Northwest Region WOCN
Membership Business meeting
Regional Conference - Seattle, Washington
September 27, 2014
The meeting was called to order by the Regional President, Jolene Tucker, at 8:03 am
Jolene showed examples of the regional website www.nwregionwocn.org
 Bylaws section
 Links
 Public policy section
 Plans for upgrade soon
 The region also has a Facebook page
Treasurer report from Nicole Kindel
 Scholarship fund raffle made monies and they were sent to national fund for nurses interested in pursuing WOCNEP.
 Youth rally auction raised monies.
Nominations report from Mary Jackson
 Two members agreed to run and were voted in. o Sue Wilson will be new nominations officer o Mary Nametka will be the new secretary
 Mary encouraged members to run for office next year when the President elect and treasurer positions will be available
 Mary also encouraged the membership to verify and/or update their profiles with the national website o Specify the northwest region on the profile section so that the members can get more information about the region, o In addition, the region receives a portion of the member’s dues paid to fund regional business, educational opportunities, etc.
Jolene gave a shout out to Eric, a young ostomate who spoke before the auction about how Youth Rally was a positive influence on his life. Jolene also mentioned that Rolf Bernischke had spoken after Eric about Great Comebacks. Rolf awarded the Western region Comebacks award to a 20 year old ostomate currently going to college to become a WOC nurse. At the 2015 national convention in Texas, she will be with other award recipients to vie for the national Great Comebacks award.
Sue Thompson, Youth Rally chair and chairperson of the regional conference planning committee, acknowledged those who had helped her with planning and making the conference a success: committee members
Marilyn Pyles
Nancy
Kelsey
Marilyn Burmark

The Board of Directors, represented by Sue Thompson, Lisa Hansen and Vickie Funiaole, officially acknowledged the planning committee chairs as well.
Bylaws update from Jolene:
 Caryn Goolsby and Mary Jackson had worked hard over the past year to put together a Bylaws update.
 Changes were needed because there has been restructuring of the committees over the years; technology has necessitated change in language; clarifications were needed of ambiguous language, and/or consistency of language was needed across the document; and for corrections of typographical errors.
 Jolene reviewed changes, then made time for discussion
 Vickie Funiaole made the motion to accept the changes to the Bylaws; Seconded by Lauri Bailey
 The motion passed unanimously
Historian Report from Vickie Funiaole
 Her goal is to collect the history of our region
 She continues to gather information and has been contacting members for more information
 She has recruited two members for her committee, one each from Washington and Oregon
 However, she is missing history and information from Alaska and Montana, as well as she does not have a representative from those areas.
 In the future, she hopes to compile the regional history into a DVD or book
 She gave a short PowerPoint presentation on the regional history
Jolene. Mary and Cathie recognized outgoing members of the Board whose term of service has ended.
 Caryn Goolsby (secretary) Mary Jackson (nominations) and Jolene Tucker (President)
 However, Jolene will continue on the Board of Directors for one more year as “past president”.
Installation of new officers – Jolene Tucker
 Prior to her becoming Past President, Jolene gave the oath of office to Mary Nametka, as the new secretary and Cathie Potts who goes from President Elect to President of the NW Region.
 Sue Wilson (new nominations officer) was not able to attend the conference and will be given the oath of office at another time.
Next year - 2015 Regional Conference:
 Mary Jackson and Jolene reported that the Eugene, Oregon area will be hosting next year’s
 conference
Jolene has contacted the Hilton with a tentative date of Oct 17 th
 They also mentioned the need to think about 2016. They requested the membership think about if one of them would like to host the 2016 conference.
Speaker: June Johnson
 Last item on the agenda was a local WOCN who has spent 16 years working as a WOCN and a missionary in Ukraine
 She gave a short talk and video on her work there
 Healthcare much different there and corruption is commonplace
 She accepts donations, although cannot accept anything to do with NPWT; Ukraine does not have the machines or technology yet.

 If you want to donate wound/ostomy supplies or money, send donations to June at her USA address as she is home on leave due to the ongoing strife/problems in Crimea and the Ukraine.
 She invited people to send her an email or sign up for her newsletter updates. Her contact information was placed in each folder on registration.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:12 am