September 2007

Dear Colleagues:

First the big news. We have more members today than ever before in Section history, if memory serves us right, with the August 2007 total at 2005 members strong.  This is clearly the resultof a total team effort across our four major committees – membership, program, policy and resolutions, and students.

We entered the year with three major challenges and we are making good progress on all fronts.  We finalized the Member Manual with important progress made by streamlining functions and committees and expansion of leadership opportunities by adding co-chairs to Membership and Program Committees; we are only steps away from releasing an on-line survey to help the Planning and Policy Dialogues Session work  group finalize their plans for valuable member interaction in between APHA conferences; we have impacted policy at the national level by assisting with the Uniform Emergency Volunteer Health Practitioner Act model state law language being adopted; we had a competitive field for the Governing Council positions; and, we have made some fundamental structural changes in how we budget, program and operate.

Section Council and Governing Council certainly had their shoulder “...to the wheel” this year with achieving these many structural changes but now we are entering a new season.  The challenges before us now again are three-fold. 

One, Section Council will be charged this year with determining the ways in which we can create maximum value for members and take advantage of the enormous social and intellectual capital of our membership --- to this end, we will undergo a Visioning and work plan process at the business meetings of the annual meeting this Fall.  Formal committee reports will be made available on-line in lieu of taking valuable face-to-face time.  In order to make time for visioning and in order to engage as many members as possible, we will not entertain candidates during our meeting times.  Instead, we will conduct one or two audio-conference calls for candidates for APHA Executive Board and Officers of the Organization to present their qualifications and field questions, these two calls will be open to all members.  Please check the Section’s web page to look for candidate audio-conference call details

Two, we need to assess how we partner and think strategically about how we should collaborate with other sections and organizations outside of APHA; and,

Three, we need to continue moving forward with being more pro-active in advancing policy – the Planning and Policy Dialogues Sessions should help us in this regard.

We seem to do well when taking on three challenges a year, 2007-2008 will be a great year for our section.

As a last note, I was Chair of the ISC Nominations Committee this year and I am pleased to announce our Immediate Past Chair, Tom Piper, made the recommended slate for ISC Steering Committee.  Tom has the full support of CHPPD.  We wish him well in the election.

Yours in service,

Sue Myers, 866-432-6303

CHPPD Section Chair, sue.myers@healthequityassociates.org