Putting It All Together

The idea of this process came to life in 1996 when the president of one Southern California Chapter was tired of only 30 people at the research day, half presenting. She initiated a call to eight other chapters south of Northridge and we all jumped on board. Our event that year after six face to face meetings for planning netted a total of 250 attendees over two days. Sister Rosemary Donley was our first keynote and set the precedent of having the International President or President Elect join us each year. Each chapter had a designated responsibility and it worked. Division of labor included, selection of site and arrangements, call for abstracts and review, selection of speakers and poster presenters, production of the proceedings, registration and opening the doors.

We draw abstracts from both the US and some international researchers, the most distant from Australia. After four years we noticed a heavy representation from academia and few from service so we added a second track for innovative studies done predominately by members from the service setting.

As the successes came year after year, we added honor societies soon to be new chapters to our present composition of 14 Chapters. At our symposium we will share all of the chapter roles, the description of each, the selection and responsibilities of the chair, our profit sharing process and answer questions from the audience. Please join us and replicate this consortium for your members.