2010 Presidential Papers - Convention Speech
 Since all of you could not be on the cruise and hear my speech, I felt
by reprinting it here it would inspire and inform more of the
membership. I hope you enjoy and be stimulated to action.CSB
Before I begin my remarks, I would feel remiss if I did not thank a
number of people for all they have done. I thank our past AO
leadership, especially those who have mentored me and helped me get
here today. Thank you to all the New Englanders who helped influence me
in my early dental school days, and to all the New Yorkers who were so
essential to my development since 1978. Thank you to all my Alpha Omega
mentors that I have these last 33 years for everything! I truly miss
the emotional, passionate discussions that many of our former
convention regulars expressed - - - it never mattered if you agreed;
you knew these Fraters cared and loved Alpha Omega.
AO’s Strength is, and, and always has been, its members. I would like to thank all those who have served AO in 2009. Thank you to my mother, sister-and-brother in law, who are with me
today, for all their life’s support. And thank you to my sons, Brad,
Marshall, and, of course, Billy, and my husband of 31 years, Richard,
who bleeds AO. Thank you, I love you all.
One of the things that
makes Alpha Omega both wonderful and unique is that every frater’s
relationship, history and memories of AO have both similarities and
certain things special to him or her. My AO history actually begins
before I became a member. Thirty- five years ago this week, during the
San Diego convention in 1974, my father-in-law, Eli Brody, was
installed as the first Frater to be officially referred to as
International President. Isn’t it amazing that when we meet for our
next convention in 2010, during my Presidential year, that we will
gather in San Diego once again? Thirty-three years ago, I attended my
first AO convention, and shared a room with another female dental
student. That student, Lynn Gitlin went on to become the first female
International Trustee. She then influenced another student, Rochelle
Shaw to attend and become active in AO. And that convention was held in
Vancouver, where our present International Secretary Marcy Schwartzman
resides! So, you see, we in AO have our “6 Degrees of Separation” game,
too!
I am thrilled and honored that I have been chosen to serve as
International President for 2010. In my 34th year of AO membership, I
have been privileged to serve in many capacities, including Gamma
Chapter President, Queensboro Chapter President, Regent of Regency 3,
International Trustee and Chair of the Board of Trustees, Co-
Registration Chair at 3 NY conventions, co-creator of “The Choice”
program, and as a member of many committees.
Many of you probably
remember my outspokenness at conventions during budget discussions and
certain other issues. I have always tried to express my opinions
clearly and concisely, and hopefully articulated my reasoning well
enough to have at least some other people pay some attention. So, I
come before you today to try to articulate my vision for Alpha Omega -
- - short term, intermediate and long term. Long term is easy to
explain - - - I believe that if we all work together, AO has the
potential to be a leader, not only in dentistry, but also in the health
professions, as well as in philanthropic endeavors. I believe that we
can explain that in this evolving society, AO represents our best and
highest aspirations - - -for a revitalization of the 3 sides of our
triangle and how it makes us unique - - - that is, a combination of
Professionalism, Fraternalism, and Judaic Principles. Other
organizations or societies address one, or even two of these
principles, but Alpha Omega is the ONLY organization that fills all
three of those niches!
In the intermediate term, we have to explain
to former members, as well as potential members, why belonging to AO is
important! NOW! and RELEVANT NOW! And in the short term, we NEED to
expand our membership to firm up our base, increase our clout, and
create an economy of scale! We must all think back to WHY we originally
joined Alpha Omega, and why we remain active members today, while
others have not! In many cases, perhaps it is because ALL OF US have
stopped effectively articulated our feelings for AO to others, and now
we should start letting them both know why we still belong, and why
they should, too!
