My Installation speech

Since all of you could not be on the cruise and hear my speech,I felt by reprinting it here it would inspire and inform more of the membership. I hope you enjoy and be stimulated to action.CSB

Before I begin my remarks, I would feel remiss if I did not thank a number of people for all they have done. I thank our past AO leadership, especially those who have mentored me and helped me get here today. Thank you to all the New Englanders who helped influence me in my early dental school days, and to all the New Yorkers who were so essential to my development since 1978. Thank you to all my Alpha Omega mentors that I have these last 33 years for everything! I truly miss the emotional, passionate discussions that many of our former convention regulars expressed - - - it never mattered if you agreed; you knew these Fraters cared and loved Alpha Omega.
AO’s Strength is, and, and always has been, its members. I would like to thank all those who have served AO in 2009,
Thank you to my mother, sister-and-brother in law, who are with me today, for all their life’s support. And thank you to my sons, Brad, Marshall, and, of course, Billy, and my husband of 31 years, Richard, who bleeds AO. Thank you, I love you all.
One of the things that makes Alpha Omega BOTH wonderful and unique is that every frater’s relationship, history and memories of AO have both similarities and certain things special to him or her. My AO history actually begins before I became a member. Thirty- five years ago this week, during the San Diego convention in 1974, my father-in-law, Eli Brody, was installed as the first Frater to be officially referred to as International President. Isn’t it amazing that when we meet for our next convention in 2010, during my Presidential year, that we will gather in San Diego once again? Thirty-three years ago, I attended my first AO convention, and shared a room with another female dental student. That student, Lynn Gitlin went on to become the first female International Trustee. She then influenced another student, Rochelle Shaw to attend and become active in AO. And that convention was held in Vancouver, where our present International Secretary Marcy Schwartzman resides! So, you see, we in AO have our “6 Degrees of Separation” game, too!
I am thrilled and honored that I have been chosen to serve as International President for 2010. In my 34th year of AO membership, I have been privileged to serve in many capacities, including Gamma Chapter President, Queensboro Chapter President, Regent of Regency 3, International Trustee and Chair of the Board of Trustees, Co- Registration Chair at 3 NY conventions, co-creator of “The Choice” program, and as a member of many committees.
Many of you probably remember my outspokenness at conventions during budget discussions and certain other issues. I have always tried to express my opinions clearly and concisely, and hopefully articulated my reasoning well enough to have at least some other people pay some attention. So, I come before you today to try to articulate my vision for Alpha Omega - - - short term, intermediate and long term. Long term is easy to explain - - - I believe that if we all work together, AO has the potential to be a leader, not only in dentistry, but also in the health professions, as well as in philanthropic endeavors. I believe that we can explain that in this evolving society, AO represents our best and highest aspirations - - -for a revitalization of the 3 sides of our triangle and how it makes us unique - - - that is, a combination of Professionalism, Fraternalism, and Judaic Principles. Other organizations or societies address one, or even two of these principles, but Alpha Omega is the ONLY organization that fills all three of those niches!
In the intermediate term, we have to explain to former members, as well as potential members, why belonging to AO is important! NOW! and RELEVANT NOW! And in the short term, we NEED to expand our membership to firm up our base, increase our clout, and create an economy of scale! We must all think back to WHY we originally joined Alpha Omega, and why we remain active members today, while others have not! In many cases, perhaps it is because ALL OF US have stopped effectively articulated our feelings for AO to others, and now we should start letting them both know why we still belong, and why they should, too!
So, I have decided that the theme for my 2010 Presidential Year will be “The Year For Our Members.” We who love AO need to become better prepared to answer the question, “Why Alpha Omega?” in an easy to remember, easy to say “sound-byte.” We must be able to motivate others to re-join us, as we re-double our efforts to evolve AO for this 21st Century, and we MUST have the ability to demonstrate why and how AO is relevant today! We must know how to concisely how to explain and answer questions and confusions! We must market ourselves better, and thanks to the efforts of Wendy Spektor and our corporate sponsors, new and better Membership brochures and materials have been created. A state-of-the-art PowerPoint presentation has been created, and NOW we must all learn how best to effectively use these and other materials and training. As I travel to our worldwide membership, I am planning on emphasizing membership and belonging, and AO’s relevancy, while working with local leaders to try to better articulate our message. When we all work together, we will accomplish these short term goals, which will better prepare us to address our intermediate and long term goals!
We need to reach out to those former fraters who have felt disenfranchised for whatever reason, and show them why it is more important today than ever for them to get back involved and support the mission of AO! Nearly one in20 US travelers are willing to take a trip to help the less fortunate or support a humanitarian cause. Volunteerism has grown in popularity since Sept.11, 2001 and Hurricane Katrina. It is trendy and AO,GOHI, DVI and Tomorrow’s Smiles are all at the forefront of a worldwide trend. There is much more interest in reaching out and helping people in poverty. AO has numerous opportunities to offer its members to satisfy this need. A well organized project such as the ones AO has can be listed on our Face book pages, our web site and the AO Exchange. Our happy volunteers need to be featured and their stories told to others, getting the AO message out to all. Please join me in re-dedicating yourself to Alpha Omega’s future. Our leadership seminar in Cleveland this past October was dedicated to methods and techniques to better communicate to them why it is important that they also belong. The stronger our membership, the stronger our message, and the stronger our message, the better we can make our little part of the world.
Recently, I have started to track Alpha Omega’s visibility on the Internet. Using the Google Alert, and the term “Alpha Omega International Dental Fraternity”, as a key search, I have been pleased with nearly daily references to Alpha Omega. I will be requesting our headquarters office to track and compile this for distribution in the future. I have also created an online blog so that interested members can follow what their International President is doing and my thoughts, ideas and reflections, throughout the Presidential year. This blog can be found directly at: http://tinyurl.com/aopres2010, or via a link from the AO.org web site. We will also have a strong Face book and LINKED-IN presence. We will ask each of you to join the AO exchange and be a part of this group. This will give a global contact point for all age categories of members.
My goal is that during my Presidential visitations, I will meet with the past, present and future leaders in the local area. My plan is to conduct informational and technique-driven, hands on training sessions. We will have conference calls with student chapter leaders, chapter presidents, PIP’s and other interested leaders. We must re-learn that Alpha Omega will only have meaning to our members if it is personal, and that requires personal conversations, not simply e-mail. We must work on reinvigorating our former leaders, encourage our present leaders and most importantly, work diligently to constantly develop new and future leaders. My #1 priority this year will be our Fraters and developing a strong, viable membership push.
If all of us here simply got one former member to rejoin our ranks, one potential member to join with us, and one existing member who needs encouragement to get a little more excited about Alpha Omega.Ao will grow and will be better suited and positioned for our future.
Alpha Omega must evolve without losing our identity. My challenge to All of us is to keep finding reasons and motivations to do this, rather than finding excuses and exclamations for why we can’t, or it can’t be done! IF WE THINK WE CAN, WE CAN! If we really want to make AO even more relevant to both existing members and others, we must go little outside our COMFORT ZONE. If we do that, we can and will re-invigorate our Fraternity. Together, WE CAN DO IT!
I am here to serve Alpha Omega and am honored to have the opportunity. Let’s work together to make 2010 the year Alpha Omega GROWS, and is re-invigorated. In the beginning of our 2nd century as an organization, we must use evolving techniques to improve upon what is, build upon our strengths, and better communicate our message. Working together, I am confident we will meet and exceed these goals.