The purpose of the Think Tank was to examine the way our chapter currently conducts business. Due to the decline in membership and in members who volunteer for office and to be committee chairmen and/or committee members, the Board thought it would be timely to look at the activities the chapter offered to see if they were: in line with the goals of AORN; if they were satisfying, profitable or self-supporting; distinctive; realistic; or required. Plans had been in the works since mid-January; the date was published in the April newsletter; the date was announced at the April and May chapter meetings; and 48 invitations were sent to past Board members, committee members, active and non-participating members, and invited guests (i.e. non-members). Seven members participated in the May 21st meeting at Westover Winery (Bill Smyth graciously permitted us to use the patio for our meeting and the tasting room for our refreshments. The rural setting alone was worth the trip!).
To help us focus, we reviewed the goals of AORN (i.e. to promote excellence in perioperative nursing, to maintain organizational strength and viability, to provide innovative services, and to address issues affecting perioperative nursing). I did take a few minutes to discuss what I referred to as the M & Ms:
Mission: The Association of Operating Room Nurses, Inc. is the professional organization of perioperative nurses that unites its members by providing education, representation, and standards for quality patient care. Mandate: The Registered Professional Nurse in the perioperative practice setting. Movement: We must educate colleagues, peers, and the public about what we contribute to quality care or we will not have a future (if we choose to do nothing, we will be left behind). Message: What are we communicating about perioperative nursing and about our chapter? Messenger: What images are the officers and the Board projecting? Are we good hostesses at the chapter meetings or are we perceived as unfriendly and unapproachable?
We looked at what the chapter was good at or what members might expect as benefits of belonging to our chapter (participants had surveyed staff members and brought the results to the meeting and, of course, the responses to the questions at the May chapter meeting were used).
A summary of the benefits of belonging to our chapter:
Belonging to an award winning chapter (membership, legislative, and Project Alpha awards with the chapter recognized as a pacesetter in the past).
Excellent networking opportunities at chapter meetings. There is sharing of information concerning patient care issues which builds goodwill among facilities and provides assistance with policies and procedures.
Great newsletter with lots of information.
Clinical questions at each meeting. The topics are generated by committee and member needs and/or requests. The results are published in the newsletter.
Good programs. Some are sleepers. Participants confessed that the titles of some programs did not inspire attendance, but they ended up really enjoying the topic and evening.
Contact hours - eight hours through the chapter meetings and four hours at each of two workshops. The hands-on workshops were the most popular among the attendees.
Dedicated leaders and members.
Well structured, fast-paced business portion of the chapter meetings.
Areas needing improvement:
Cliques. Members see regulars as cliques. Possible causes: needing to connect at the meetings to take care of business (meet earlier or after the meeting), and not including others in conversations (remember to be good hostesses). We don’t take time for introductions (the use of name tags will be implemented at the meetings).
Too many committees and too many meetings. We examined our current committee structure and determined that the only committees that were really optional were Project Alpha and Scholarship. The rest of the committees are either required by National or help us provide the services that the chapter does well. However, if we eliminate the aforementioned, we may not be supporting education. We need more input. We’ll look at it again at the Transition Board meeting.
Staff nurse mentality/tunnel vision (per survey response). This lead to a discussion of the general absence of upper management at meetings. It was noted that the May meeting with Linda Groah as the presenter was attended by five managers. We need to look at the program topics.
Meeting time does not permit attendance by PM staff. We need to look at scheduling a Saturday meeting and advertising it as “PMs - this one’s for YOU!”.
Location. The non-negotiable areas are: parking, a site perceived to be safe, quiet, and a good value for the money. After much discussion, consensus was reached that the same meeting place really works best (don’t have to think about where to go and there are better deals on dinners). A central location is highly desired. Several restaurants were discussed (need easy freeway access, often too noisy, not private for conducting business, and no audio-visual equipment). Eden Hospital was discussed. There would be no meals, just snacks. Who would provide the food? Committees? The same people are usually on different committees so this option is too stressful.
Dinner. There are complaints regarding the food quality and the expense. The food tends to be important to those members who attend meetings on a regular basis. We must investigate new sites.
Decreasing attendance at chapter meetings. The average meeting attendance is 26-37 members. It’s difficult to get out to meetings. Attendees enjoy the raffles which are coordinated with the meeting topic. Continue with raffles as long as they are self-supporting. Everyone must actively invite people to attend meetings and join in the fun.
Decreasing membership in our chapter. Merge with Contra Costa? Help with programs? This would make it even harder to find a central location. Share/host meetings? We could host an October or a pre-Congress meeting.
As we delved into the message the chapter is sending, we concluded that education is really what we do best. Monthly meetings afford timely dissemination of information, interesting programs, updates on legislative issues, networking, and social opportunities, but require a tremendous amount of work. We discussed meeting every other month but decided to continue with monthly meetings so we could try new approaches. Donna Benotti will contact Contra Costa County chapter to discuss shared meetings. Many ideas were generated regarding OR Nurse Week activities (TV and radio spots, mall displays, etc.).
We also looked at ways we could be better messengers. Take more responsibility for outreach, mentor new members, follow-up phone calls, more socializing at meetings (be less focused on business so that we are more approachable), and obtain ambassadors at each facility. Committee chairmen need to break jobs down into their smallest segments with specific responsibilities so that work will be easier and take less time.
There are many proposals to be considered. A quorum of the Board was not present, so any actions were deferred to the Transition Board meeting. A special thank you to all who attended.
