Late Night Musings
by Todd Reemtsma, NBS Section Chairperson
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
The first ‘thank you’ is for everyone that attended the USITT Northern Boundary Section Meeting in Kansas City, Missouri in March. For making the trek to Kansas City and your involvement in USITT and with the Northern Boundary Section. For making your voices heard and voting for a new board. For being involved. The second ‘thank you’ is for the Northern Boundary Section members that have recently departed their posts on the board. For your years of service and helping make the Northern Boundary Section one of the best in the country. And the final ‘thank you’ is for all of the continuing and new board members. For your willingness to step forward and offer your knowledge and time to help the Northern Boundary Section grow and continue to serve our membership.
Something that I would like to share with everyone, is why I decided to throw my hat in the ring to be nominated to the chair position of the Northern Boundary Section. Initially I told Rooth and others who suggested I consider the chair position that it might be better for me to wait a few years with two fairly small children at home. But, in serving as a member of the nominations committee, I found myself making phone calls to several of our members to solicit their interest in being nominated and found a plethora of people that expressed their interest in being involved in the continued growth and development of our section. The realization that I didn’t have to carry the burden on my own and that there are plenty of people willing to help led me to the decision to step up to the plate and do my best to help perpetuate the fantastic work that others have done before as well as tackle some new challenges as we go forward.
One of the new challenges that has been a topic of conversation at our last couple of gatherings, is how our section can reach out to the people who have graduated from school and have not yet found themselves in an academic or professional situation. How can we support the transition and maintain and even grow our community? We all have something to learn from one another and all of us have been, will be, or currently are in this unenviable position. Let’s see what we can do together to face this challenge.
As we move past our 50th Anniversary celebrations and begin the latter half of our first century (Can you even imagine the next 50 years?), we look to provide all of our members with tangible benefits to being a part of the Northern Boundary Section. We look to identify the challenges that are ahead and face them as a community. And we look to have a lot of fun when we get together.
I’m excited to get to know our membership better and will do my best to keep the Northern Boundary Section moving forward. I hope that everyone will contribute to our success by keeping us posted on the work you are doing, offering articles for the newsletter, attending the fall workshop, and, maybe most importantly, providing suggestions and leadership to make the Northern Boundary Section even better.
One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Ben & Jerry of ice cream fame – If it’s not fun, why do it?
I doubt that there’s a vocation in this world that a person can say that 100% of the time, but as long as you can say it more often than not, I find these excellent words to live by!
Todd