A Month of Celebration

By Ernesto A. Cerdena, PHDc, RT, CRA, FAHRA

Many countries around the world celebrated May 1 as International Workers’ Day. In the Philippines where I grew up, people celebrate this day as Labor Day every year. Depending on what part of the world you’re in, the celebration of May 1 could consist of a traditional spring festival of singing, dancing, and jubilation. AHRA has a lot to celebrate this May, and I am so excited to share with you.

• The board approved the Nomination Committee’s selection of candidates for the 2016-17 Board of Directors. The candidates will be presented to the membership for voting online May 16-June 13. The newly elected board members will be installed at the close of the 2016 AHRA Annual Meeting, July 31-August 3 in Nashville, TN. Click here to view the candidate profiles.
• The Education Foundation’s 25^th anniversary continues to attract momentum. Lori Burns, EF Chair, is actively seeking support for the 2016 annual appeal. Howard Schwartz, one of the founders of the EF, has established the 2016 Education Foundation Founders’ Legacy Campaign to help celebrate and support the EF’s 25^th anniversary. This campaign’s goal is to raise $25,000 to maintain the tradition of supporting continuing education programs for the AHRA membership.
• I am also very excited to announce AHRA Connect, our new, members only online community. To build on the value our organization strives for, we’re excited to enter into a new phase of member communications by providing you an environment to connect, engage, and share critical industry information and best practices in real time.
• Our deadline for ‘early bird’ AHRA 2016 Annual Meeting registration was April 30. We attracted many members to take advantage of the reduced pricing. Our design team is gearing up for a truly amazing program; you can check out the session lineup they’ve put together on our website. This meeting is on track to be one of our most well-attended meetings ever!
• You may recall that 3 years ago AHRA conducted a very successful campaign to increase our membership, which resulted in us having over 5,200 members today. I am pleased to let you know that our Membership Committee is working on another campaign that will kick off at our Annual Meeting in Nashville.  Themed “We Are All in This Together!” the goal will be to reach 6,000 members by the time we reach our 2017 Annual Meeting in Anaheim.  We will need lots of help to make that happen, so please stay tuned for more details!

Let’s make this May an AHRA Spring Festival Jubilation and celebrate our association’s success and blessings!

Ernesto A. Cerdena, PHDc, RT, CRA, FAHRA is the president of the 2015-2016 AHRA Board of Directors. He is the director of diagnostic imaging/radiology services at Waterbury Hospital in Waterbury, CT. He can be reached at ecerdena@wtbyhosp.org.