American Association for the History of Nursing

Strategic Planning Meeting

Savannah, GA

September 27, 2012

8:30 AM – 12:00 PM

12:45 PM – 4:45 PM

Presiding: Brigid Lusk

Present: Jennifer Telford, Arlene Keeling, Rusty Lusk, Barbara Brodie, Mary Gibson, Barbara Gaines, Susan LaRocco, Gerard Feahy, Annemarie McAllister; RC Representative David Stumph

Late afternoon: Jean Whelan; Joan Lynaugh

President B. Lusk welcomed all and thanked everyone for coming to this important meeting.

M. Gibson brought us gifts from Georgia Southern University.

D. Stumph indicated that the purpose of the meeting was to develop a strategic plan that will guide the organization. His role at this meeting is to take us through the process. The goal is to be future thinking and to have a clear understanding of where we want the organization to go. He noted that the last strategic plan was too aggressive and that now we want to look at 3 or 4 major goals and then 3 or 4 things to concentrate on to meet those goals. He encouraged the Board to focus on the highest priority goals and how to meet them. He indicated that his role was to be impartial, but because of his history with the organization, he will insert his opinion at times.

D. Stumph reviewed the member survey which is 90+ pages, reflecting 130 responses (almost 1/3 of the membership). Highlights included:

1  Membership: 38% have been a member 5 years or less

 Awareness of the organization: word of mouth and academic setting are both strong

 Age breakdown: almost 90% over age 50 (cause for concern)

 Role: mostly researcher/educator (53%) and then retiree (27%) was next most common

 Over 90% from nursing background rather than history background

 Reasons for choosing AAHN: scholarly opportunity highest; education and networking are also high

 High degree of satisfaction with the organization; 92.7% would recommend AAHN to another colleague

 Web site: rated pretty well – much higher than three years ago. It was mentioned to include listing of history resources on the web site.

 Social networking: 46% use face book; same percentage uses no social media

 Costs: one main issue raised is cost in being a member and in attending a conference, but there is awareness about the realities of running the organization

 Location of conferences: sentiment for moving west; may need a three year rotation – West, Midwest, East; [comment from A. Keeling: concern about cost for members to go to west if most members are from the east]

 Nursing History Review: highly regarded; some concern that it is a little cliquish with contributions and reviews done by primarily by mid Atlantic members. [comments: there are two hubs of nursing history; many have collegial relationships with those hubs, including former students]; interest in having it published more frequently [comment from B. Lusk: might want to consider on line first]

 Newsletter: rated good but frequency is of concern; people are asking for frequent communication. [comments: change to on line; less items; more frequent]

 Networking opportunities: rated highly by people who attend conferences; people are looking for networking opportunities throughout the year. [Comment: consider having a list serve; M. Gibson: types of list serves – one that contains reviews is a lot of work; a list serve that is just member focused, asking for information might be overrun with students asking for help with papers]

2  Grants: some would like to see more opportunities and clearer language such as definition of a ‘new researcher’ is; possibly need other categories for grants

 Conference planning: viewed as uneven; suggested that there is need to increase involvement of Resource Center (RC). [comments: implications for cost; may be a better rate at hotel; would make it easier if planning committee is not working with different people every year; having the RC involved more would make it easier for program chair; resource manual for conferences needs improvement; registration process is variable now; need for streamlining registration; can we afford more involvement from the RC; analysis needed about cost – D. Stumph will provide the analysis; financial impact may be positive if RC does more; data collection about attendees would be more thorough and consistent; tracking of people who join because they are presenting would be useful; continuity would be helpful in arranging sponsors; general agreement that we need more stability and more consistency in conference related planning and implementation]

Review of SWOT survey that was completed by Board members

Strengths

 committed talented group of people [think about what types of opportunities to get them engaged]

 journal

 conference

 networking

Weaknesses

 declining membership

 lack of visibility

 inadequate communication

 limited financial resources

Opportunities

3  establishing partnerships [comments: think carefully about the goal; guidelines for it; what is in it for us and for the partner?]

 leveraging the electronic communication;

 promoting non-traditional interest in historical work (not just academic); [room for both scholarly historians and members who are not academic, but are interested in seeing historical sites or collections; avoid being elitist but need to keep the rigor]

 promoting mentorship

Challenges

 Increasing membership

 Increasing visibility

 Ineffective communications

Action Thoughts from the SWOT Analysis

Visibility

SWOT analysis rated visibility as high importance, high challenge. Comments on the survey included lack of knowledge that AAHN existed.

Suggestions to improve visibility:

 board members speaking at other conferences;

 consider having AAHN conference at the same time as another nursing conference such as STTI;

 exhibit at other nursing conferences [what is the cost?; what happened to the idea of having a banner to display?]

 ads in nursing publications about the conference

 encourage members to join STTI website speakers bureau

 email blasts to connect with members

4  have a short presentation on the web site available for members to use to tell about the organization

 need to find a way to get the message out that the group is very welcoming

Education

Education was also identified as an area that needs attention, especially for people who cannot attend the conference.

