November Board and General Meeting Overviews

Hey Friends!

This month we thought we would do one post to let everyone know what when on at the Board and General meetings this month. We had very low attendance at the General meeting tonight (November 11th) so not many decisions were made.

Board Meeting:

This meeting took place on November 4. The biggest thing we discussed at this meeting were ideas that we took away from the OMED Convention in Seattle. Here are some things we discussed:

1.  Themed Meetings: instead of just having General Meetings, talking very quickly about business and going home, we are now going to be having a "theme" each month at the meetings. We wanted these General Meetings to be beneficial for our members and not just another thing you "have" to do. This month we did a Thanksgiving theme. We asked members to bring their favorite Thanksgiving recipe to the meeting and Genell will be scanning them together and emailing those out for some new tasty things for you to try this month. We also had Shelley Wieting and her friend Katie give pointers and instructions on how to successfully cook a great Thanksgiving Turkey, since a lot of us have never done this before.
2. Membership: The AAOA, who is over the SAA on a National level, has decided to make increasing membership a very large goal over the next year. It is their vision that 100% of all students who have SAA chapters at their colleges of medicine would be dues paying members. AAOA membership is only $5, HOWEVER the reason we are wanting membership to increase across the national is so that we have a larger pool of advocates to pull from when it comes to helping getting bills passed that effect your students' profession in the future. The AAOA has decided to give out a gift to anyone willing to become a paying member, just to get the membership numbers up. We will be asking the AAOA for $10 gift cards for anyone willing to pay $5 to become a member. So basically the AAOA is paying you for your membership. So please spread the word. We want 100% of the student body at DCOM and we also want grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, aunts, uncles, etc because we all need to be informed advocates for our students. We discussed changing the SAA Membership dues to make it more feasible for people to become members. We will be discussing the exact dollar amount further in the future.
3. Fall Festival: We made over $400 in profits from our Fall Festival that the SAA put on on October 30th so THANK YOU to all who participated!! This was more than the club made last year so we hope to continue growing this event each year.
4. Christmas Ornaments: We have approx. 175 Christmas Ornaments that need to be sold. We plan to sell these on the November cookie day (November 12th @ 11:30am) so they are available to the students. We will also be advertising in an email to all the faculty, staff, and students of DCOM that we will be selling these ornaments at the Thanksgiving Dinner on November 24th. The ornaments are $8 a piece or 2 for $15.

 General Meeting:

Tonight at the General Meeting we really just addressed this month's events. We talked about specifics of the Thanksgiving Dinner. We have had 9 people sign up to bring turkeys and 5 people sign up for hams. If you are an SAA Board member you need to bring a side item in addition to your assigned item. Anyone attending needs to bring the following:

Last Names A-D: Bread + Canned Food Item for Donation
Last Names E-H: Drinks + Canned Food Item for Donation
Last Names I-Q: Dessert + Canned Food Item for Donation
Last Names R-Z: Side Item + Canned Food Item for Donation

We also learned how to make a great Turkey! Thanks to Shelley and Katie, we are now fully equipped to be the Thanksgiving Great Chefs this year. These are the handouts they gave tonight:

 

 

Upcoming Events:

November 12th - Cookie Day: bring your favorite cookies to MANS for 1st years (4th floor) or DCOM for 2nd years (1st floor) at 11:30am to be passed out to the medical students as they leave for lunch at noon.

November 24th - Thanksgiving Dinner: @ DCOM 2nd Floor Lounge 6-8pm

If you're wanting to attend please bring bread if your last name is A-D, Drinks if your last name is E-H, a dessert if your last name is I-Q, or a side dish if your last name is R-Z. All attendees are also encouraged to bring any canned food items to donate to the Manna House as a way to give back for Thanksgiving. **(THIS IS NOT AN SAA ONLY EVENT - IT IS COMMUNITY WIDE SO INVITE YOUR FRIENDS FAMILY AND NEIGHBORS)**

December 11th - SAA Christmas Party @ Wieting's Home: This is for SAA Members and their students only. If you are last names A-N please bring a side dish and last names O-Z please bring a dessert. All attendees also need to bring a wrapped Christmas ornaments for the ornament exchange.

We look forward to seeing everyone soon!