Hello everybody, welcome to the second part of the chapter officer orientation today, and we're going to be talking a little bit more about leadership within ifn and specifically your responsibility as board officers with some examples kind of how we use so I really encourage you if you do want to come off mute and ask questions, we do have some, some spots where we will be pausing specifically for questions so please engage in dialogue discussion, please use the chat throughout I'll be reading those questions out, you know, during some of those question breaks. So, let's get started. So we are moving into the second portion here. Again, so this, we have a couple different presenters here today. And none of us have any conflicts of interest related to the information today. We are accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development, and you will have an evaluation after this portion of the training that is unique to the next two hours that we will share together. So our presenters today are same. So we have Jennifer Pierce weeks. Susan Chaston, and I apologize that I did not have your picture season I swear I put it in here. And then myself the membership manager here at ifn and Megan lectors also here joining us and might have some contributions for us as well. So today we are really going to be focused on tools of governance for nonprofit boards, and we really are hopeful that you leave here today with some really clear ideas about leadership on your board and your role within the International Association of forensic nurses. So we have three goals. So your primary goals are related to providing education, public policy so influencing public policy which sometimes actual legislation in your state, and sometimes relates to protocols and policies on a statewide basis, and then membership recruitment and engagement, and some of the ways you do membership recruitment and engagement are through those first two bullets. So, we talked about this last time I'll do just a little bit more in depth this time, I have been the association is a 501 c six that's a not nonprofit tax status but it makes us a membership association. It's, it's a tax status it's not a business model. So, so, so it doesn't really have a lot to do with the bottom line but the public cannot make tax deductible donations to ifn chapters fall under this tax status. That's how they get their tax status. And both the home office and the chapters work on a calendar year basis. So January through December. We primarily have cash accounting which doesn't necessarily mean cash it just means the way that we track our accounting practices. And we have very defined financial policies, both from the association perspective, and from the federal grant perspective because we receive federal grant dollars there. There has to be in order to hold this tax status there has to be a mission and a margin to be successful meaning we have to have a certain amount of financial capability to be successful, right. The noise in the background is my dog playing with the toy so I apologize. You can, you can go to the next, next slide Christina. I think it is important for people to recognize that a lot of nonprofits fail annually in the United States. And the reason for that, really, and you can you can keep going Christina the reason for that has a lot to do with the leadership of the association. So, okay, let me take the really is the toy driving y'all nuts, should I take the toy away from the job. You can tell me if it is and I will. The nonprofits typically fail because there is a lack of strong leadership and or business knowledge, right, and there, and or they're not able to survive a crisis they undergo a crisis and they're not able to survive it, or they have well intentioned but experienced board boards of directors. So all of those three things can contribute to the failure of a nonprofit, it says something that this association has been around for 30 years and has not done anything but grow. So, so that's good news for us and, and we really have, I feel like great staff, excellent members, excellent board of directors, so, so hopefully we will never fall into this category. You can, you can keep going Christina. Maybe, did you want to do this slide, Christina or do you want me to do the slide. Either way, I think, yeah, we want to wanted to talk a little bit, hear from you guys about what you think, right so for this question for you all what does it mean to be a leader of a nonprofit board and a leader of an IFN chapter. And if you want to raise your hand to do that or please use the question answer the chat, Jen we have a lot of people that love dogs, so they tell us not to take it. I appreciate you not having me take her toy away she would have been not happy. So thank you for that. And I would have listened to how willing instead of a toy. So for all of you can you take a minute and maybe write some of your ideas in the chat here and, you know, there's, I want to say there's not a bad answer I think part of what we want to get at is people come to this with kind of different perceptions of what this means so seeing your answers I think it's helpful for other people, because you do, we all do come to spaces with different understandings of what will be doing there. I would like to make a comment a huge honor to be a leader of the IFN communication and transparency. It means the opportunity and responsibility to representing this work at a more local level. Opportunity responsibility, supporting growth awareness and access education inward and outward. Great. There's a lot of legislative changes happening in Illinois, so I feel like we are leaders and mentors to so many new forensic nurses here. Great. Networking and offering technical assistance duty to educate and support our non forensic nursing coworkers community awareness for critical failures of systems needs and responsibility to support service provision networking and support education hasn't been paying attention. This is wonderful. I'm noticing who should be at the table, and is not at the table and asking why great empowerment and guidance through education and offering opportunities. There's a lot of really good. I'm inspired by all your answers. This is great. Thanks for sharing that. I think we wanted to mention to that sometimes people confuse managerial strategies with leadership. And so we want to talk a little bit about leadership really not being a person's position right it's not about your hierarchy, it's not about your title. It really is about. Now I'm going to get mixed up here but yeah it's not about like your position it really is about I think the vision and ethics where you going and our people following you right. Sometimes when people think about leadership they get really caught up kind of in these wrong things they had caught up in, you know, the position of power more so than where they're going, or I think a lot of people put in the chat access right how are we bringing people in, how are we lifting people up, are we making them better prepared to be in the space that they're going to be in as forensic nurses that are prepared to meet the patients that are coming in as well and so I think that when we think about leadership that role in your local community is really working together to make decisions and prioritize actions that will continue to further the mission vision, and those those strategic pillars that we talked about right earlier. Yeah, I think that you include you engage and you represent forensic nurses in your state as leaders and that's really your focus so appreciate I love all these comments that really, really talk about that anything else y'all want to add. Now because I think we get to it so. Yeah, and so today we're going to be talking a little bit about the managerial strategy piece, because it sounds like you all get this, the leadership piece. And then we did want to ask here too if you can put these in the chat when you make decisions as a leader of a chapter of our chapter, what information or resources to you turn to. So as a chapter officer where are you going first, if you have a question or what are you looking at to help make decisions for your chapter. We have tired fingers because you all did such a good job answering the last question here. OK, great. So there's a lot of answers coming in. So the website, other board members, reaching out to myself, SAFE TA, other chapters. These are all good answers here. So a lot of these are website, which is great, and social answers. So there's a couple here that really talk about reaching out to other individuals, board members, other chapters, which is fine. But one of the things that I think we really want to talk about today is your tools of governance. And these are the foundational documents that you all use as chapter officers in order to be good managers of your chapter. Jen, do you want to talk about these a little bit? Or do you want me to? I can. So all of you have, in order to be a chapter, besides your tax filing, you need to have a set of bylaws. Those bylaws are, generally speaking, crafted to be very similar to the association bylaws. You have an affiliation agreement because you are an affiliate of the larger association. You have policies, and the association has all of these things as well, policies and procedures under which you are providing your service. And I don't want to speak for all the chapters because I have to say, Christina, as you so nicely mentioned, she actually spends a lot of time with you in comparison to the rest of the staff. But the strategic plan, you may not have your own strategic plan. You may follow the strategic plan of the association. But in either event, the mission and strategies are really the same. The budget for the current year, you may or may not have this. It depends on the size of your chapter, but the association has all of these things, bylaws, policy and procedures, strategic plan, budget for the current year. That budget is approved by the board the year prior. And position statements, all of those are, in one way or another, tools of governance. And all of those are things