Greetings from the Executive Director’s office! Well, 2010 is stacking up to be as eventful a year as was 2009. We have been working over the past year to put a firm staff foundation under the SSH so that we can support the growth and services provided to our members. Our team is phenomenal. We continue to maintain our virtual office environment, with employees in Missouri, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. We are fortunate to have a dedicated staff that are committed to the mission and purposes of the SSH and work autonomously to support our members, committees and Board of Directors. This innovative infrastructure allows us to save valuable dollars on “overhead” and put more money toward our programming and committee needs. I would personally like to thank our team for their hard work.

Membership continues to grow at a pace of about 80-100 members per month. We thank you, our members, for referral of your colleagues. We are in the process of creating our first marketing campaign, aimed at membership engagement and growth. We continue to expand our services and hope that you will enjoy your SSH membership even more in the future. If you have not told someone about SSH this week, consider emailing this newsletter link to a colleague who might benefit from becoming a member of SSH.

Our Board of Directors met in New Orleans June 11-12 to approve the budget for our next fiscal year and to see the venue for our 11th Annual International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare. Our Board of Directors continues to dedicate their time and talent to move simulation forward. We are blessed to have a group of people that are willing to squeeze in some time for our professional Society in their overcrowded lives. There will be open positions on the Board of Directors this fall. Watch your email for Nominations information, think about your ability to serve on the Board, and consider running or nominating a colleague to serve in this capacity.

Planning is in full swing for our 11th Annual International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH), January 22-26, 2011. In fact, the site is open for all content submissions through July 19, 2010 at 11:59pm Central Time. If you are doing great work, and SO many of you are, you really need to think about submitting a proposal and become a part of the faculty for IMSH….we are holding nearly 200 spots for submissions. The submission site address is: http://www.call4abstracts.com/ssh/

Remember, you will need to create an account, as your SSH user information will not get you into the new system.

Registering for the IMSH conference this year will look a lot different than in the past. Listening to your valuable feedback, we will open registration later, in SEPTEMBER! The delay in opening registration will allow us to offer sign up for each session you would like to attend. So, please, watch your email closely as we continue to update you. Registration will take longer as you choose your sessions, but your seat will be held and your CE certificate will identify which courses you checked in for….yes, we will scan you at the door for each class that you signed up for. Therefore, it is important to sign up for what you will attend – but, don’t worry – our new, improved registration system will allow you go back as often as you wish and change your mind, print your new itinerary and ensure that you make it into the classes you are hoping for. We hope that this improvement in our registration process will be acceptable to you, our valuable members.

Robin Wootten

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