Suggestions related to educational opportunities:

 webinars [comments: where would the content come from? Typical charge for webinar for 1.5 hours is about $79; what about a virtual conference? What about Skype for doing conference presentation?]

 electronically provided education [comments: live webcast of conference – would this decrease attendance? What are the costs? Keynote speakers may want more money or may not allow broadcast]

 Continuing education credits [comments: have we been inconsistent? We don’t always do them. Is it important? Host school will probably charge. May be costly. Is it a draw? Might just give a transcript to attendees]

 Curriculums in nursing schools related to history – engaging the schools [Comments: more marketing to the faculty? Find ways to be more visible to National Student Nurses Association (we are partnered with them); history is not always seen as rigorous scholarship; there is little grant money for historical research]

Increasing membership

Increasing membership was viewed as an important issue for sustainability.

Suggestions related to increasing membership:

 find where RNs serve as tour guides, re-enactors, etc.

 recognition that there is tension among the membership about the purpose of the organization [comments: high level scholarship, but interesting; strong agreement that high level scholarship is essential]

5  speakers bureau – website with link to members areas of interest

 establishing a list serve

 establishing a student network

 use social media such as Linked-in or Face book

 establish a network of mentors [comments: what tools could we give them? Where would we find them?]

 create local or regional activities [comments: do we have a critical mass to do this? Does this need to be from the bottom up with local groups?]

Communication with Members

 lack of education about what is available on website. [e.g. we have a searchable member website; using email blast to increase members knowledge about what is available; mostly used for conference information; needs links to other sites; do we need a web editor?]

 web page for past conference information is uneven as it is done by local conference planner

 nursing education and NHR [comments: for faculty who teach undergrads the NHR is too high level; faculty want more short pieces if they teach; is there a substitute publication for shorter pieces ? What about the Bulletin? [comment: because the Bulletin is not peer-reviewed it is difficult to get people to write short scholarly pieces for it; could it be peer-reviewed? Less extensive peer review that are done by editorial board?]

 could media reviews be on the web site?

 could international submissions that do not meet criteria for NHR be used for the Bulletin?

 would a second journal that is not as scholarly be feasible [comments: would need an editor and a publishing company]

 conference proceeding publication – what would it look like, would it be feasible? 4-5 page manuscripts that are peer reviewed

 E-blasts may solve a variety of issues by compiling them to form the Bulletin

6  Bulletin may also be a place for student work to be published

 What about on-line publication? [issues related to copyright]

Big Question: What should the Bulletin look like? What purpose should it serve? Need to resolve this to improve communication with the membership.

General Discussion

 importance of membership retention

 need to be relevant, but what does that mean today?

 issue of merging or partnerships with other organizations; benefits would be shared resources, broader membership possibilities; would be distressing for some (maybe many) of the members

Primary Goals

 Membership growth

 Increased visibility

 Improved communication

 Organizational advancement

 Leadership sustainability

Membership Growth

Membership growth was viewed as likely to occur if we have increased visibility (new members) and improved communication (retention).

Increased Visibility

Strategies

 Encourage members to be on STTI speakers bureau

 Exhibit in other conference settings (buy a display banner for this)

 Advertise (one option is Google ads – cost? D. Stumph will research this)

7  Slides for use by members to give a talk about relevance of history and the organization

 Outreach to other nursing organizations

 FAQs for history – on web site for specific types of nurses

 Better coordination of conference planning for more visibility

 Webinars – need a task force to plan for this; possible format of 1.5 hours; 1 hour content with 20-30 minutes for q and a

 Create a list serve – not limited to members? Need to budget for it?

 Apps (for conference)

 Business cards

 Power point on AAHN website that professors could download for a one hour lecture on history of nursing

 You tube video; interactive web site

 Consider a new logo

Improved Communication

Strategies

 NHR – possibly expand the editorial review board; possibility of area editors; perhaps using the criteria of having published in NHR before a person can be on the review board; frequency of the journal is a concern (once a year leaves a writer in the pipeline for a long time)

 Media reviews – possibly placed on the website

 Nursing history articles published in other nursing and public health journals

 Publishing the proceedings of the conference – high priority; longer abstracts that could be printed as the conference proceedings

 Bulletin – should it be an e-news? Feature articles as a link from the e-news. Should it come as breaking news with a link to the web or as an e-blast at regular intervals? [comment: Bulletin in its current format has outlived its usefulness]

8  Latest news on the web site; making home page more dynamic.

 Website content editor – the communications committee needs to be reformatted to include more communication rather than just the Bulletin

 NHR – could it be published electronically prior to print publication

 Posters at conference – put more focus on posters

 Conference – poster session; put more focus on poster.

Plan: Repackage the Bulletin to monthly email blasts and amalgamate them quarterly and post them on the web site and snail mail it to those who want it that way. Do we need a bylaws change to make a change to the Publications Committee?

Plan: Conference presentations to be published in a proceedings book.

Organizational Advancement

Strategies

 Consider student members on the Board (not a priority now, but could invite a doctoral student to attend)

 Board restructuring – evaluate positions on the board

 Possibility of a president elect – would be preparation for presidency (needs bylaw change)

 Utilize past president – helps with institutional memory; may also designate that position for bylaws responsibility or for strategic planning

 Possibly eliminate the Director/chair of finance position

 Changes in planning – use of RC; D. Stumph will give us proposal [a la carte proposal with various aspects of conference planning and management]

 Changes in conference planning – use of RC; D. Stumph will provide the Board with a proposal

 Encourage students to come to meeting when they register for conference.

9 Leadership Sustainability

Strategies

 new board orientation (could be done as a webinar, archived on website for future use)