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President's Message
Dear Members: Please join me in welcoming our new SUN Administrator, Ms. Pam Marcinik, CSR RMR CRR, Fellow – TCRA. Pam and your board have entered into a contract for services. Pam has extensive experience with testing initiatives. She is the Chairman of the CSR testing committee in Texas, and through her vision, she was able to incorporate online testing for students taking the state test. Pam brings a treasure chest full of enthusiasm and new ideas to our group, and we are so fortunate to have her by our side. In spite of COVID and its detrimental effects upon our personal and professional lives, the StenoCAT Users Network – its members, Board of Directors and Officers -- are rising to the challenge. Thanks to the support from our members, your Board has successfully meandered the challenges of changing in-person conferences to hybrid/virtual to completely virtual, due to the pandemic and government mandates. What is anticipated as far as SUN having in person, hybrid and/or virtual conferences in the future? To be honest, we don’t know. But I can assure each of you that your Board realizes the importance of in-person meetings. We will continue brainstorming and striving to “think outside the box” and create a rubric for SUN that is futuristic, yet keeps true to our convictions and Mission Statement. Welcome aboard, Pam! Members of SUN, even with all the pandemic challenges, have taken the bad and put a silver lining to it. When things got tough and decisions were made out of our sphere of knowledge and comfort, we learned worthwhile lessons. So what ”lesson(s)” has your Board learned over the past year-and-a-half? First, and without doubt, we have the best association – bar none. We have been supportive of one another during this critical time. No matter the degree, timeliness or speed of the changes that were necessary, our membership rallied together. When our California annual conference was changed to Dallas -- no questions asked. There were many reasons for the change, but a few were 1) lessen SUN’s liability with hotel by invoking the contract ‘s force majeure clause; 2) recognizing and prioritizing our members’ health by avoiding non-essential travel during the pandemic; and 3) prohibition and restriction(s) with air travel, just to name a few. |
Second, a special THANK YOU to the many members choosing to appear in person in Dallas. Our Bylaws at that time required a certain number of members to appear in person at the annual conference in order to make changes to the SUN bylaws . It was crucial that changes be made for your Board to continue operating the association in an effective manner; but it was also futuristic for our members to change the voting procedure where attending in person is no longer necessary. Thank each of you for sharing your wisdom and giving your support to SUN during this ineffable pandemic. While we were hoping our North Carolina fall conference would be in person, we have made the tough decision to cancel our contract with the hotel (without penalty) and go virtual. With the COVID and the continual discovery of new variants, effectiveness of vaccine(s), and the unforeseen travel guidelines the government may impose on air travel, your Board thought it was a prudent financial decision to change the conference to virtual. So we ask each of you to please mark your calendars for the SUN Fall Conference scheduled for September 10 and 11, 2021. We will follow the basic time footprint of this year’s spring conference. To make it a great conference, we need your input, so please email us your seminar suggestions. The bright side is, we can still have our wonderful door prizes! Judy Werlinger, President StenoCAT Users Network
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