back to November 2024 newsletter
by Liliana Ramos, LMFT
Welcome to November, the month dedicated to gratitude. It is appropriate that on this month, we hold our annual membership event where we thank all of the volunteers who make this chapter one of the most active in California. We honored our support group leaders for our 9 support groups, our cinema therapy club leaders, our newsletter committee, our social media volunteer, our administrator, our article contributors, and event volunteers. We also expressed our gratefulness for all of you. It’s you, our members, who participate in the support groups and events. Thank you!
In this newsletter you will find an interview by Vidur Malik, Director-at-Large, with Saru Sivanesan where Saru shares suggestions for how to work with our clients in the technology industry. Our Director of DEI, Kusum Punjabi, wrote an article on how different cultures honor the new moon. I wrote an article on the intersection of Native American Heritage and the Transgender identity in honor of Native American Heritage month and Transgender Remembrance Day. As usual, we are grateful to receive a poem from Edna Wallace.
The 2024 board members were passionate in accomplishing the tasks assigned to their positions. Some of them included growing their positions to include things like the cinema therapy club, monthly newsletters, region wide coffee talks, creating five new support groups, restarting the sponsorship program, and revamping the event process to be more efficient. We have increased our social media presence on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Our first year at managing the Tzedakah Project Scholarship was successful. Our President Elect and Director of DEI managed and advertised this program. We awarded 6 scholarships with the $2000 that was given by the Therapist Development Center, which can be used on TDC products like the licensing course and continuing education classes. The $2000 was distributed to 2 individuals in the $500 category, 2 in the $300 category, and 2 in the $200 category. The names are not being published since some individuals did not wish to be publicly identified. All the scholarship applications were so good that we gave the 3 runner-ups the ability to attend a free event.
In addition, we have two other programs that we have had success with; sponsorship and CAMFT L&E Share program. Our treasurer revamped the sponsorship program to help the chapter gain more funds for next year. This program has helped us replenish money that we borrowed from our savings to assist us in navigating our contracts. We also have been identified as the top chapter in CAMFT that participated in CAMFT’s L&E Share Program. This was so successful that our chapter plans to participate again next year.
What’s coming up next year? We will grow our board by three positions. We will have a Director of Sponsorship, Director of Social Media, and a Director of Technology. We are also hoping to fill our second Director-at-Large position to help manage our volunteer assignments. Our newsletter will go back to quarterly. Having a monthly newsletter has just too many hours for our volunteer board.
We want to thank two of our board members who are stepping down. Vidur Malik, our Director-at-Large, who has been interviewing newsletter contributors and managing the monthly newsletter. He has been valuable in taking our newsletter to a new level. Rachel Costella, our Director of Membership, made our Coffee Talks more accessible to all of our members and gave our members a wonderful sound healing experience at our annual membership event. We are grateful to both of them for their contributions to our membership. They will be missed.
Our chapter did all this! Thanks to all of you! SCV-CAMFT would not exist if not for all of our members.
