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Rhode
Island Dental Hygienists’ Association
Annual
Report
65th
Annual Session
September
18th, 2010
Delegate at the 88th
Annual Session in Nashville TN
Maryellen Simas , Marue Jones- Bridges ( altenate)
Officers and Committee Chairpersons
Maryellen Simas - President
Position open due to 2nd
presidential term- Immediate Past President
Jessica Bessette - Vice President
Karla Masiello – Secretary (Position
was never filled pemanantly)
Ana Ambrose – Treasurer (resigned
June 2011)
Karla Masiello – Trustee
Melissa Sullivan – Trustee (One
year Term- fulfilling remainder of R. Williams term)
Julie Galleshaw – Trustee ( One year interim term to fulfill
vacancy)
Continuing Education Chair – Mary
Anne Barry
Karla Masiello – Membership Chair,
Oral Health Committee Chair
Kathy Gazzola – State Education
Network Liaison to ADHA
Kathy Duffy-Thorpe – Student
Advisor / Liaison CCRI
Kristine Bishop-Chapman – Student Liaison
BCC
Trisha Cloutier – Student Advisor
BCC
Diane Peterson – District 1 Trustee
The Rhode Island Dental Hygienists’ Association’s Executive
Board has met monthly to discuss the inner workings of our association, By
adding ADHA Rhode Island Logo to our name badges and email correspondence, as
well as letterhead, RIDHA continues to be consistent with ADHA branding. Our website features the orange and red
ADHA colors to further promote the branding effort.
Membership
Currently we maintain a roster of 136 members. Although this represents a slight
decrease in membership from last year at this time, our recruitment efforts are
ongoing focusing on student conversion and member retention. An incentive program where gift cards
are given to current members who engage non-members to join.
We have an e-mail list with over 900 Registered Dental
Hygienists. We utilize this list
to post job offerings, promote our continuing education courses, and any
legislation that may impact the RDH’s of our state. We hope that drawing non-members to courses, and letting
them know that RIDHA is here to help that they may also see the Value of ADHA
membership. Due to the state of
the National and local economy (RI unemployment rate is currently 12.7% 2nd
in the nation), it continues to be a challenge to increase and /or retain
members.
Legislative
Currently RIDHA has not introduced any legislation.
The “whitening kiosk” efforts are ongoing. The executive board
did some investigating of these whitening establishments, and retained the
information for use at the public hearing. RIDHA will testify at the public
hearing being set forth by the RI Board of Examiners in Dentistry.
A liaison meeting with RI Dental Association is pending
scheduling for February to retain our collaboration and good standing with the
Dental Association.
Lobby Day was March 17th 2010 members,
non-members, RIDA, RIDAA, and members of the Oral Health Commission were all invited
to join us.
Fundraising
We have taken a new approach for fundraising and charitable
giving this year. At our
meetings we have members with home based businesses (jewelry making,
Tupperware, and Purses and bags) set
up a vendor table to sell their wares while donating 20% of their profits to
our selected charity, which is the SmileTrain. We have also had raffle items at
meetings with proceeds going to the SmileTrain as well. Since September we have collected over
$1200.00 for the SmileTrain.
If this format continues to work well we can model this to
start a fund for a RI-PAC.
We also continue to sell t-shirts as well.
Student
Interaction
Last spring, I visited the senior class at the Community
College of RI, bringing info and greetings from their local association, as
well as giving pertinent and beneficial advice on ADHA membership. I also visited Bristol Community
College for a breakfast “lunch and learn” about ADHA. In April 2010 members of RIDHA participated in a panel discussion
that was once again a hit amongst the students, the informal question and
answer session was a huge success.
In November
2009 RIDHA was pleased to host ADHA President Lynn Ramer. The students were invited to the
cocktail reception in her honor, and were able to interact on a personal level
with the president, District 1 Trustee Diane Peterson, and other district one
leaders. In March RIDHA in
conjunction with the Community College of RI are sponsoring a continuing
education meeting featuring Olga Ibsen. It will be wonderful for the students all at no
charge, to hear one of the authors of their Oral Pathology text give an
interesting lecture.
The mentor program is ongoing as is the panel discussion,
which has become a yearly event, so the students can see the many aspects of
the dental hygiene profession available to them.
Public Relations /
Collaborative Efforts
One or more members represent RIDHA on each of the following
organizations:
-Dental Hygiene & Dental Assisting Advisory Committee
-RI Board of Dental Examiners (for “open meeting”)
- I attended 10 out of 11 meetings
-RI Oral Health Commission
-I
am currently serving a 3-year term on the steering committee)
-We hope (through my subcommittee
work on the Oral health Commission) to open more interactive relations with
other societies (i.e. RN’s, RNP’s, LPN’s MD’s, DO’s) this year.
-Providence Plantations Dental Hygiene Study Club
-Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies
-RI Kids Count
-RI Department of Health
-RI Freemason’s CHIP Program
-SmileTrain
Public Relations Activities
-The Mirror
-RIDHA Web –Updates, Job Postings, etc.
-Children’s Dental Health – Providence Children’s Museum
-Lobby Day –RI Statehouse
Strategic Plan
RIDHA’s Strategic Plan will be revised in2011. The Strategic
Plan does not drive the budget in its entirety but influences the framework of
our association.
Continuing
Education
The chair of CE resigned early in the year, I asked Mary
Anne Barry to return to her former position to pull us through for the
2010-2011 year. She very
graciously accepted, and we have been working together on Continuing Education
since February.
The RIDHA 2009-2010 calendar year consisted of 6 formal CE
courses a total of 19 potential credits.
Course Title Number
of CEU’s
Annual Business Meeting 1
“Teenagers- What Their Mouths Are
Telling You But They Are Not” 3
“Nutrition And its Link To
Overall Health” 2
“Fluoride Strikes Back” 3
Children’s Dental Health –PCM 3
“Oral Pathology For The Dental Professional” 3
CPR and First Aid 2
“OSHA Review for the Dental Professional” 2
It was a very difficult year- having only a handful of board
members to hold things together. I
am very proud of what was accomplished this year with so few board
members.
Respectfully Submitted,
Maryellen Cronan Simas RDH, BS
Maryellen Cronan Simas RDH, BS
President
Rhode Island Dental Hygienists’ Association
www.RIDHA.org
Post Office Box
41018-Providence, Rhode Island 02940
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