Message from the President

      Hello, and welcome to the newly revamped home page of Kappa Psi. Our Board of Directors has been busy working on ways to communicate more effectively with our members. Our top priority is to better serve you as a member and meet the educational needs of our members while promoting the improvement of nursing care within our community. One way we are trying to achieve this is by eliminating the paper trail of newsletters we send and how we communicate by letter. Most of us have entered the e-mail age whether we wanted to or not. For those of us who were dragged, it may have taken awhile but by now, we realize the benefit of e-mail, if not the instant gratification it gives us. In the near future we will have the newsletter on line for members to view as well as submit tidbits of news for us to include in the next newsletter. We will also be working on updating our membership directory with current e-mail addresses. Please take a moment and send us your e-mail address so we can send updated calendar of events or other pertinent information.

            Many changes have taken place at the national level. At the recent Biennial convention held in November, the restructuring of the regions was approved. When the seven- region organization was implemented in 1980, there were 129 chapters with 35,100 members. In 2001, there are 406 chapters and 115,000 active members. Kappa Psi is now in Region 6, which also consists of the eastern portion of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. The restructuring was necessary to accommodate the society’s tremendous growth. The proposed chapter fee structure changes as well as the proposed member eligibility changes were not approved. The chapter fee structure was not supposed to affect members fee according to International, however I feel many chapters may have been somewhat reluctant to approve this. It may have spelled doom for the small chapters hanging on to viability. The member eligibility changes will surface again. There has been much debate at the Chapter Leader Academies on these issues.

            We are planning a Fall program in October and are hoping to celebrate Founder's Day with a reception. Plans are tentative as of now, but stay in touch and visit our site frequently to get updated. I look forward to seeing everyone soon.

With regards,

Katrina Carter