As you can see, The AFA Volunteer has been designed to accomplish a few things: provide you with resources to assist in your development as a professional in student affairs specializing in fraternity and sorority advising and your development as an AFA volunteer; provide you with information on what the Executive Board has been working on to assist you in framing your own goals and objectives in your volunteer position; and to recognize volunteers who role model above and beyond the call of duty performance. As I stated during volunteer training in San Antonio and in my speech at the Business Meeting, the Executive Board and Central Office stand committed to helping you maximize your potential as a servant leader in our Association. If you are informed about what we are doing, we believe that there will be a greater investment from you as a volunteer. The following is a brief update on some work by the AFA Executive Board and the AFA Foundation Board since the Annual Meeting.

• Dan Bureau, Amy Vojta and Sue Kraft Fussell will represent AFA at a meeting with college and university presidents next week in Washington, D.C. At this meeting, we will discuss implementation strategies for the Call for Values Congruence. You can find more information about this document by clicking here.
• Goals! Hopefully you have provided your volunteer supervisor with your respective goals. Anyone in a supervisory capacity should have submitted goals with feedback from their committee members. The board is committed to reviewing goals and providing our thoughts within the next week.
• The AFA Foundation will meet in Chicago February 18-19. Fundraising efforts at this past Annual Meeting set a record in donations through the Silent Auction and the “Because You Believe” sticker sale. Thanks to all who contributed!
• A workgroup has been appointed to evaluate the AFA webpage and make recommendations for improvements. Research and recommendations will be provided for future consideration. We are continually looking for ways to better service our members and we understand that the webpage is an area that we can improve upon.
• Focus groups led by Angela Carver at our Annual Meeting in San Antonio resulted in more feedback for the board to review and make recommendations for improvement in our operations and our overall member experience.
• Greg Mason is overseeing three membership workgroups reviewing the membership category privileges and recruitment efforts of Regular, Graduate and Affiliate members. Progress is being made and we hope to have recommendations by mid-March.
• Our next board meeting will be March 14-16 in Indianapolis, IN. Our goal is to host a meeting that is as cost-effective and fiscally responsible as possible.
• Members of the Executive Board will represent AFA at upcoming meetings of ASJA (asjaonline.org) and NASPA (http://www.naspa.org/).  In January, we partnered with ACPA to host the Mid-Level Management Institute (www.myacpa.org/edu/edu_mmi.cfm) in Bloomington, IN. The AFA Foundation provided scholarships for three individuals to attend this important professional development opportunity. We continue to seek ways to partner purposefully with fellow higher education associations that add value and opportunity to your AFA membership.
• AFA is partnering with Jon Hockman (http://www.dreamdaredo.org/) to host the Professionals Program at the upcoming MGCA conference (http://www.mgca.org/). This is an exciting initiative for our association. We have also been given the opportunity to exhibit at NGLA (http://www.ngla.org/) for free. The Regional Directors will represent AFA at all of the student regional conferences this spring.

We’re busy and we know you are as well. Your commitment to our association is appreciated. As you look to the next month, it will be important to begin implementing your goals. I have asked that board members provide timely feedback to you in order for volunteer supervisors to empower their committees. If you have any questions about these or any other projects, do not hesitate to ask your volunteer supervisor.