that the association has. Chapters are in different stages of development. Excellent. And I think we're going to get to ethical communications, we promised you this. So Susan and Jen, will you talk a little bit about what ethical communication is? Well, the most important concept of ethical communication is to go to the person you have a communication problem with and talk to them first. To not jump over someone's head. You have an obligation, if you're having a difficulty with another person, to go to that person and speak to them in a way that is respectful and tries to get the problem solved. And it's always better to do those kinds of discussions directly than to either go around that person or go above that person or not communicate at all. Because the only way to solve problems is through communication. Jen, do you want to add anything to that? Yeah, the thing that I would add to that is that I think about several circumstances that chapters have brought to our attention this year. And I would say two things. One is when I say you, I mean all of us, right? Need to remain professional in our approach. And so you want to make sure that you adhere to the rules of professionalism, which is when you have that ethical communication with that person, that you do it in a manner that isn't publicly shaming them, right? Or something of that nature. So you do it professionally, sidebar conversation where the entire chapter is not listening. It's sort of professional approach. So I would say that. And I would say, too, that I know that oftentimes it seems as though there are issues of trust often involved when there are communication failures, right? And so if you are concerned or there's bullying going on and you're concerned about having that one-on-one conversation with someone, then having another party there is fine, right? It's totally fine. But it's only appropriate to do what Susan is suggesting. And in fact, when people come to us to talk to us about things like this, that's the first question we ask is, did you speak with this person directly about the problem? Because oftentimes people don't realize that, and some people are better at self-evaluation than others, they may not realize that the perception is what it is, right? So it's on all of you as leaders to actually have that level of ethical communication. And a technique that was shared with me by a nurse manager many, many years ago was, one way to start these conversations is to humble yourself by saying to the other person, make it about yourself and not about them, but that when you did such and such, it made me feel this way. Because that's a good technique to open up those conversations because they really can't argue with your feelings. Then it becomes about whether they care whether or not they impacted your feelings by doing something a certain way. But that's one strategy you can use to open up some of these difficult conversations with people within the organization that you might be having a communication problem. Now, I'll add to that, and some of you have used me as a resource in planning this conversation, right? I think that if you are not comfortable reaching out to somebody, or you're really not sure how to have a difficult conversation, or you're so upset that you can't see the issue, you are welcome to call me. I'm not on your board. I'm not there every single day. I'm not going to hold it against Susan if she calls for some advice on how to structure the conversation if she has a complaint about Jen, right? I understand that that's an interpersonal, you're going to deal with your conflict locally, but you might need an outside resource who is confidential. I kind of treat it like if I was an advocate, right? You're giving me information that I don't need to keep in my head. It's not really going to impact how I see somebody, but it will help me help you prepare for the conversation that you will then have with that other person. And that's something that we do a lot, have some of those one-on-one conversations, right? And I would much rather you have an emotional conversation with me and then a professional conversation with somebody locally on your board who you need to live with and to continue to work with. And so I think that's just another resource that we offer to you because it is, if this is something that you're not comfortable with, having a direct communication or you don't know how to get to the point where you feel comfortable calling somebody, this is something that I think we invest in you as leaders to help teach you the skill or help you sort through how to get to this place. So I'll throw that out there too. Jen, I think you're doing the next one. Yes, so IFN, the association, and subsequently all of our chapters, we carry insurance, OK? We have something called D&O Insurance, the Directors and Officers Liability Insurance, and it covers the board of directors for IFN. It covers all of the boards of directors for the chapters. And it covers things like antitrust violations, et cetera, et cetera. So we carry that insurance not only for our organization but for all of you chapters as well. We also have a general liability policy that covers other things, not the officers, but things that property damage. We don't really have property anymore, but general liability. So we carry that at all times. So if ever there's a question or you need verification of those kind of things or if there's any issue at all that you believe is going to involve insurance, first of all, you should absolutely be telling Christina or myself right away. But we can certainly show you that. But we carry that. We cover that. It's on purpose. Because you don't want a lawsuit to take down an association based on either the action of a leader or whatever, whatever the case may be. So at this point, I think we're going to move into some specific topics dealing with the ethics of being a leader of your chapter. And the first thing we want to look at is term limits, with the question being, can an officer hold their position for a number of years? And feel free to put your comments in the chat. But my first starting point for this is, what is your motivation if you are the president of the chapter for multiple terms? I mean, is your motivation because there's nobody else who will do it? Is your motivation because you're getting some personal gain from being in charge and control? And I think, again, if your motivation is nobody else will do it, I think that becomes a time for you to decide whether or not your state or community can support a chapter. But the other thing that we really want to do and do better at IFN is to start developing more leaders. We can't have the same people doing all the jobs. And the goal is to figure out how to mentor people in your chapter so that you can raise them up to be new leaders in the chapter. Or maybe board members for the association. I mean, we often find leaders inside of the chapters that you're serving in leadership positions on. I see Karen says that they've had this conversation in their chapter. And it's a difficult one to do. If you have been invested in your chapter for years and years, and you're having difficulty growing more leadership, it's hard to let go of that part of the organization that you have valued for so long. But at the same time, it may be a reality check for your chapter. Go ahead, Christina. So your position as a board member for the chapter is a fiduciary relationship. And that means that you have to put the interest of the chapter first. And when we talk about interest, there are several different levels of interest. And in many cases, it's a financial interest. And you need to stop and think, do you have conflicts with the financial interest of the chapter? There's the interest of promoting the organization. And there may be conflicts with other organizations. There's the interest of IFN as an association that you have to act responsibly for. And you just need to know that those interests, when you hold a position as a chapter officer, those interests have to come first over personal interest or other organizations or any other responsibility that you might have. Just looking to see if there's. I like the comment that was made. I think that is the role of the chapter board to help a person who still wants to be involved to find a new role that can fill and be fulfilled. And I think that's a very good comment. So as that fiduciary, you have a duty of care. And that duty includes good business judgments at all times. And that includes how money is managed. That includes record keeping. There's due diligence in decision making. And you want to prepare and participate. And if you've not had a busy two years with COVID, I will be happy to come and check your pulse because I don't think you've been alive. COVID has put so many additional responsibilities on people, both from their work, their families. And so it's really easy to go, oh, the chapter meeting is tomorrow night at 7 o'clock. I'll look at the agenda at 645. But I think as part of your fiduciary duty, and we've all done that, I'm willing to admit that I've done that for other responsibilities, to prepare and be there to participate, not just be an officer on the board because it looks good on your resume or it will help you advance with another type of promotion. But at the end of the day, you can't be perfect. And you're going to be judged on the standard of what would a prudent person do after reasonable inquiry in a similar position under similar circumstances. So you don't have to have the legal knowledge of a lawyer. You don't have to have the business knowledge of an MBA. But you have to do what a reasonable person would. And you want to be informed and protect the confidential information. And that's indefinitely. If you have found out something as your role of a board member that was confidential at the time, just because you are now rolling off the board doesn't mean that that information loses its confidentiality. It's kind of like patient confidentiality. Once that patient leaves the hospital, you still have a duty to protect that. And once you leave the chapter