So, I have decided that the theme for my 2010
Presidential Year will be “The Year For Our Members.” We who love AO
need to become better prepared to answer the question, “Why Alpha
Omega?” in an easy to remember, easy to say “sound-byte.” We must be
able to motivate others to re-join us, as we re-double our efforts to
evolve AO for this 21st Century, and we MUST have the ability to
demonstrate why and how AO is relevant today! We must know how to
concisely how to explain and answer questions and confusions! We must
market ourselves better, and thanks to the efforts of Wendy Spektor and
our corporate sponsors, new and better Membership brochures and
materials have been created. A state-of-the-art PowerPoint presentation
has been created, and NOW we must all learn how best to effectively use
these and other materials and training. As I travel to our worldwide
membership, I am planning on emphasizing membership and belonging, and
AO’s relevancy, while working with local leaders to try to better
articulate our message. When we all work together, we will accomplish
these short term goals, which will better prepare us to address our
intermediate and long term goals!
We need to reach out to those
former fraters who have felt disenfranchised for whatever reason, and
show them why it is more important today than ever for them to get back
involved and support the mission of AO! Nearly one in20 US travelers
are willing to take a trip to help the less fortunate or support a
humanitarian cause. Volunteerism has grown in popularity since Sept.11,
2001 and Hurricane Katrina. It is trendy and AO,GOHI, DVI and
Tomorrow’s Smiles are all at the forefront of a worldwide trend. There
is much more interest in reaching out and helping people in poverty. AO
has numerous opportunities to offer its members to satisfy this need. A
well organized project such as the ones AO has can be listed on our
Face book pages, our web site and the AO Exchange. Our happy volunteers
need to be featured and their stories told to others, getting the AO
message out to all. Please join me in re-dedicating yourself to Alpha
Omega’s future. Our leadership seminar in Cleveland this past October
was dedicated to methods and techniques to better communicate to them
why it is important that they also belong. The stronger our membership,
the stronger our message, and the stronger our message, the better we
can make our little part of the world.
Recently, I have started to
track Alpha Omega’s visibility on the Internet. Using the Google Alert,
and the term “Alpha Omega International Dental Fraternity”, as a key
search, I have been pleased with nearly daily references to Alpha
Omega. I will be requesting our headquarters office to track and
compile this for distribution in the future. I have also created an
online blog so that interested members can follow what their
International President is doing and my thoughts, ideas and
reflections, throughout the Presidential year. This blog can be found
directly at: http://tinyurl.com/aopres2010, or via a link from the
AO.org web site. We will also have a strong Face book and LINKED-IN
presence. We will ask each of you to join the AO exchange and be a part
of this group. This will give a global contact point for all age
categories of members.
My goal is that during my Presidential
visitations, I will meet with the past, present and future leaders in
the local area. My plan is to conduct informational and
technique-driven, hands on training sessions. We will have conference
calls with student chapter leaders, chapter presidents, PIP’s and other
interested leaders. We must re-learn that Alpha Omega will only have
meaning to our members if it is personal, and that requires personal
conversations, not simply e-mail. We must work on reinvigorating our
former leaders, encourage our present leaders and most importantly,
work diligently to constantly develop new and future leaders. My #1
priority this year will be our Fraters and developing a strong, viable
membership push.
If all of us here simply got one former member to
rejoin our ranks, one potential member to join with us, and one
existing member who needs encouragement to get a little more excited
about Alpha Omega.Ao will grow and will be better suited and positioned
for our future.
Alpha Omega must evolve without losing our identity.
My challenge to All of us is to keep finding reasons and motivations to
do this, rather than finding excuses and exclamations for why we can’t,
or it can’t be done! IF WE THINK WE CAN, WE CAN! If we really want to
make AO even more relevant to both existing members and others, we must
go little outside our COMFORT ZONE. If we do that, we can and will
re-invigorate our Fraternity. Together, WE CAN DO IT!
I am here to
serve Alpha Omega and am honored to have the opportunity. Let’s work
together to make 2010 the year Alpha Omega GROWS, and is
re-invigorated. In the beginning of our 2nd century as an organization,
we must use evolving techniques to improve upon what is, build upon our
strengths, and better communicate our message. Working together, I am
confident we will meet and exceed these goals.
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