Region Message - April 2012

Greetings Great Northwest Region


For those fortunate enough to attend the Great Northwest Region Conference in Boise – Wow is all I can say. There were five FAI’s teaching at the conference. The quality of the speakers was phenomenal. This conference was the premiere event in the Region.

There were 17 people signed up for the new iCRM Training post conference, certainly the ‘icing on the cake’ to a terrific conference. This reminds me to remind all of you of our new GNW Region Mentorship Program. If you are interested in being a mentor or would like to partner up with a mentor, please let me know. The Columbia Basin Chapter has a member who is putting together a CRM study group for the chapter to be held before each chapter meeting. They currently have three people studying to be CRM’s. I have seen notes about CRM training in the newsletters of several other chapters. This is a hot topic with people trying to retain their jobs or prepare for advancement.

Arg!! Calling all pirates. Once again, the Oregon Chapter and the Region are teaming up to march our GNW Region Pirate Ship in the Portland Rose Festival Starlight Parade on June 2nd. We need all the pirates we can get to walk in this parade with our friends from Iron Mountain. Please contact Tyrene Bada, President Oregon Chapter if you are interested in participating. We had a blast last year with Trevor Mitchell and Komal Gulich. They made great Pirates!

The Great Northwest Region Leadership Conference is scheduled for June 8 & 9 in Richland Washington. The registration fee is $50/person to attend. The conference will be held at the Hampton Inn on the River. Everyone is invited to participate. This is a great opportunity to network with the Region Team, other Chapter leaders, Headquarter staff and the ARMA International Board of Directors. The training on each leadership position and the role you play is beneficial to all chapters. The agenda and further details will be published and distributed shortly.

The focus of the Keynote address from Galina Datskovsky, Ph.D., CRM, at the Great Northwest Region Conference was on both President Obama’s direction to agencies to improve records management policies. He stated agencies must deliver plans for modernizing their records management policies by late March. And perhaps most importantly, David Ferriero, 10th Archivist of the United States, has said, "I strongly support this Presidential initiative, which sends a very clear message to Federal agencies about the importance of managing electronic records. Records management must keep up with the technologies used to create records in the Federal government, and the President’s Memorandum underlines the critical nature of this responsibility." You can read more from the Archivist on his blog.


[http://www.arma.org/news/index.cfm?NewsID=971&Type=Industry] It was a powerful keynote conclusion to the conference!

Peggy Simpson
Director of Marketing and Membership
Chair Great NW Region Mentorship Program
Great Northwest Region
ARMA international