board, you still have a duty to protect any confidential communications or information that you became aware of as a member of the board. Jen, you have anything else you want to add to that? Well, I think if you, so if you can try to picture, because a lot of people have misconceptions about this, but if you picture the IFN as a business and the IFN chapter that you lead as a little business, okay? A lot of people think, I think about it a lot in terms of the board for IFN. Oftentimes it's unusual for board members to come on to IFN and believe that their duty and responsibility is to the membership of the association. So if the X number of members want something, then that is their board obligation to fulfill that want of that group of members. When in fact it's not, that's not the responsibility of the board is to the organization. So if you can imagine your leadership is your duty is to that organization, what is in the organization's best interest, that is the perspective that you have to hold. And it can be difficult at times, but that's the perspective. What is in the best interest of this business that I am currently in charge of leading? And that's, I mean, that going back to the earlier discussion in the last presentation about the difference between a code of ethics and ethical vision, that decision was based, made based on the, what was best for the organization and the financial long-term security of the organization. And there were lots of people who felt like we should have a code of ethics that we could enforce with punitive measures, but the reality of that was not in the best business interest of the organization. Go ahead to the next slide. So you do have a duty of loyalty to the board, and that means both avoiding or disclosing conflicts of interest. I think we're all going to be occasionally in a position where we have a conflict of interest. I try to keep my mouth shut, it's so hard, but I think of our newest Supreme Court justice has already disclosed that by being on the board of directors for Harvard University, that there is a case coming up and she has already recused herself from that case because she's already recognized she has a conflict of interest to decide a case where she's been a fiduciary for another organization. And she's going to avoid that conflict by not being part of that decision-making. You need to be willing to disclose conflicts of interest You need to be faithful to the organization, and that doesn't mean that you have to love everything the organization does at all times, but when you are representing yourself as leadership in this organization, then you have that duty to be faithful. You need to put aside your personal agendas and avoid conflicts of interest, we've already said that, and act in good faith and be an ambassador. The good news is that as a chapter officer, we do not make you sign a non- I know the last place I worked for had a clause in the contract saying that you can't say bad things about the organization, ever. We don't force you to do that, but we really want you to be an ambassador for the organization and be out there telling people the good that IFM is doing and promote it so that we can continue to do that good. It's hard not to have divided loyalties, and so if you do have divided loyalties, if you belong to multiple organizations, you need to sit down and examine what are the expectations of both organizations, and do they conflict, or can you continue to do both jobs to the best of your ability and meet the fiduciary responsibilities you have to both organizations. I love that. Something that might actually be literally a good exercise to do is put a couple baseball caps or whatever kind of caps you have in front of you, and put a post-it note on each one, and put a piece of paper, and list out what your responsibilities are, and just really be conscious of, okay, today it's this, and I'm making the decision for this, or I'm going to need to put this hat on, and think about it that way, and sometimes that kind of really helps literally clarify what decisions are you making when you have an opportunity to make a decision, and what's the priority in that moment. I mean, to give a specific example, I presently work for the state sexual assault coalition, and I have been on the advisory board and the friends board of our local child advocacy center for a long time, and my role on the child advocacy board center, or the child advocacy center board, is fundraising. So when I came to the coalition, I basically said, I am here to work as a SANE coordinator, but I will not be involved in fundraising for this organization if it ever conflicts with my duties to the friends of our children's justice center, where my primary responsibility is fundraising. It's hard to, in a small community, it's hard to fundraise for two different entities without causing a conflict, because you tend to go to the same funders for money, and so I made that very clear that if I was going to join the coalition as staff, that there should be no expectations of fundraising from me. Because I saw that as a conflict, and so I think it's sitting down and understanding your roles, and then clarifying with yourself, and with the chapter, what you can and cannot do, if you have other responsibilities within the community. Thank you. Well, I would just expound, or did you just switch slides, Christina? Yeah. Do you want to, do you want to, no, no, I mean, you can keep going forward, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure I was speaking to the right thing. Do you, do you want to talk about this one, too, Susan, or you want me to? Go ahead and get started, and I'll be happy to add. How's that? That's great. So, so the duty of obedience, terrible word, admittedly, obedience, what a horrible word, but, but it's a good word as it applies to leadership of these organizations. The expectation is that you're going to follow the governing documents, whether they're the bylaws, policy procedures, external laws that you're required to follow, any of those things. But one of the primary things, and again, this comes up at the IFN board level often, is, you know, you may not agree with the decision that the board voted on, and it still may be the winning vote. It's critical in those circumstances that the board speaks with one voice, and the one voice is the voice that won, right? So if, if a board agrees on something, even if it's, even if it's only 75 percent of the board who said yes, and the rest said no, even those people who said no need to be prepared to speak to what the board agreed to, because that is speaking for the organization. It's totally uncool to go back and say, well, that was the board vote, but I didn't vote that way, kind of approach is not only unethical, but it totally violates this particular duty of obedience to the, to the board that you are part and parcel of the leadership of. The other thing is, it's important to know who is speaking for the association, right? So at the IFN level, the only people that can speak for IAFN on anything is the board president who's seated at the time, or the CEO, unless otherwise designated. So unless the CEO says, Christina, you can talk to that, the Associated Press on that, and speak for the association. Otherwise, it's the president or the CEO. And you want the same kind of thing at your chapter level, because what happens is people become associated with associations. And so when one person speaks, an organization, media outlet, or somebody else may believe that they just spoke for the association, when in fact, they did not. And that was not the position of the association, right? So, so you want to make sure who can really speak for you, your chapter. And is everybody speaking with one voice? Is everybody prepared to do that? Because as you know, people just don't always agree. But at one point or another, there's either a winning vote or a losing vote, and people have to be able to speak to the position of the organization. And the purpose of this is not to muzzle anybody. But you just need to be very clear if you are approached by the press about an issue, and you have not been granted permission to speak for IAFN, that you just state, I'm speaking on behalf of myself. And you have, you are totally entitled to have an opinion in your name. But I think you have an obligation to make sure that whoever you're speaking to understands that you're not representing the organization. And I'll just add to, I think, the why here, like, why is this so important? Why is this so critical? You know, I think that part of how we get things done, and part of how we are responsive to the organization and to our members, right? When our members come to us and say things like, we really need help advocating to our hospital. We need hospital administrators to understand what forensic nursing is. We need them to understand how it can be a sustainable program. As an organization, we, if we build a resource, if we talk to administrators when we're exhibiting at conferences, we are putting, you know, messages out into the universe, right? And if an administrator hears a message from the organization, they hear something different from a chapter, they hear something different from a member, they now have confusion, right? And confusion doesn't help them make decisions. So part of what we do as an organization is really try to have this unified mission and this unified, you know, whatever the topic is. The more clear, consistent, and repetitive we can be, the more effective we are in certain areas, right? So if that hospital administrator hears the same, you know, three-minute elevator pitch from all these different places, they're better prepared to say, great, I know what this is, and I can say yes to funding. If they are confused, they will not make that decision on behalf of you and behalf of our members and forensic nursing, right? So it gets back to access. And so I think this is really important to really understand that why. And you might not always know that bigger picture, right? Or that why this is out there or why we're asking for this access. And you probably know the