July 2007 | Vol. 25, No. 7

Chapter News

Paula Walsh, Chapters Subcommittee Co-Chair
Shelly Burns, Chapters Subcommittee Co-Chair

Outstanding Chapter Award

SVU has 22 active regular Affiliated Chapters and 2 Affiliated Student Chapters. It is a lot of work to organize these chapters, run the meetings and maintain the records. However, these committed individuals who have volunteered their time to perform this service for us will tell you of the sometimes frustrating, but mostly deep satisfaction the volunteer experience has provided them. Their dedicated work, whether it is in our local region or the other side of the country, benefits all of us by promoting vascular technology and by supporting the work of SVU.

These chapters deserve our heartfelt thanks for their dedicated work at the local level. Thank You! Each year the Chapters committee looks at the activities of the affiliate chapters and based on a variety of criteria, chooses the Outstanding Chapter for that year. But this year was different; this year we had a tie and even more unusual; it was a 3 way tie. Our heartfelt thanks and congratulations to the following three chapters for their activities supporting their membership and SVU:

• Red River Valley Vascular Society (North Dakota) - President Judy Fried
• Northeastern Pennsylvania Vascular Chapter - President Nancy Rist
• North Jersey Vascular Association - President Jeanette Flannery

Outstanding Chapter Individual Award

It takes many individuals to maintain our chapters, but every so often we are fortunate enough to have one person who stands out in his or her work for a particular chapter. The chapter membership nominates these individuals for the appropriately named Outstanding Chapter Individual Award.

The recipient for 2007: Jeanette Flannery of the North Jersey Vascular Association.

Jeanette's achievements include:

• In the field of vascular technology for nearly 30 years
• RVT Credentialed since 1983, the first year it was offered by ARDMS
• Supported the coalition of vascular specialists by inclusion of technologists, physicians, student sonographers and nurses within the local chapter
• Strong supporter of SVU's governmental relations effort
• Supported public education on vascular disease
• Advocate of technology excellence
• Advocate for education of administrators for appropriate workloads and the risks of workload injuries among vascular technologists and sonographers.

Watch for next month's Chapters column when Jeannette shares some of the history, challenges and triumphs of the North Jersey Vascular Association Chapter!

Congratulations to all of the 2007 chapters award recipients.

Very Successful Chapters Breakfast in Baltimore

During the 2007 SVU Annual Conference in Baltimore a very successful Chapters Breakfast was held on Friday morning, June 8. About 50-60 chapter members and potential members attended the breakfast that was moderated by Chapters Subcommittee Co-Chair Shelly Burns. The food was great and the networking and discussion was even better. SVU hopes to hold another Chapters Breakfast at the 2008 SVU Annual Conference in San Diego, CA, June 5-7, 2008. Special thanks to the following six Chapters that contributed funds to help support the 2007 Chapters Breakfast: Kentucky Vascular Society (KVS), North Jersey Vascular Association (NJVA), Northeast Pennsylvania Vascular Chapter (NEPVC), Northwest Vascular Technologists (NWVT), Ohio Northern Kentucky Indiana Vascular Technologists (ONKIVT), and Suncoast Society for Vascular Ultrasound (SSVT).