CLEC in Houston, Feb 22-24, 2018; Invited Speaker
  • Continue to participate in IFBLS as Microbiology Committee Chair, reviewed items that could be included in further activities with committee members.
  • Participated in training calls and conference call with CLS Journal to transition into Research and Reports Section Editor position as my National BOD term is completed this July.
  • Developed new branding for Region V, consistent with transition last year to new website consistent with new National Logo. Permanent signs for Region V symposium all reprinted with new logo for use at annual symposiums.
  • Region V Activities:
  • Held Region V President’s Council meetings October, February.
  • Participated in Region V Leadership Academy meetings as needed.
  • Participated in Region V Symposium conference calls for 2017 meeting, and completed a wrap-up to kick off the 2018 Meeting
  • Submitted Regional Director Letter to all states, Fall 2018
  • Region V meeting in MN, required a large deposit, therefore funds were held from profit from Fall 2017 meeting to cover cost, all funds shared equally from all four states and the Regional Budget.
  • Contract for meeting and hotel have been signed, Region V 2018 will be held at the Earle Brown Center in Brooklyn Park MN, October 4-5, 2018. Janice Conway-KlaassenMtg Chair.
  • Assist in the maintainance of the New Region V Website
  • Great communication continues between membership committee, government affairs committee, leadership development committee in the Region.
  • Region V Student Forum Chair very active and will be attending the Legislative Symposium along with other student representatives from throughout the region.
  • Region V Website, continues to be updated and current. Daily views exceed 200+ unique users, monthly data indicates 500+ unique user visits.
  • Membership Chair, Brooke Solberg (ASCLS-ND) has all contacts in Region V. Information transfer and collaboration active in the Region.
  • Student Forum Chair Emily Nagel (ASCLS-MN), actively involved with all states, has had repeated contact problems with ASCLS-WI student representative not being responsive. Will be again reaching out to the ASCLS-WI president. Will be attending ND meeting to do a presentation on internships.
  • Leadership Development Chair, Cindy Koffman (ASCLS-WI), has been actively working with Leadership Development and Leadership Academy for Region V to update all curriculum materials in making the material current to deal with the laboratories pressing issues and concerns of the Leadership Academy Attendees. Spring retreat planning in progress.
  • NMNF Chair Bridget Parsons (ASCLS-MN), SD and WI representatives are planning on attending Legislative days. No additional information available.
  • GAC Matthew Lauterbach (ASCLS-SD), has been very active and consistently communicates with all states providing regular updates
  • PAC Tanya Crockett (ASCLS-SD, has not been active at the regional level.

Items of Concern:
States are working hard to maintain governance, however watching resignations and reappointments it appears that many committees at National, Regional and Local levels seem to be seeing difficulties for members to meet all the conference call obligations and the workload of the professional society commitments due to the increasing workforce shortage in their employment.
Is there a chain of communication to regional directors/chairs when individuals are inactive on appointed committees?
Request for Action:
None

State Reports

ASCLS - MN / BY: Dean Porter, President
Treasurer’s Report and Budget Report, Finance Committee: Jeff Radle gave the budget report for the period beginning 9/17/17. See the attached budget report. The items of note were that income was coming in from the Spring meeting already and enable us to pay our Region V Dues. Other income listed was from State Dues and some of the area Scientific Assemblies. Dean will reach out to April about the Region V dues as they were going to short pay the MN part of the Region V meeting to make up the difference of the dues. Region V was aware of the late payment and we will reconcile it with Region V. Discussion about Bank Fees and how we can look for another bank with reduced fees. Jeff said he has been looking into it as time allows and we can have the Finance committee get together to look at options. We are in need of a Finance Committee Chair if anyone has recommendations. A reminder will be send out prior to events where reimbursement will happen to be sure that members understand what the budget is prior to making expenditures so we don’t go over budget.