why as you sit around the board table, right? Because you've had a one-hour discussion or a six-hour discussion and you've looked at it from every angle, so you really understand that why. But there is, you know, this bigger picture there that this is really critical because it influences beyond, you know, the conversation that I have with someone or the conversation that Susan has with one party. And so, yeah, we invite you really to be part of that ecosystem of getting these messages out into the world. And if you ever are just not sure, Christina, myself, ask. There are not position statements on every single thing, right, that could possibly come across your desk. So if you ever have a question, ask, where does the larger association stand on this issue? And, you know, I mean, just because we don't have a position paper on something does not mean we don't have an opinion that we're willing to share, right, with the chapter and assist the chapter with speaking out on something. You know, there was, I'm thinking of that letter, Christina, about the documentation in the patient's record, I can't remember, the alleged sexual assault, that. But so we, people do come to us, we absolutely respond and we will absolutely tell you where we stand on things if there's ever a question. But you just, you want to make sure that everybody's on the same page with this. And I think the next slide literally asks the question that I already posed, but I could be wrong. So we talked about this one already, but I think another one is the next question, the, which is, what if I'm worried about how another officer is handling themselves when they're representing the chapter? Then what? Then what do you do? Well, I think this goes back to your duty to have ethical communication. And it starts there. And if that's too difficult, then you reach out to Christina to help you with that ethical conversation. But you have to start there. And you have to have a clear concern. I mean, I think the more, I think in your own mind, you need to sit down and say, what is the behavior? And why is it inappropriate or bad behavior that we need to do something about? So make sure it's not just a personal issue. Other suggestions from out there of how you would handle this situation? Or how you have handled the situation? Anybody want to add that to the chat? I know people, if you type as slow as I do it may take you a minute to get what you want to say into the chat. In my next life, I will be a touch typist. I don't know I think this one's been pretty well covered. Okay. So next level surprise me but So conflicts of interest, what are those, there's a good comment on before we go on, we probably didn't see it come in. Yeah, time I find that it is an education issue and not an opinion issue, making it a teaching moment instead of discipline. That's a great, great comment. So conflicts of interest, what is it, why is it important. And can they be resolved. I've already talked about this to some degree, that the first thing you have to do is recognize you do have a conflict. I like what Carrie says she's tries to remember the 24 hour rule when discussing conflict with others. Take 24 hours. I do that with emails I write the email, and then don't send it with the caveat that I never put anything in an email that I wouldn't post on a billboard in downtown Provo, where I live. So again, conflict of interest goes back to your duty to put the interest of the organization first. And you need to stop and think are there aspects of your personal professional life that might conflict with your role as an officer. And I think one of the examples for me is, and that we as nurses tend to promote advancing education for nurses we think this is a good thing we have been encouraging this ever since we wanted nurses to get a bachelor's degree instead of a diploma degree. And I think that has been something that's been important to us as a profession. And for me to say that and have that opinion is okay, because I don't have any way to benefit from another nurse going out and obtaining more education there's no personal benefit to me. There's no financial benefit to me. I mean the personal benefit to me is there more people to take over when I'm ready to be done, but there's no personal immediate financial benefit. But if you are faculty for a school that provides forensic nursing degrees, there may be a personal financial benefit to having more nurses go to graduate school, sign up for your courses. So I think you need to be careful when you're making statements to make sure that there's no personal financial benefit to you by doing something. And to make sure that's clear and we talked about commercial conflicts of interest in education all the time. Are you selling a product are you promoting a drug. Are you encouraging people to use your imaging center, or a technique that only you have proprietary access to. So I think you just need to look at the whole broad issue of, is my position on this subject going to financially benefit me or benefit my status in the organization. So I think you need to look at the whole broad issue of, is my position on this subject going to financially benefit me or benefit my status in the organization. So I think you need to look at the whole broad issue of, is my position on this subject going to financially benefit me or benefit my status in the organization. So I think you need to look at the whole broad issue of, is my position on this subject going to financially benefit me or benefit my status in the organization. So the part of the reason that we have you sign the conflict of interest policy is to really encourage reflection on these things before you show up in the board space right so you can disclose. You can be aware first you can be aware of, you can disclose it to other officers, and then you know if there is a conflict, you are better prepared to notice it and raise your hand and say, like Susan I can't help with fundraising. I can't vote on this topic I can't speak to members about x, whatever it is right so part of having you all do that before you know you, you actually take on these positions as officers is to do that self reflection piece and be aware of any perceived that come up. And if another officer approaches you about something that they perceive as a conflict you know we do expect that you approach that conversation with that mindset of ethical communication, because they might everyone on your board should know, you they should be aware of that as well. But really, you know, explore it if somebody else has a perceived. They perceive you as having conflict explore that infrequently people will come to me, we will have a conversation and maybe there's a resolution. It's not always this hard stop, but, but yeah so we do ask that you do reflect on your multiple that all the hats and be aware of any potential conflicts you have. So getting back to this can you hold multiple leadership positions in your state. We are a new profession we are. We don't have. We don't have anything close to the membership of nursing organizations like a one, or in a, or the really are the larger more established nursing professional organizations. When you have a short a small amount of manpower the potential for people to hold multiple positions in your state becomes more common. What you have to step back and think is how does my being my. In my case, I am the same program manager for the coalition, how will that impact my ability to serve as a board officer. I'm going to be doing things that will benefit the coalition over the organization. And I just think you need to, and is the information I have by being a board member of if n going to benefit the coalition. And it shouldn't when it's confidential information. I think we have to keep those roles very separate and we need to have when the legal profession is you call the Chinese wall, and the Chinese wall is a wall that you can't see through or, or climb over that keeps your roles and responsibilities to separate entities, completely separate. You're not sure I'll, I'll take this one. So can you have your own forensic nursing business and be on the board of an IFN chapter. So, so, so I guess I would ask the group. What might be perceived as a conflict there, if anything, would you perceive a conflict, what would it be. So Karen says if you're providing similar educational offerings so if you're competing with the chapter to provide education if you're nursing business is one of providing continuing education. Absolutely. And then can you resolve that conflict, and possibly by not being involved at all. With the educational offerings of the of the chapter. You all have excellent answers, by the way. Yeah, so if you promote your, if you, if you promote your business or product through chapter events, promoting your business through the chapter for financial gain, same saying the same thing but yes that's right, there are three purposes to a chapter of the IFM public policy work education for your forensic nursing and other colleagues. And, and membership, increasing membership of IFM. And then the personal interest of marketing for my own business. Yes, it would certainly be in your best interest right if you were doing those things to have a broader audience. And so, so yes, all of those things are conflicts not necessarily unresolvable, but disclosable for sure. And, you know, the other thing is you're going to have as a chapter leader you're going to have access to all of the chapter members and all of their contact information so if you're in a competing business, and you have access to that information that information is proprietary to IFM. So, you know, yeah. So doing those membership lists with another business interest would absolutely not be appropriate. So one question is if it's a nonprofit, would it be okay to be involved in both it, the, the nonprofit just to be clear is a tax status. Okay, it's not. So, so the question is not is it a nonprofit, but is it organization that there's a conflict because you provide the same services and now you're a leader on both, you know, both organizations, or, you know, it's not