Happy Holidays New England Region WOCN!
Well, I have to say some of the region has seen a mild winter thus far but I am afraid we are just entering into the cold months and may find ourselves with snowy days. The weather in New England is so unpredictable but if you talk to my son who is an avid skier, he prays for snow each weekend.
2022 brought exciting changes to our region. We held our fall conference this year at a new venue, Mohegan Sun in CT. We have tried to change the location every couple years to capture those WOC nurses throughout the New England Region. We felt it was time to leave NH as we struggled with behind-the-scenes logistics. Mohegan Sun was an amazing venue, and the speakers met my expectations with content and areas of our practice. It was nice to see that there is always work to be done with further research in providing evidence-based practice.
Congrats to our scholarship winners and their choices for committees. We are thrilled to have you, to bring to our committees’ new ideas, valuable input and additions to our vision to help make our community interactive and sustainable.
Your Board has worked very hard this year with “behind the scenes” efforts to keep you informed and educated. We launched a zoom educational series last year which was very successful. The topics presented were engaging, exciting and prompted much discussion amongst our colleagues from multiple settings. These were attended by those in home care, acute care and long-term care, all which brought something different to the table yet provided such insight into how our roles all intertwine. If you visit our website www.newenglandwocn.org and click on the event tab, you will be able to see upcoming opportunities for education.
Our speaker for our Zoom educational meeting on January 25th is Susan Hamilton WOC nurse from Children’s Hospital in Boston, who will speak to “Down the Tubes: Protecting Skin Around Tubes and Drains.” Hope to see many of you there. Stay tuned for an invitation that will be coming your way closer to the event but “save the date” for January 25th at 7pm.
2022 brought us a more updated website with our Communication Committee working hard to keep you abreast of ongoing events. We now have our poster presentations on our website for those who did not get the opportunity to view these at conference, or for those who were unable to attend. Our events tab will be updated for upcoming events as soon as we can nail down speakers for our future zoom educational offerings. If you have any ideas on what you would like to learn about, please email us at newenglandwocn@gmail.com.
Our Leadership Development committee is growing in leaps and bounds. They have a strong committee working to keep our region sustainable and vibrant by reaching out to members to get involved. Together with membership, we have been able to grow our committees to do the work that you ask of us, providing education and ongoing communication. We hope to launch a mentorship program for new WOC nurses so stay tuned for information on this in the coming year.
We were fortunate this year to elect a new Secretary, Liz Beal from Maine. Welcome Liz and a huge thank you to Lisa Orowson for stepping in while we were waiting to see who would be elected.
Soon to come on our website is our new apparel line which is exciting. We purchased different color fleeces which look pretty slick. Stay tuned for when they will become available.
Did you know you can support the Youth Rally whenever you shop on Amazon through Amazon Smile? Our Youth Rally team has done amazing things this year helping to raise money for such a worthy cause. Sending a child and/or a nurse to Youth Rally each year is so heartwarming to know a child can interact with those children who have similar issues and do not feel alone.
Your board held a Strategic Planning meeting in March of this year. It was very productive providing a plan for the next 2 years. We took your requests that we asked of you at the end of regional conference in 2021 and we arrived at 2 important goals:
1. Maintain an updated website to be used for communication with the membership.
2. Engage our Membership to promote involvement to keep our community strong and sustainable.
I believe we are on our way to meeting our goals but still have a bit of work to be done.
It has been a great year for the Board and they have done wonderous things. Many thanks to all of you who have made this a successful year and I wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Year.
Donna Loehner RN BSN CWON
President NER WOCN
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