From the minute I arrived and met Shirley, I knew I was going to enjoy myself. She was a great roommate – she even managed to sleep well even though I am known to be “noisy” at times. I am pleased to say I now have another friend; I’ll be happy to share with Shirley any time. Another friend I spent many hours with was Terri Goodman – our Treasurer and Webmaster. For those of you who do not know Terri, she is a whirlwind. Terri and I socialised, worked, networked, laughed, cried, and generally ate too much food, but we had a great time and these precious hours together flew by.

The conference was entitled Embrace the Future with Influence, Conviction, and Creativity. It was a whirlwind weekend with amazing speakers – we laughed, we cried, and we were inspired. The outstanding speakers included Commander Scott Waddle, author of Do the Right Thing, who retired from the US Navy after a horrendous submarine accident. His talk, Failure is Not Final, was a compelling story of character, integrity, and ethical decision-making. Matt Weinstein, author of Row, Row, Row Your Boat demonstrated that implementing the principles of leadership can be as simple as a nursery rhyme. Ron McMillan of VitalSmarts presented Influencer, telling stories of several individuals worldwide who facilitated behavior changes that improved the heath of whole populations and saved millions of lives.

I was inspired, not only by the speakers, but also by the amazing nurses attending the conference. I met many nurse leaders whom I have admired for many years – nurses who are important to other nurses all over the world. Having the opportunity to speak with these leaders is invaluable. I also met nurses from all over the USA who inspired me with their stories. I heard many good ideas that have relevance no matter where you live or work. I will certainly share them with my colleagues here in Canada.

AORN is striving to embrace the future! It was evident from the presentations that they are dedicated to preparing leaders. It was also evident that they are responsive to the needs of AORN members. The Congress schedule has been revised for 2009, and there is a proposal to revitalize the Specialty Assembly structure to increase value to members. We learned, too, that AORN has “Affinity Partners” with whom AORN members can save on a wide range of products and services.

eChapter, too, is embracing the future. We have initiated many innovative projects to meet our members’ needs – we are considered a progressive and influential chapter. Think of this: AORN has 42,000 members and 3,115 of them belong to our chapter!! I was so proud to see eChapter listed as a member of the Bronze Club in the AORN Foundation Annual Report.

I encourage all of you to attend an AORN Leaders Conference – you will be inspired! There were quite a few eChapter members present and some of us managed a few meetings to work on eChapter business. You will see some of that work in the near future.

Enjoy the rest of the summer!!