about the nonprofit versus profit status of the association, it's about what association you know what's the organization, what are they involved in what where the potential areas of conflict between your chapter, and whatever that other organization is. And I'll give you a very specific example for Utah, we have a sexual assault coalition and we have a domestic violence coalition. I would see it to be a conflict of interest to be on the boards of both of those organizations, because we are competing for the same state and federal funding. So it would be hard to be able to represent the interest, honestly of both organizations and be on the board of both those organizations. They're both nonprofit organizations. They're both involved in providing for survivors of violence, but to be on the board of both of those would be probably a direct conflict of interest. And I'll give you another example too I think that thinking about, you know, is it easy for you to make decisions as a leader in multiple organizations right so if you think about this might not happen but you know if your chapter officer and you also and you become aware of a situation where there's one exhibiting booth left at a local conference, right, you now have a duty of loyalty and a duty of care and this fiduciary duty to both of these entities right, how do you make that decision. Is it easy for you to make that decision is it clear is it obvious or are you now disregarding, you know your duties to one of those organizations in that situation right so that that to me is a clear conflict so if you are looking at something where you can't make that decision it's not clear to you, it's not obvious. should benefit, you probably have a conflict right you don't want to be in that that sort of situation where there's limited resource and you don't know which hand to raise because if that's the situation you find yourself in. There's a problem and you're you're advocating those those duties. So, and, and so I just want to so there's a very interesting question coming up but before I read that out loud, let me say there's a difference between being a leader of a chapter and being a member of an association, right, the member being a member of any given association doesn't create a fiduciary responsibility. of an association right so it's when you take on that leadership role where you become responsible for the organization. This is where you see these kind of conflicts arise so I want to read this question. What about our responsibility to our primary hospital do we as a chapter board member need to disclose any conflict of interest to our primary hospital if we're going to those hospitals to offer education and training, meaning as chapter going to offer education and training. Do we as an individual benefit at all. I think you're going to, I think you're going to disclose to the hospital that. I mean, when I give a presentation, no matter where I give it, I now give the disclaimer that these are my views and my opinions. Now if you're going there, representing I have been or the I've been chapter then you're going to need to say that the opinions represented in this presentation are consistent with the mission and vision of the International Association of forensic nurses, I think you need to be clear, who you're speaking for and what you're saying and where that information is coming from. I know that my hospital required us to sign conflicts of interest if we did have employment outside of the hospital or any other So I think, again, it's a matter of recognizing that there potentially could be something, and looking to see what that potential conflict is, and either disclosing it or are saying I can't do this because it would be a conflict of interest. Okay. Do you want to go to the next question, Christina? Because this is an interesting one as well. Can an officer hold a position for the state or federal government? Meaning, can you hold a position with the state or federal government and be a chapter leader? So I think the first thing, if you are a federal or state employee, you will need to go to them to make sure that what you're going to do as a chapter officer is allowed. And when I say that, it may be attending meetings during times that you should be working for the state or federal government. Are they going to let you have that time off? Can you use state or federal resources for your job? So if you're holding a Zoom meeting in the middle of the day, do you have to leave your office and go somewhere and get on your own computer? Or can you use federal or state resources to do that? So I think the potential conflict comes more for the employee of the state or federal government and what their rules are about using state and federal resources for a non-state or federal purpose. At the same time, are there going to be so many restrictions placed on you by your job that you will not be able to fulfill your fiduciary duties as an officer for the chapter? That your need to support the interests of your primary job far outweigh your ability to serve the needs of the chapter. Jim, do you want to add to that? Nope. I think that covered it unless anyone is confused, in which case certainly chat us so we know. So obviously IFN, as we said, IFN's member lists are proprietary, right? We don't give those out. There's one group of individuals who make a list that is public, and that is those who hold certification as SANE or SANE-P from the perspective of IFN. But the IFN general member list, not public information, not information that anyone has permission to share. And so we have IFN's logo is proprietary as well. It's trademarked to us. Each chapter has its own logo. That's the logo that should be used for the chapter. If you are putting the chapter logo on something and somehow you're sharing it with other associations whose logos are also going to be on there, permission really needs to be obtained for that. And so you just have to realize that those things are proprietary. So when leaders and chapters take on the responsibility of their member lists, they take on that responsibility in a way that they maintain the confidentiality of those lists, that those aren't shared. Those lists of members are not shared. What else do I want to say about that, Susan? And again, once you leave your role as chapter officer, those lists still remain confidential. We're going to be going into the logo in detail later this week on Thursday, Wednesday. So we'll talk, we'll cover that. I know that that comes up a lot. And all the questions that we're talking about today are things that you all have asked at various times. So that's part of the genesis of some of these. These examples come from actual things that some of the chapters have experienced over the last year or two. Okay, so some chapters hold their own trainings, as Christina has mentioned previously. And it, you know, when they have an actual conference event, or an educational event live, there have been conversations for sure about, well, how do we do this? How do we do this? How do we do this? Live there, there have been conversations for sure about, well, what about hiring people to, you know, to give training, hiring people to teach? And what about sponsorships, etc. And so, so first of all, the chapter leadership has the ability to determine how they're going to use their money to bring in what whoever they're bringing in to provide education for the chapter. That said, you should protect the chapter. Insofar as if you're signing a contract with organization or a speaking group or whatever, you may wish to have us look at the contract just so that you're protected. And if it reaches a certain financial threshold, I think you need to give us the contract to review. But there's nothing precluding you from, you know, hiring trainers, if you have the money to pay for those trainers and bringing them in, you just have to remember it's a chapter event. So it's a, you know, I'm just going to pick a state, right? It's an event of the California chapter of the IFN, or the New Jersey chapter of the IFN, or Pennsylvania, or whatever. It's, it's the chapter event. And it's, it's not necessarily the other organization event, right? It's still your event, you're holding a training. And that's how you want to advertise it as your chapter event. With regard to sponsorship, there's exhibiting, and there's sponsoring. Exhibiting, simple, right? Everybody has the say, if you, if you buy an exhibit table at the IFN conference, you pay what the guy next to you paid what the guy next to you paid, right? There's a fee associated with you being able to display and basically advertise and market your product. That product might be a stretcher, a swab dryer, or another organization, okay? But the thing is, everybody's paying to advertise, right? So that at your chapter event, so you have to set up your process for accepting exhibitors in that circumstance. But it should be standardized, it should be a standardized approach across those exhibitors. Sponsoring is different, like not, not only is the New Jersey chapter going to pay for this, but such and such an organization is also going to pay for this, we're going to split the cost and our logo is going to be next to your logo is going to be next to your logo. You have to have those things really well defined. Because again, the purpose of a chapter is educating your members and others on forensic nursing. So you have to ask yourself, am I doing that by conducting this educational offering by, you know, doing public policy work that again, strengthens forensic nursing? And am I increasing IFN membership? Am I following my obligations as a chapter by doing this? That and standardizing the process. Now, what am I missing or forgetting here in this conversation, Susan, Christina? I think you covered it. And I think that one of the things that we're doing today is giving you a variety of examples of how to think about these topics. I don't think that we can cover every single scenario and every single example that might come up for your chapter. Like I said, a lot of these are things that people have reached out to us