Great Northwest Region Message (from Fran Blaylock)

Season of Thanks

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and I sincerely hope each of you enjoyed time with your family and friends and had a chance to relax and count your blessings. I always enjoy this time to be thankful for everything I have, but especially to share with others less fortunate and to get in the swing of making special gifts for those I love. I think all of us have something special to share with others both at home and at work.

This is especially true of your friends and acquaintances within ARMA. As we move towards the end of the year, I hope you will think about how to extend your support to ARMA. There are so many ways to reach out, such as attending your chapter meetings, acting as a RIM mentor or even sharing your unique expertise within our region. One of the messages I heard from the leadership meetings at the Chicago conference is that we all have the capability to reach out and make a stronger, unified association and to better define our future. We need to look outside our scope of vision to look for better ways to communicate who we are, and what the profession stands for.

ARMA has been through many trials and tribulations to gain firm ground and prove our worth within our organizations. One area that is gaining momentum in ARMA is the Competency Project. The project kicked off with a Job Analysis Panel of more than 40 people from all different arenas within the profession, including general practitioners, practitioners from special sectors such as legal, pharmaceutical and other industry specific groups, educational experts, consultants, and representatives from the IT sector. These individuals shared their special expertise to create the first draft of the core and industry-specific responses. This first draft is a 100-page documents and covers RIM tasks, knowledge, and skills relating to our everyday responsibilities and covers entry level through management and director levels. I think we should all give thanks to the volunteers that worked hard to produce this first draft!

The next step is to have two sub-groups analyze and perfect this document to prepare it for submission to the International Job Analysis panel by Mid-February. After the panel completes it’s input, an e-mail request will be sent out to the general ARMA membership, requesting volunteers to participate in a validation survey. Keep your eyes open for this e-mail if you are interested in participating in this exciting project.

A reminder, ARMA elections are coming up in January. This is your chance to select the leaders that will move ARMA International into the future. Take time to acquaint yourself with the candidates and to make the best decision possible for you as an individual member and for creating a stronger ARMA. To locate the candidate bios and issue perspectives, visit www.arma.org/myarma. Election ballots will be mailed January 6 and due back February 14. This is your opportunity to share your voice and help shape the future of ARMA!

ARMA International has also been busy in the Legislative/Legal arena, with the introduction of several bills on data security to Congress. ARMA leaders and staff met with members of the House and Senate to recommend language to be added to bills and explain the importance and need for written records management procedures to be included in the legislation. Keep up with the most recent ARMA activity by accessing Senate Bill 1408, The ID Protection Act on the ARMA International website.

Finally, the plans are firming up for our Region Conference “Keeping on Track in Century 21,” scheduled for March 13-15, 2006. The conference will be held at the Best Western Executive Inn, close to the Space Needle and downtown Seattle. The brochures will be coming out soon, so keep your eyes peeled. I encourage you to register early, as the speaker line-up looks very good, and there will be much opportunity for terrific networking with other ARMA members from your region. Hats off to the GNW Region Conference Committee! They have been working very hard to bring you a quality conference.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and best wishes for the new year.

Fran Blaylock
Great Northwest Region Coordinator