August 2004 A Letter from the GNO-ARMA President What a meeting we had to plan our chapter year!! It was a bit loud in the City Club, but we managed to get through most of our agenda. MEMBERSHIP AND MENTORING After attending the Leadership conference in Midland I came back focused on these two goals for this chapter year. Under the category of membership I am making it my personal goal to grow this chapter. I will serve under Danielle on the membership committee and I am also going to Chair the Public Relations committee. We were informed at the Leadership conference that a study has been done and has concluded that IT, NOT RIM is going to drive electronic records management. As all of you know; and to quote the study "IT may be driving ERM, but to be effective it needs to understand the RIM principles". To read this article go to: http://www.arma.org/pdf/articles/BusinessTrendsRIMITDisagree.pdf We need to get our businesses knowledgeable about the benefits of designating a records manager for their organizations-NOW before it is too late!!! Under the category of mentoring I am hopeful for some of you to express your desire to serve on the board of GNO-ARMA. We; your board will volunteer to spend time with you to explain what we do in our various positions and to help you understand such things as: 1. How to call a meeting to order. 2. What our By Laws dictate we do to function as a chapter. 3. What is a Quorum? 4. Why the Minutes are so very important. 5. How to create an agenda. We recognize that sometimes people won't volunteer because they are afraid of what they don't know, and we want to change that for you. IF YOU THINK YOU WOULD LIKE TO SERVE ON THE BOARD IN THE FUTURE PLEASE CONTACT ME SO THAT WE CAN EXPLORE THE POSITION YOU HAVE AN INTEREST IN !!! In addition, I have attached our committee list. We can always use your help, so if you read about a committee that you have an interest in helping please let the committee Chair knows this. I am so proud and excited about our new volunteer project. St. Mark's is a United Way agency and Pam Couste has offered to head up the records retention project on behalf of GNO-ARMA. Melanie Gonzales, Rob Perry and Mike Popkin will lend a hand as so will some of you, I hope. Once it is determined what the scope of this project will be I will notify you of the dates that work will be performed. It will give those of you who want to help an opportunity to learn how the certified records managers create a retention schedule. On the job training!!! We have a wonderful fall program ahead of us, and I am looking forward to all of you being in regular attendance. On Sept. 15 we will be meeting at 11:30 A.M.!! I believe the meeting will be held at Andrea's, but we will notify you as soon as it is for sure. Our speaker on that date is Ms. Karen Bevan; Registrar of Health/Vital Statistics office of Public Health here in New Orleans. On Oct. 20 we will hold our annual Bosses luncheon at LePavillion Hotel, and our speaker for that event will be Colonel Terry Ebbert, currently serving as The Director of Homeland Security for New Orleans. For more information please visit our website--- http://www.geocities.com/gno_arma/ May God bless you all. Kathryn Smith, CDIA