about, they're actually all something that a chapter has approached me about and different chapters, different times. And if it's your first conference or your first conference exhibit, you're going to have different questions that come up, right? And I think today, if you walk away with something, it's really the idea that these are things you need to be thinking about. These are things that you need to have, you know, a policy about, you need to be treating correctly. And if you don't understand these topics, reach out to us because we're happy to help you navigate. So it is, you know, it is fair, it is consistent and that your conversation as a board is, you know, is headed down the right path. You know, you're not trying to reinvent the wheel when there is, when there are standard business practices around these topics. And that way you kind of, you do maintain ethical communication, not only as a board with each other, but with, you know, other organizations in your community. Because if you're treating people different, there's going to be questions, right? And the other organizations in your community, your members who may have their own organizations. So there's, you know, we bring this up today because we want you to really understand, you know, potential conflicts, you know, areas that we can support you and that bigger community, right? Because we want you to have ethical communication with all of them. And it's part of how people see you in the world. It's just making sure that your contracts are in order, your contracts address different scenarios. You don't want to be surprised when you show up at the exhibit hall because you've never done it before. And people are doing really strange things because you didn't outline it in a contract. So even though we do require that you show us a contract, anything, you know, over a thousand dollars, if you have questions, reach out. We are so happy to review things because we want to help you avoid problems. So again, you know, you might not remember all the details from today, but we do ask that when you walk away from this, you do know enough to raise your hand if you have questions. So your responsibility as the board for your chapter is really to set the direction for that chapter to make sure that you have the necessary resources to conduct whatever business you are choosing to conduct and provide oversight so that you make sure it's done without conflict, without unethical behavior, you know, all of those things and toward those three goals of what it is to be a chapter. We already, we already talked about the board speaks as one voice. If you happen to be a board member who did have a dissenting opinion, and that's not the way the board voted, I think it is super helpful to make sure that you walk away from that board meeting with the rationale behind the decision, because that's the only way you're going to be able to speak to it. And you, you really want to try to avoid ending up in a circumstance where either you have nothing to say, which kind of speaks volumes, or you say something you shouldn't, which equally speaks volumes, right? So make sure you understand what's the rationale for why these other people on this board said yes, when I said no, so that I can effectively explain it to anybody who maybe poses the question to me. Attending meetings is part of the gig. It's part of the gig. And so I think the expectation in most chapters is 75% attendance at meetings, right? And the board for IFN recently upped that, increased that because, you know, as the organization gets bigger, the responsibilities of the board get more and dedication to what you're there for becomes critically important. So making sure that even as you're recruiting board members who are gonna run for election, that it's really clear what the expectation is of attendance, of what happens in between meetings, of the total responsibility of the job you're doing and where you wanna go with it so that it doesn't end up feeling like you got gypped in the recent election and they don't feel like they got gypped, you know, because it's more than I thought it was gonna be for responsibility or this person isn't showing up and we can't, our board is small enough so we can't actually take a vote unless all the board members are present, that kind of thing. And I think we've talked enough about ethical communication for one day. I feel like we've been pretty repetitive about that. Excellent. And if you need to take a breath or stand up or do a little wiggle at your seat, I know we've been sitting for a while, so please feel free to do that if you're listening and you need to, you know, shake it off as we keep going here. And you can, while you're doing that, try to listen to me in the background. But so the goal really is that the president and oftentimes if it's a smaller board, it may be the president and one or two other board members who are preparing the agenda for your meeting and making sure that if there's something that needs to be added, it gets added. So either asking all of your board members, is there a specific topic you want added to this month's board meeting? Some, depending on the size of your chapter, you may even pose that question to your members. It just depends on the nature of the chapter. But all of the board members should have that agenda in advance of the meeting. I know that I try and I don't, I would say I make it maybe 60% of the time. I try to get the agenda and any other documents the board needs to see a week in advance of the board meeting. I make it 60% of the time. So 40% of the time I fail and they get it in less than that time. But they should always have it in advance of the meeting. Always take minutes. Those are auditable documents. They may seem insignificant to you, but when we are audited, they are not insignificant. They are very important. So they reflect the existence of your organization. And if the IRS ever audits you, they will look for those too, FYI. So keep minutes and meet at least four times annually, which is not horrible and not hard to do. Typically, Robert's rules of orders are what is followed. And if you're not familiar, they're easy to look up. They're easy to manage in the meetings. And I don't think I should try to teach you Robert's rules. If a board is gonna take a vote on something though, there has to be a motion. The motion has to be documented in the minutes. And the potential for discussion has to exist. The vote has to exist. And the vote does not have to say, Teresa voted for this, Sienna voted for this, Samantha voted for this, and Susan voted for this. It doesn't have to say that. It has to say the motion was and the motion, Christina made a motion, motion seconded, motion passed. You know what I mean? It does not have to outline who voted what way so that it can be looked at later and there can be all sorts of unnecessary drama. Do you wanna talk about this, Christina, the education piece? Sure. So the requirements for education are that you hold at least one event annually. That's like the minimum bar, right? Most chapters do more than this. I think the most successful chapters are pretty consistent in whatever they're offering. So some of you do something monthly, some of you do something quarterly. And when I say consistent, there's two aspects to that. One is that your members know what to expect. It's on their calendars. They're able to show up. They're not surprised by an email. It's reliably consistent for them to schedule into their lives and consistent in the sense that you are visible to your chapter members over time. They know there's a chapter. They know what to expect from you. But you have one event annually. It can be virtual or in-person. I know a lot of chapters did go virtual over the past couple of years, but it can be either, it can be both. And then anything that you do that's outward facing, so agendas, flyers, things like that that go out into the world with the logo do need to be shared with IFN prior to the event. And part of that is the logo fidelity in terms of making sure that it is correct out in the universe and consistent. And that, yeah, if you're doing, yeah, like mailers, flyers, if you have any gear that has the logo on it, things like that do need to be approved. And your chapter does have a lot of discretion over what education you're providing. Again, in the context of everything we've talked about today, but you do get to pick topics. You get to pick the format. You do get to pick overall the number of trainings. Some of you do lunch and learns. Some of you do evening events. Some of you repeat the same training during the day and in the evening. And part of this is because you all know what is needed in your community, right? I'm not living in your state, so I don't necessarily know what the biggest training needs are or gaps are. And so those are things that as a local board, we really look to you to be doing the needs assessments, be talking to members about what they need and what the educational gaps are and be responsive to those. And Dan, did you have something to add? You came off mute. And Susan's heading out. So thank you, Susan. We really appreciate it. I think that's good for this one. You can keep going. And then we did wanna- Thank you, Susan. So first of all, the IFN support that's available to you as chapters, as you know, provide a lot of education. So if you're trying to identify presenters or topics or so forth, please don't hesitate to reach out. We've already talked about the contracts piece. As you know, we are a provider and approver of continuing education credit. So that is a resource for you, even though that says Survey Monkey as a form of your evaluation or perhaps you're sending something else to your chapter members. We do have Qualtrics now. Instead of Survey Monkey, but we certainly have that available if you need something done in that format. And IFN staff have gone to many chapter board meetings and we would go to any chapter that requested it. Kathleen, I think, goes a fair amount to talk about certification. Excuse me. So that's one example, but I think really there's an abundance of