TBR News
21 st ANNUAL DISTRICT ONE AALAS TRAINING SEMINAR
“Exotics to Aquatics”
ALBANY MEDICAL COLLEGE
April 25 th & 26 th , 2008
CTAD NEWS 2008
C ommittee on T echnician A wareness and D evelopment
Our CTAD Mid-Year meeting was February 9 2008 in Memphis .
We had a very successful meeting with some changes:
We have decided to put the tech week logo
On all CTAD related events in the program for the National Meeting. This will be held in Indianapolis November 9-13, 2008. The colors will be changed to reflect certifications. (Green ALAT, blue LAT, red LATg and purple CMAR)
The Committee felt some technicians are not attending some of the events because it is hard to sometimes navigate through the program and this should help identify us!!!!
Fun Fair
We will be having sign ups for the Fun Fair starting on SUNDAY this year,(traditionally it has been Monday morning) so hopefully people can get started on their scavenger hunt sooner and it will take some of the pressure off the CTAD committee on Monday as Monday is our “big day” at the National meeting. (We have decided to make the test only 100 questions to cut down on the time)
Lunch and Learn
We will be changing the format for the lunch and learn this year:
We will still have 3-4 speakers as in the past two years but……. We are now going to have one talk at a time with hopefully two screens for PPT presentations and we will rotate out the speakers. We have had problems in the past with people not being able to hear the speakers and we are hoping this will remedy that.
We will have an area for private conversations with the speakers for questions anyone may have, questions will not be taken at the presentation itself in order to save time.
Also, this year we are opening up the presentations to all technicians instead of just the CTAD committee. We have speakers already in mind and I will update you on the progress when we hear back from the folks.
We will also have posters put up with the district numbers- who the CTAD rep is- Who the TBRs are and what branch they belong to- as well as what states are covered in your district. Every year I have someone ask me all these questions and I thought it would be a good idea to have it posted.
We have also increased the number of participants this year to 200!!! We have had “sold out” crowds the last two years.
Tech Week
We had a record year this year for the selling of tech week items (969 orders!) - Some items had to be reordered 3 and 4 times!!!!!!
Some people had problems getting some of their items and we are going to remedy that for next year, the problem was some of the items took 4-6 weeks to reorder, so we will look at this when we decide what items we will have for next year.
AND yes the retractable badge holders will be back!!!
Starting in 2008 the tech week posters will also have the Tech Week Proclamation printed on the back, a lot of people were wondering why we celebrate tech week and this states exactly that. You can find the proclamation on the AALAS website under the BAIT section.
We will also make sure the dates are listed on the posters; they were inadvertently left off this year. We're sorry for that.
Miscellaneous
Please encourage anyone going to the Nationals for the first time to attend the first timers meeting held on Sunday. It has a wealth of information
We have an animal behaviorist in mind for the Hunter Lecture - as this is the National theme this year, I will keep you posted.
I was told the Indianapolis zoo is wonderful, so if you get a chance try to visit!!!
Any questions/concerns please don't hesitate to contact me
Jenn Kieffer, RLATG, CMAR
District 1 CTAD rep
February 18, 2008