Financial Working Group – Need Financial Chair. We would like to get this group together to explore options for banking that doesn’t include so many bank fees
MN-STA Meeting –Sue Iddings and Claudine Fasching attended this year’s conference in St. Cloud and handed out materials and highlighted Pat Tille’s new Microbiology book
Legislative Symposium – People going, Big Issues this year. March 19th and 20th in Alexandria, VA. Brittany Campion, Student Form Rep, Donna Spannus-Martin GAC Liaison, Donna Showers going in place of RaedeanHiebert and possibly Matt Yang, First year professional are going on behalf of the MN Society. Rick gave an update on some of the items that will be discussed this year and what’s happening now.
CLIA Personnel Qualification input is due by March 7th
PAMA- The lawsuit that was brought forward by ACLA will be in court by mid-Feb and discussion will continue at the Leg Day.
Workforce and LDT will also likely be part of the agenda.
ASCLS-MN Web Site and Newsletter– Jenna Pruitt/Paula Vagnone
Paula sent a request for articles for the newsletter by Feb 16thish
  1. CLC update from Jean Bauer
  2. Education Committee-Lorna something education
  3. Leadership Academy-Sue
  4. Area Director updates
  5. Technical article from the SA group-Jeremy Angell
  6. Presidents update-Dean
  7. Student Article-Brittany
  8. Additional
Membership Development – National is still working on new membership fee schedule changes and should have something out soon. Region V had an update so keep an eye on the webpage for updates.
President’s Strategic Planning – Dean Porter- Many of the keys to our future in Lab Medicine come from our students and new professionals. I believe this is an area we need to focus to try and retain our newest members as they transition into their career paths. This will be difficult but I also believe we have a great group in the student and new professional’s area that can help us. I’ll be getting Brittany, KaZoua and Matt together before the CLC to see how we can make this happen. I’d also like to see all of our Chair positions filled and active such as finance and membership to keep these important areas going.
Area Director’s Report
North Central/West Area: Bridgette Parsons/Krystal Sweeter: Hosted an SA
Metro Area: Jenna Pruitt/Wendy Parpart Have had 2 events so far with about 30 attendees each. The next event will be March 15th at HealthEast
Northeast Area: Karen Renaud
Southeast Area:Rebecca Beckmann
Southwest Area: Rita Miller
Looking for nominations for the next years group.
Government Affairs – ASCLS Minnesota/ASCLS Region V/ National –
PAC– Donna Spannaus-Martin
.
Clinical Laboratory Collaborative 2018 Earle Brown Center – Jean Bauer/Rick Panning
A very good program coming with super keynotes and very interesting topics. New this year will be a POL session one of the evenings with and educational and social tie.
Items of Concern:
Developing and retaining new members through the student and first year professional groups. Many of our lapsed members are in this group and we lose touch with them after their student year.
Request for Action:
None
ASCLS - ND / BY: Brooke Solberg, President
Winter conference call on February 7th, at 7:00pm CST
Working on updates to society regulations, specifically to clarification of delegates for annual meeting, correlating headings with titles from bylaws, adjustment of term limit for society treasurer, and other minor edits
Working on articles for newsletter
Working to create a ‘state meeting resource’ page on the state website, to include valuable templates and helpful hints that can be utilized by host cities
Working on seeking nominations for Board positions that will be open for 2018-2019
Student representative Ali Hassan working on visits to lab programs within the state to talk with student groups about ASCLS membership
Planning of ASCLS-ND Spring Meeting in Fargo, ND (Alice Hawley-chair)
Zac Lunak & Ali Hassan preparing to represent ASCLS-ND at the Legislative Symposium
North Dakota with two representatives (Muhammad Riji & Kristie Schwarzkopf) to Region V Leadership Academy
Items of Concern:
Concern raised about accommodations for major ASCLS events/meetings; specifically that main hotels are consistently ‘selling out’ of rooms early (prior to deadline), leaving members (particularly newer members, or those who have not attended such events and thus do not know to book early) to find alternate accommodations.
Request for Action:
None
ASCLS - SD / BY: Jennifer Keimig, President
Implementing electronic voting. Will be in place by the spring meeting.
Discussing moving away from the Google List Serve to Constant Contact.
Determining utilization of Facebook and Linked In.
Continued updates on GAC/PAC, Membership and Leadership Academy.
Spring Meeting to take place in Aberdeen SD on April 12-13th 2018. Tami Savtos is Chair.
