News From Lea Asbell-Swanger, USITT President
New Year, New Opportunities
The USITT booth at LDI 2013.
Photo/Barbara E.R. Lucas
Happy 2014! I hope each of you enjoyed a safe and relaxing holiday season, which I recognize is sometimes difficult since so many “civilians” look to us for a variety of traditional entertainment opportunities. For me, one of the pleasures of our industry is the overlap of our work and non-work families, even though that overlap is a result of the sometimes frustrating conflict between the time required by work and the demands of non-work responsibilities. As the lines blur between the two, the possibilities creating fond memories extends to both, so even if your holidays were busy, I hope they were magical.
As I mentioned last month, USITT begins the new year with a fresh business plan. Even since that writing, conversations with members and affiliates have generated potential opportunities for new and exciting benefits to members and our industry. More and more, I hear that our efforts to grow and expand have been noticed and are respected by others. Managing that enhanced perception can be tricky since we don’t want to disappoint, but I have great faith in our professional staff and volunteers.
Part of the process of managing successful growth is the ability to work smarter, not harder. In the coming months there will be some changes to how old projects are handled in order to integrate the new ones. Most of these changes won’t be readily apparent to most of you, since they will involve responsibility shifts for individual staff members and/or some operational volunteers. However, sharing information about new contacts for existing activities will be a key component of this process.
There may be more obvious changes to operations, and since change is a process, it will take some time for everyone to adjust. I ask for a little patience. I also ask for feedback. One of the driving forces of our organization is the direct involvement of the membership. Many of you are not shy about expressing your opinions, and that’s a big part of what defines USITT. If you have thoughts, please let me or any member of the Board know.
There will be another electronic Board meeting on January 27, and any member may listen in. Look for the electronic invitation to register for access to that meeting soon. I hope some of you will join us.
We'd like to hear your comments on this story.
Please e-mail Lea at Lea.Asbell-Swanger@usitt.org.