staff. So if you are looking for staff to come to your meeting for whatever reason, Christina can really help secure that for you. Plus, forgive me, I'm trying not to sneeze. Plus there are multiple presenters on staff, right? A variety of different types of expertise. So if there is stuff that we can present for you, the staff is more than happy to do that. And and if not, but there's somebody outside of the staff at IFN, we're happy to try to facilitate setting you up with somebody else. I don't know. I don't think there was anything else to say to that. Do you, Christina? No. And again, I think if you are hiring outside facilities or presenters, reaching out to us to review, regardless, again, $1,000 is a requirement, but we did see a lot of really weird contracts last year that would have had the chapters out a lot of money. So I just want to put that out there as a cautionary tale, like you are not a burden by reaching out. And I think prevention is 100% what we would like to do in most areas of our lives. And including for you, it is much easier for us to look at something for five or 10 minutes beforehand and deal with any problems or make adjustments than trying to manage potentially a fallout, negotiations after the fact for any contracts or anybody that you're hiring, so. Yeah, I think we really covered this slide, but maybe less so this one. Do you want to talk about this, Christina? Sure. So these are some of the activities that chapters can do around membership. So recruiting, you can be, you can actually go exhibit at conferences. AWON does a lot of local conferences that I forward out to the chapters. You can do a lot of different things. You can recruit for the chapters. You can recruit at local universities. Wherever you are, you can recruit for the chapter that's encouraged. Other things deal with retention and engagement. So your trainings, inviting them to your meetings. Those are really ways to engage members. If they're not engaged, they're probably not going to stay. So retaining them is key. It's a lot easier to keep people happy than it is to find new people. So I'll throw that out there. And local meetings really help. I think like the networking piece is huge. So if you can do in-person things, I know a lot of you have been doing different, even if it's like coffee and conversation, some of that, even if it's not CE and it's not education, there's other value in coming together. So a lot of you are doing the new chapter emails or phone calls to welcome new members, which is great. And more of you are actually have like a membership outreach effort where you're reaching out to expired members to say, hey, what's going on? You know, you're expired. Can we help you come back in? You know, what do you need from us? And so IFN can help you with all of those things. You get monthly emails from me about your membership. You can pull down your rosters anytime. And those, even though we have the recent technology update, those are now updated, they're correct. So those all should be kind of seamless moving forward. Again, I appreciate your patience while we kind of finalize what those looked like. I think that kind of covers it, but it's been really nice over the last year to see more of you really engaging and making directors at large focus on this piece. I've loved seeing that here. And we are gonna do our policy orientation later this week, but I think that here we'll just really talk about the seeing one of the three objectives and oops, IFN does need to approve any statements, testimony, or positions that your chapter meets on policy. And again, you just email me and let me know some of the things that we're always thinking about related to policy, you know, our access to care, the cost of care for patients and the quality of care. So those are really the things that we're most focused on. But again, I always go back to our mission. And I think those pillars, when we think about whether or not we would support something, and I will talk a little bit more when we dive into this about what you need to give me when you do ask us to review a specific piece of legislation. Let's see if there's anything here. Yeah, I think here, I just wanna highlight Advocacy Day. So a lot of chapters, we would love to see all of the chapters present at Advocacy Day. It would be great to see an officer and a member from each chapter represented at Advocacy Day. I think that would be really helpful. Each chapter represented at Advocacy Day. I think that is one of my like big goals. I would love to see that. A lot of chapters offer scholarships to attend Advocacy Day. Advocacy Day itself is free, the training, but transportation and lodging is covered by individual members. So chapters that offer scholarships to help offset those costs, it's huge. It's really, really a huge thing. And some of the chapters that do send, an officer or a member and or both, can send multiple people to Advocacy Day, you can actually go back and do a training for your chapter on what happened, what you learned, things like that. So there's kind of an ecosystem. The more that your chapter engages with the International Association events, it's almost easier, right? Because you're developing, this is a thing that we did. This is now part of our ecosystem. You can go back and do local trainings there, so. And almost every chapter we have has the financial ability to send at least one person from their chapter to Advocacy Day every year. So something to consider. Yeah, we'd love to see that. Yeah. I wasn't sure if you wanted anything on the website, but so, the chapter board is the governing body for the chapter. They supervise, control, direct the overall affairs of the chapter to the degree, given what you really want to accomplish, getting member input is, I think, really important. But in addition to that, they really, all of you help facilitate the IFN's mission, vision, strategic plan, and you represent us out in the world at the local level. You also provide expertise locally and one of the reasons why this is so important to us is because it's not unusual for us to get requests at the home office level and for us to direct the media, other people seeking local anything straight back to one of you. So again, this falls into that what Christina was talking about before, being on message, having the same messaging, right, and it gives us the opportunity to push especially the media contacts out into the local communities that they're talking about in their news reports. We want to push them back out to you so that they can hear from the local experts and we do that by the way on a regular basis. So and then the IFN certainly can assist you, the IFN board can assist you, we, the board for IFN is just, it has a few more organizational duties than yours insofar as their budgeting, their budgeting for the entire association across the course of every year, hopefully growing each time. That's certainly what we've tried to do over the last five years, but we have to do that all the time, right, so if you need assistance in that regard, I feel like we're here and we would be more than happy to help you, but the board is the vision, the strategy, and the staff implements those projects, processes, vision of the overall board. Yeah, I guess that's all I would say to that slide, Christina. We have a couple slides about communication and this is really for us to kind of be transparent if there are things that do come up, so typically if you need to reach out to IFN about a chapter or anything, really come through me, if you have a favorite staff person, it's okay to reach out to them. We're not saying don't do that, but it is helpful for me to know what's going on with the chapters because then I can better serve all of you. If we have assigned a board member or a staff member to work together on a specific project and we have had instances where it's me and another IFN staff member working with a chapter on something that might be a little bit more involved and might be something where it requires multiple meetings over time, we just want to say that that is a thing that could happen, so that is an option for you, but that we would be a little bit more controlling of what that staff member is helping with, it's going to be really specific, time limited if it is something that reaches maybe that level. If there are any problems between board members and staff, it should be handled directly in terms of ethical communication, which we have talked about repeatedly. If you have a problem with me, please let me know, I'm happy to talk about it. If things are not addressed, if I do something that really offends you, I want you to know who my supervisors are, that's Megan who's on the call and Jen, and you have direct contact information with them, so when we tell you to reach out to me, it is not in any way, shape or form telling you not to reach out to other people and it is not because we don't want you to have access to my supervisors if you do have a concern with me that I am not addressing with you, I would want you to reach out to them. If there is anything that, if you have any concerns about the CEO or C-suite, Jen or Megan, those go directly to the board, the president of the IFM board and I have all that contact information as well. This is our reporting structure internally and as leaders in the organization, we just want you to have this information, I don't expect that you will need it, but in transparency, we want you to know how to handle any complaints that might not be resolved through ethical, you know, direct ethical communication. And then there are multiple ways, I get this question a lot, is how do chapters communicate with their members? So a lot of you have a website, that is not a requirement, but many of you do. If you do have a website, that is something that you do need to drive your members to. They are not going to find it, most people are not Googling chapter of IAFN in this particular state, right? So a lot of chapters do post their minutes on their website, that way they are accessible to their members, some of you have those behind a password protected screen, which