Delegating members to attend Legislative Days.
Items of Concern:
None
Request for Action:
None
ASCLS - WI / BY: Kelly Robinson, President
ASCLS WI bod meetings 11/18/17 and 2/2/18
Approved convention budget -Nov
Reviewed FY 19 budget for approval at state convention – Feb
Using member community for announcements, library for records, planning to use this as a long-term repository of information
ASCLS WI supports NMLPW activities for branch societies – proposed improved process for supporting activities and distribution of funds.
Nominations: in progress
Legislative symposium: Sending 7 delegates. Alexandra Nussbaum (current NMNP chair) is taking over as Govt. Liaison in Aug. 2018.
State SA – Board member Katie Streufert stepping into state SA coordinator. Plans for revitalization of state SAs.
Branding – initiated new logo for ASCLS-WI, fall 2017. Planning to introduce to ASCLS-WI members at state convention
Membership:
ASCLS-WI holds second largest membership in US, including 48 FYP
Planning campaign to proactively focus on FYP to professional membership to maximize ASCLS WI support of FYP membership
Will continue student to FYP support, to roll out at ASCLS-WI annual meeting
ASCLS WI meets most of the suggestions for membership recruitment at spring meetings as suggested by the national membership committee
Region V
ASCLS-WI Participated in Region V symposium and leadership academy, modified ASCLS-WI SOP to sustainably support participation in both, participated in leadership call
ASCLS WI State Convention 2018
Annual meeting in Milwaukee, 4/25-26. New features this year, ASCLS WI BOD to present session on advocacy, leadership, ASCLS participation, ASCLS WI booth to feature a meet your leaders interaction with ASCLS WI board, trivia game, prizes. VP Nicole Buza secured pins from Sekesui (AM Expo vendor)
Keynote speaker, Dr. Rodney Rohde
Planning a history display and expanded awards presentation (previously very sort and not impactful)
Planning Lifetime Achievement state level award
Hosting UW Milwaukee and Marquette alumni tables (lunch event). Hoping to make this an annual event featuring programs in the location of the meeting (MLS and MLT)
Seeking location for 2019. Meeting size precludes most locations in WI Fox Valley (Greenbay-Appleton)
Strategic plan
Continuing work on strategic goals – still 50% of our ASCLS year remains!
Strategic goals:
Streamline processes and facilitate effective and sustainable initiatives.
Raise the profile of ASCLS as the organization for laboratory professionals in Wisconsin through recognition of member leadership, service, and expertise
Expand opportunities for interested volunteers by following orderly committee leadership and member processes
Strengthen/support branch societies where needed
Facilitate volunteer satisfaction through clear communication, defined expectations and recognition.
Be open, inclusive and welcoming
Strategic action items: (timelines and assignments in progress)
Identify committee needs for leadership. Seek vice chair and committee members (in progress). Establish formal succession protocol (possible SOP revision)
Plan submission for each national level award – in progress
Commend ASCLS WI leaders and awardees to employers (letter of recognition to employers). Publicize ASCLS WI leadership and expertise in newsletter and webpage
Improve ASCLS WI annual award ceremony to be more meaningful similar to national ceremony) in progress – see ASCLS WI State Convention notes
Create speaker bureau for community event, continuing education, service group presentations – will welcome resources from other states with a similar initiative – no progress
Identify needs and issues affecting branch societies, develop plan for branch society operation and support
Create communication clearly outlining participant expectations for annual meeting, legislative symposium, state and region committees and academies (time, cost, responsibility to ASCLS WI) – done
Review and revise SOP to reflect current needs and practices – in progress, plan for approval at state convention
Establish communication plan to include web, mail, electronic and social media communication with members – in progress (ASCLS WI FB = 643 followers, ASCLS WI NMNPstudent = 309 followers)
Items of Concern:
Resources for local society operation are needed. We have questions regarding the expectation (as outlined in society strength/risk documents) for branch societies to provide CE and maintain attendance at CEU activities given employer, other professional, and web resources for CE. We welcome thoughts and ideas about this from others. There are six branch societies in WI. Three of these are active, one is revitalizing, two are not active although maintain officers.
Request for Action:
None