First City Chapter: The Fun Chapter

Cherie McCann our Chair, welcomes you!

The First City Chapter of the Georgia Nurses Association, the birthplace of the Georgia Nurses Association (GNA) in 1907--more than 100 years ago--welcomes you!

We would like to let everyone know, we are currently updating (March 2012) the content of our website. Please visit often to see new information.

Perhaps, this is a good time to reflect upon our accomplishments this past year and to also begin thinking about our chapter goals for next year. Thanks to the dedication of our chapter members, we really did accomplish quite a lot this year.

We completed our first year's membership in the Savannah-Chatham Area Chamber of Commerce and now have members serving on each of the Chamber's Committees. Our participation in the Chamber provides us a forum to represent the "voice of nursing" within the community.

From a legislative perspective, we have had a very successful year. Both Congressman John Barrow and Senator Lester Jackson, attended our chapter meetings to interact with members on issues that impact both nursing and provision of quality healthcare in our region.

Several of our members attended the Savannah-Chatham Day in Atlanta and visited with members of our local delegation. A special thanks to Patty Aiken, RN our Legislative Director for all of her efforts. She also serves as a member of the GNA Legislative Committee.

This year we have seen great enhancements to our chapter website and even more changes are on the way! Thanks to Barbara Dunn for making this a reality and also Eunice Bell and the Editorial Committee. Dorethea Peters served as our chapter secretary and also serves at the state level as the Director of Workforce Advocacy.

Our Community Service Project this past year supported the local "Habitat for Humanity." Our 2009 project will be on October 17th at the Second Harvest Food Bank. We will help prepare meals that will be distributed to the elderly in our community. We would like for this to be a very successful event and need each of you to participate. If you need details, please contact Cherrie McCann, RN.

This past year our chapter also conducted a Nurses Retreat for Nurses Week, which was open to nurses in our region. Thanks to Patricia Richardson for helping me plan and co-lead this event. It was a great day!

One of our goals for this year was to increase our membership and attendance at our meetings. Thanks to the AASU faculty for attending with their students. What a great way to introduce the students to the GNA and how they can become involved in issues that impact nursing. We did a membership survey and Susan Sammons, RN, our Membership Chairman now follows up with all new GNA members in our region to share information about our chapter with them. However, it is up to each of us to reach out and invite our colleagues to join our chapter and get involved.

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