is all great. You know, keep your emails regular, even if you are not meeting or don't have a training for a while, make sure you are reaching out at least every other month, monthly preferably, we need them to know that you are still there, you are still listening, you are still engaged. A lot of chapters use social media, a variety of social media. You know, if you do have trainings coming up, make sure that you are announcing it with a save the date, an invitation, there should be multiple invites going out so people know to come to your space. At educational events, a lot of chapters will reserve the first 10, 15 minutes for any announcements that you have to go out to members, that could be anything. You know, related to the mission, vision of the chapter, but I think reserving that space for communication about what the chapter is doing, because a lot of times the chapter board is doing a lot, you are going to statewide meetings, maybe you are doing policy work, but that might not get communicated to your members. So making sure that your members know what your board is working on is great. I think we had one board that met over six hours a month, but never had a meeting for a couple months, and they were doing a lot of work, but their members didn't know. So I know a lot of you, I don't want you to be in that situation. You also have the online member community listserv, so the same place where you can go and pull your chapter roster, you can actually post messages there that will automatically go out to everybody that's in your chapter. Some chapters use those. If you do choose to use that, you will probably need to teach your members to look for those emails or to read their daily digest if they're not, depending on what their settings are. Your chapter board can put out press releases, position statements, again, approved by us, and then you can also have an in-person meeting at the annual conference. I will be sending out surveys with information so you can reserve a room for your chapter. It's actually already linked in the chapter timeline that I sent out, but that's an option too. That's a great time for your chapter to do its final recruiting or to actually hold your election for your chapter officers, September, so you can really do an onboarding with those new officers. We have actually two chapters that just started newsletters, so those are great ways to communicate with your members. There's, again, no expectation that all of the chapters do all of these things, but make sure that whatever method you're using, you are doing it often so your members stay connected to you. I think that we already talked a little bit about media and spokespersons and just making sure you know who that person is and referring media people to them. Feel free to always loop us in if there's something that you need our help with or you're not sure about. A lot of chapters, if they do speak to the media, will reach out to me to ask for maybe our membership updates, number of members in the state. That kind of thing might make you be a little bit better prepared to ask questions and talk about your impact in the state when you are talking to local media as well. Then more chapters are actually having your own committees, so we did just want to talk about the way that the committees work. Anybody that is on a committee must be a chapter member, so that is a question I've gotten quite a bit recently. If your chapter committee is like a policy committee and you are working on updating a policy, you can invite multidisciplinary team members or other people into a meeting or into the space for a specific purpose, time limited, but they don't become part of your chapter committee. Your chapter committee is really for your chapter and your chapter members. They serve as a way to segment and serve the interests of subgroups, so a lot of you have an education subcommittee that might work specifically on your policy. More of you are actually doing a membership committee, so they are sharing the responsibility of reaching out to members and really being that central location for members. These really help you get work done. Committees can also serve if there is a conflict, say if I have a conflict with education and I'm not on that committee, I don't make any decisions related to that, it's really a clear way to delineate some of those things. And then I do want to talk a little bit about the structure of committees. Now it's my turn to cough here. When you have a committee, your chair is appointed by the president and it's approved by the entire board of directors, and really we want to make sure that there's communication between that committee and your chapter board. One of the things at IFN we have liaisons, we have a staff liaison and a board liaison to make sure that there's communication going kind of around in a circle and that information isn't getting lost or captured in the community. There's one chapter that we spoke with recently that has a committee that didn't really talk to the board. So that information was never really going back and forth. So really this is a good place to make sure that communication is back and forth, that way the board is still kind of the head of the committee, they're informed about what's going on in that space, there shouldn't be any rogue kind of activities, and committees are a really good place to try out new leaders and to mentor them. So giving somebody responsibility, knowing that they are showing up consistently in the space, all a really good opportunity to see if somebody has what it takes to be a leader in the state. And I think I jumped ahead a little bit and talked about some of these responsibilities, but even in committees, you really are required to keep your minutes, and minutes are really, they can be simple, but they're really an accounting of what happened in that space. Your committee should, again, have regular meetings, they should have clear goals that should be defined, and they should, again, be talking back to the board of directors. If you have committees that are not focused on the mission vision, or they're really not getting anything done, sunset them. It's always easier to manage a few things well than it is to try to do too many things within your committee. And I think with that, we are headed to the end of our PowerPoint, and really just wanted to say thank you to all of you. We know that you take on a lot of extra responsibility as leaders in your chapter, and in the association, and we really want your board experience here with IAFN to be positive. We hope that it's positive with us, and we hope it's positive with your other board members, and also with the members that you get the privilege to interact with in this role. And we really think of you all as caretakers, as caretakers of your local chapter, your local business, and so we really appreciate you doing that and being shepherds of that. And yeah, I think that that is it. We just really want to say thank you, we appreciate you. Jen, do you have anything else that you want to add? We do want to open it up for any questions that you had that came up. Before we leave today, so if you want to come off mute, please raise your hand or put things in the chat, and Jen, anything else? Yeah, I would just say thank you so much for your service, and we really do, we really do when we're, when we think about recruitment for the IAFN Board of Directors, we really do look at what's happening with different chapters, and who's an emerging leader, and we truly do look at those things, and talk amongst ourselves about those things. So I, you know, I mean, I feel like as an organization, we're grateful for your service. Okay, so we have some questions coming in, which is. Yeah, so the annual meeting, which I believe was posted in the, so give me one second to look at my calendar, because the annual meeting will not be at conference this year, believe it or not, but it will be, it will be the June board meeting, which should, I believe that Melissa posted that in the community, but it will be on June 16th at 2 p.m. Eastern time. It runs from 2 to 4 Eastern time. The open meeting, annual meeting for all members will run from 2 to 3 p.m. Eastern time. So, and I'll, I'll actually make sure that that gets reposted, or Christina, perhaps you can get that information to them from Melissa, in the event anyone wants to attend, they're, they're welcome to attend. So that's that question. So the question is, when using the term board of directors, are we referring to all the chapter officers, or do we have a separate board? All the chapter officers that are elected make up your board of directors. Yeah, so your local board is really what we're referring to, so like the Utah chapter board. Sorry for using multiple terms, but that's what we're talking about. Well, you're very welcome for the information. Thank you for attending, and really, thank you for your service. Don't hesitate to reach out if you have other questions. And then, if there is anything that we talked about, that we touched upon here that your board needs clarification on, let me know. Or if there is something here that you want to talk about that we didn't talk about, or that you want to talk more about at one of our monthly round table meetings, please let me know. I really want that space to be useful for you as well, and I think that, you know, if there's things that your board is talking about after you watch this training in ongoing meetings, that is a great time to raise your hand and say, hey, Christina, can we dive into X? Can we talk about this? Because I think that would be great. It would be a really good use of that space together as well. Well, thank you all so much for being here. We really appreciate your time today, and we really appreciate everything that you do all year. So, thanks. Have a good afternoon.

officer orientation video

leadership

IAFN

ethical communication

conflict resolution

governing documents

conflicts of interest

duty of obedience

fiduciary responsibilities

forensic nursing business

seeking guidance

chapter board members

communication channels

committees