Greetings, NMRT Members and Friends!
I truly enjoyed seeing and talking with so many of you at the snowy Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia. I'm grateful to the Orientations Committee, Midwinter Social Committee, the Resume Review Service Committee, and the members of the Executive Board for all of the work they did to plan and host a fantastic set of events. I particularly enjoyed volunteering for the Resume Review Service in the Placement Center, where I was able to meet one-on-one with several job seekers, including quite a few NMRT members, in order to help them improve their resumes. NMRT offers this valuable service to members via e-mail between conferences. You can find more information at http://www.ala.org/nmrt/oversightgroups/comm/resreview/resumereview.
Now that Midwinter is over, I can't help but look forward to Annual Conference in Las Vegas, but we have plenty of business to attend to before then. The 2014 ALA elections will run from March 19th through April 25th. Thanks to the dedication and hard work of NMRT's Nominations Committee, we have an amazing slate of candidates for the Executive Board. Additionally, the Governance Committee has prepared a series of bylaw revisions that must now be approved by the membership. One particularly important ballot initiative is a proposal to increase NMRT's dues slightly (see http://www.nmrt.ala.org/notes/?p=275 for details) to ensure that we can continue meeting our mission of providing members with opportunities to grow both professionally and within ALA. NMRT's last dues increase was in 1986, when $10 went more than twice as far as it does today. I hope that I can count on you to vote yes this spring to help keep NMRT strong. Keep an eye on our blog NMRT Notes and our Facebook page for more information on all of our elections and bylaws revisions.
My message to you in May will focus on NMRT events at Annual, but I do want to draw your attention to two opportunities before then. First, the Executive Board approved funding during our Midwinter Board Meeting for the NMRT Professional Development Grant. More information and the application are now available at http://www.ala.org/nmrt/initiatives/applyforfunds/awardinformation. The second item is NMRT's inaugural preconference, which is targeted towards helping introverts become powerful and confident public speakers. Visit http://ala14.ala.org/ticketed-events#NMRT for more information, and be sure to register early! Attendance is limited to the first 30 registrants to ensure plenty of hands-on experience.
I hope to see you in Las Vegas, and I'd love to hear from you in the meantime if you have any questions, ideas, or just want to say hi.
Don't forget to vote!
Emily Prather-Rodgers
NMRT President, 2013-2014