By: Tia Politi, ORHA President
July 2023
2023-2025 Executive Committee Officers, Advisors, and Committee Chairs
This month marks our officer transition. At our March board meeting, ORHA officers were voted in for a two-year term beginning this month. I will continue for one more two-year term as President, Cloud Miller will serve as Vice President, Lance Lesueur as Treasurer, and Chuck DeSeranno as board Secretary. Legislative Director Jason Miller is filling the role of Past President, and both Dennis Chappa and Violet Wilson have agreed to stay on the committee as advisors; their extensive history with ORHA is invaluable. Maria Menguita will serve as an advisor on an as-needed basis; her marketing and social media expertise is helpful during our planning meetings.
Thanks so much to Dennis and Violet for stepping up to fill in as Treasurer and Secretary when the elected officers were unable to fulfill their terms. And a special shout out to Vice President Ben Seamans, who is closing out almost two terms as Vice President (VP). When President Jason Miller had to step back in 2018 and his VP Sage Coleman had to pick up the leadership role, Ben stepped in to be Sage’s VP. After Sage was elected to continue to serve as President for the 2019-2021 term, he went through some personal turmoil in his life, and Ben stepped up and led our group for at least six months in admirable fashion. He has been a great support to me over these past two years. Thank you so much Ben for all you’ve done to keep us moving forward despite the many challenges we’ve faced.
Thank you to Jill Maricich who served two terms on the Executive Committee, first as Treasurer, then as an area representative. Due to a change last year that created four regions out of formerly five, all areas of the state are fully represented for the 2023-2025 term, and we don’t need area reps to fill in. Sometimes a particular region of Oregon will be overrepresented in the EC and one or more regions underrepresented. When that happens, each unrepresented region puts forth a candidate to serve as a voting member of the EC to ensure that all areas of our state have an equal voice in how our association is run.
Some committee chairs are remaining in their positions and others are being handed off to new leadership.
- Education/Mentoring Committee – Violet Wilson, will continue as Committee Chair.
- Finance Committee – Former Treasurer, Dennis Chappa, will lead the Finance Committee.
- Forms Committee – I will continue to serve as Forms Committee Chair.
- Legislative Committee – Legislative Director Jason Miller with the assistance of Deputy Legislative Director Ben Seamans, will continue to lead this committee as well as our Rapid Response subcommittee.
- Long-Range Planning Committee – This committee has been on hiatus as we dealt with and continue to deal with creating a stable foundation for ORHA. See my State of the Association report later in this newsletter for updates on our progress. We hope to soon start looking ahead instead of constantly putting out fires.
- Membership/Dues Committee – Jason Miller has agreed to continue to lead this committee.
- Newsletter Committee – We don’t really have a committee anymore as Office Manager, Ben Seamans, has taken over. So, he’s our unofficial Chair!
- Survey Committee – Alex Wilkens took the reins of what was a nonfunctioning committee and under his leadership, the team completed three quarterly surveys of our members. Alex will continue to serve on the committee but is handing over the leadership role to Jason Brush.
- Technology Committee – Cloud Miller continues to give his life to leading ORHA to new heights in our ability to provide a top-quality forms store and utilize technology to help our leadership team, our delegates, our county chapters, and our members.
- Website/Social Media Committee – I am grateful that Maria Menguita will continue to lead this committee. Her expertise in this arena is a perfect fit to help ORHA continue its social media outreach.
Oregon Gardens in July
I hope to see all our ORHA delegates at our July meeting at the beautiful Oregon Gardens Resort in Silverton, July 14-16. We had the best time last year at their venue. The food Is fantastic (best hotel breakfast ever), and I don’t know what “triple sheeting” is, but the beds were the best! A few of us took time to tour the Oregon Gardens and what a special place it is.
This month our Friday no-host Delegates Dinner will be held at People’s Taphouse Pizza, 100 S Water St, Silverton, beginning at 5:00 p.m. July 14th. Please let me know if you’ll be coming with as much notice as you can, and if you don’t, show up anyway! We’d love to eat, drink, and make merry with you. Relationship building is important stuff
We will also be hosting a training session Sunday morning for those who can stay over Saturday night or log on virtually to participate. Ben and Cloud will be training us on using Microsoft Teams to put on webinars or create videos. Because we only meet in person four times a year, we feel it is important to use the time to its fullest where we can connect, train, and move ORHA and our local chapters forward to new heights.
