From the Chair: Oh Say Can You CEE?
Oh Say Can You CEE?
By Anna Heinrich, NASAGA Chair
NASAGA’s 2023 Conference is now in the books, an amazing weekend of fun games and warm comradeship. As we do every year, we held our Annual Business Meeting which this year elected the 2024 Board. I have the honor of serving as your chair, and want to share my NASAGA vision with all of you.
First, let me thank all of our board members, past and present. We have four members of the Board leaving this year: Jeremy Caddel, Pauline Lynch Shostack, Geoffrey Thompson, and Lydia-Rae Wehmeyer. I am so grateful to all of them for their hard work in support of NASAGA. I am equally excited to be working with NASAGA’s 2024 Board, listed below:
Returning Members New Members
Anna Heinrich: Chair Simon Ford
Veronica Brown: Past Chair Cathlena Martin
James Colquitt: Secretary Natasha Nurse-Clarke
Lisa Heller Boragine: 2024 Conference Chair Alex Suchman
JS Bragg: 2025 Conference Chair Nick Vaccaro: Treasurer
Jared Fishman: Podcasts Ryan Windeknecht
As talented as these board members are, they are not what keeps NASAGA vibrant and growing. You are NASAGA. You are the members that make NASAGA the fun, quirky, interactive, gaming and learning collaborative. I am asking each of you to CEE: Connect, Engage, and Experience.
Different ways to Connect include:
Reach out to someone who attended a past conference. Perhaps they attended one of our virtual conferences in 2020-2021 and now just need a friendly welcome back? Perhaps you met them in one of our past conferences and you want to share your experiences from this conference?
Reach out to someone who never attended a conference. All of us have had bad conference experiences; you can be a trusted voice that helps them understand how NASAGA is different.
Forward an email to a colleague who should know about NASAGA. This is easier than ever with our new website and email setup - you can pass on one of our blog notifications or a membership email to show them what they’re missing!
Invite a colleague to the Discord Server. NASAGAns are connecting here in conversation about lots of cool things!
You can Engage by:
Chatting on Discord. Pick a channel that appeals to you and join the dialogue!
Come to Game Night. We heard lots of enthusiasm for this at NASAGA 2023, so look for these to come!
Share a post/tweet on social media to your network. Our primary social media presence is now our LinkedIn Page, where we try to routinely share items of interest.
Volunteer with NASAGA. Many hands make light work, and there is a LOT of work to be done to make NASAGA the best it can be.
Finally, I want you to Experience the 2024 and 2025 NASAGA Conferences being held in Atlanta, GA, and Southwest Ohio, respectively. Firm dates will be announced, but you can anticipate they will be held during our usual mid-October timeframe. We’re now announcing our conference locations two years in advance to help with budgeting and planning.
We can do great things together, and I’m excited to be your Chair as we do them. Play on!
Anna Heinrich is the 2024 NASAGA Board Chair and Lead Senior Learning and Development Specialist, Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU).
