Updates from our Executive Director
Hi all - a note to remind us all what invested, dedicated and impressive volunteers and staff we have working on our behalf.
The Applications Review Committee and “Spanish ARC” are handling the changing applications, corrections, and fixes so bravely - it’s really hard to remain answerable and steady with all the fixes and changes that have been necessary through our website meltdown. The Board and I are so grateful for the good will and care that these folks are showing. What great teams, and what great leadership they have in their Chairs and co-Chairs.
The Foundation is moving along slowly as we wait for the Federal government to finalize our 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. Once that happens, volunteers working on conference, journal, and education will be “moved” (no one’s actually moving) to the Foundation, leaving certification and membership to the original IAABC 501(c)(6).
Speaking of conferences, we currently have no plans for our 2021 conference because we can’t commit to an expensive hotel contract without knowing it’ll be financially and physically safe to do so. APDT, Clicker Expo, and everyone else is going online, as The Lemonade Conference showed them it could be done. But that means a ton of online competition, too. So we’re kind of sitting on all that right now, waiting to see how the wind blows.
Tom Candy and Justine Harrison are swimming the UK training organization waters, which are teeming with sharks and guppies, but they’re working hard to see to it that our UK members are included in everything that ensures the ability to work.
Philip Sun is getting the lexicon of behavior-speak-to-Mandarin filled out for the Taiwan division, with a new person or two on board to help out!
Español is, as always, being a beast when it comes to translation, output, legislation work and education. Additionally, our Chilean colleagues are dealing with a severe lockdown that allows only two, half-hour walks a WEEK for dogs, which is a nightmare for people without yards especially. That’s a lot of people in Santiago, so they’re working with the government to try and alleviate this insanity.
Michael Baugh’s videos for IAABC, conference, and then our pandemic-focused resources, have been wonderful for calling attention to the work we’ve all been doing. The Pandemic Handbook and Dog Training Handbooks are seriously valuable. We’ll be promoting those more as the world creaks to a stutter start. This flu season is pretty scary to think about, both health- and business-wise. We want people remembering to practice new skills, and not just waiting to get back to old ones. The team that put all that material together is owed a huge debt of gratitude from everyone in the training and behavior world who takes advantage of that time and care. I heard recently that some very large companies are using that as a launching point for their own work. What a compliment to our contributors!
Our social media teams, English and Spanish, have met new landmarks in our followers and content engagement - a ton of work. Along with all the other goodies floating through the intertubes, Erin Jones’s "Science Says" are really fun, and have cool factoids in them. Keep an eye out for them!
Speaking of a ton of work, Rochelle Burtt is single-handedly wrestling down the dragon that is our education platform. Well, single-handedly with Sylvia Currie and Sarah Filipiak, but still, you get the picture. She’s also unifying all of the applications’ formatting and language changes, because she’s clearly not suffered enough in this life, and so needs to suffer more. We will never let her go, so pay no attention to that woman banging on the door asking to be let out.
Rochelle is also acting as project manager with the web team - a massive amount of cat herding, me being one of the most problematic cats. Melinda Lee is also working on testing and general “MARJIE DON’T TOUCH THAT I MEAN IT” web work.
Our Live Chat team, on the platform Chatra, are incredible, fielding questions ranging from membership issues to “my (parrot, dog, horse, cat) wants to kill (my child, my partner, me) and I need this fixed (tonight, yesterday).” They’re always so friendly and helpful and work hard to resolve every issue. I literally feel gratitude for them every single day.
Jodi Thibault and Shannan Skitch, now known as Left Shark and Right Shark, have joined our team as - official titles - The People That Do All That Other Stuff. The TPTDATOSs (pronounced, “tupdatoes”) are doing things like updating the website and going through course material. Melinda is teaching them the info@ ropes and Chatra, and they’re taking care of an amount of random things that can only be referred to as a “boatload” of tasks.
Our ethics committee is now led by Kathrine Christ, with Joan Forry, Renee Erdman, Tiro Miller, Christina Hargrove, Imbi Kiis, and Denise Johnson, an impressive staff of lawyers, ethics experts, educators, veterinarians, and over-all good thinkers. They’ll be working on some education as well in the coming months.
The Journal is getting gianter and gianter, with Tiro and their new content editor Erin apparently seeing if they can break their record for “most best material in a single freakin’ issue.” I’m guessing yes, which only means it will be bested the following issue, if things continue as they have been.
Our intrepid Beta Testers for the ADT dog training application have given fantastic feedback. It’s so important to the process, and they get extra cookies for sure for this. The ADT is available to all members from within their user accounts, and will be on the public JOIN page soon.
Dot Baisly, Fernando Diaz, Mara Velez and the shelter team are working on a massive, multi-part course, material for the shelter library, and also engaging our FB community in meaningful conversations that, according to feedback from participants, is really helping, especially now during this weird, difficult time.
Meanwhile, Sandy Crosby is still womanning the Lemonade Conference help desk - people are still writing in! Every TLC volunteer is due thanks for the massive amount of work they accomplished: Ailigh, Cybde, Skye, Shannan, Jodi, Heather, Joann, Camille, Dae, Irma, Tracey, Liz, Trudi, Philip, and Michelle, what you did for 3 days straight plus many days on either side, well, wow. Thank you.
The Board and the Nominations team are working on the Board elections, which are different this year. We’ll be welcoming a couple of new board members to the fray in the near future. We should be gentle - it takes a while to know just how hard-working and wonderful this group is - and mayyyyybe a tiny bit wacky, too.
When I posted this message to our volunteer Slack channel I saw that the message was going to 141 people in 10 time zones!. Our volunteers are nothing short of amazing. THANK YOU ALL.
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