Report from the Past Vice President
Zita Barree

Join Us As We Find: the Brains to do more, the Heart to search more, the Courage to find more

The SASFAA New Aid Officer’s Workshop, held at University of North Carolina-Asheville from June 19-24, 2005 was a success! The instructors and staff worked hard to put together a quality program.

A total of 140 new aid officers participated in the workshop and were divided into the following classrooms/instructor pairs:

Apple Orchard:	Leonard Gude, University of South Florida (new)
	Nancy Melton, Alice Lloyd College, KY (returning)
Kansas Farm:	Sandy Neel, University of Tennessee – Martin (returning)
	Brent Tener, Vanderbilt University, TN (new)
Monkey Forest:	Pat Arauz, University of Louisville, KY (new)
	Lynda Sayer, Furman University, SC (returning)
Munchkin Land:	Deborah Barbone, North Georgia College & State Univ (returning)
	Michelle Wright, University of South Carolina – Columbia (new)
Poppy Field:	Brad Barnett, James Madison University, VA (returning)
	Lisanne Masterson, Brevard College, NC (returning)
Tornado Alley:	Bruce Crain, Mississippi State University (new)
	Janette Overton, Johnson Bible College, TN (returning)

The instructors did a fabulous job, particularly given some of the challenges we had with a few of the classrooms! I heard so many positive comments from participants about how much they were learning and how much they were enjoying their classrooms but most of all, their instructors. This group worked very hard throughout the week to make the classroom experience both professional and fun.

In addition to the group listed above, we were also very fortunate to have Anthony Jones from the Department of Education to lead several of our general sessions and to also work individually with the few clock hour schools that were in attendance. Anthony filled in at the last minute but you could not tell – his sessions were informative and interesting and you should see how he was worked into the PJ skit on Wednesday!

Along with the instructors, we also had Tolly Tollefson as Curriculum Coordinator who took the brave leap into the unknown this year by agreeing to adjust the curriculum to make it more hands-on based on feedback from the instructors and workshop participants from prior years.

Tolly did a super job in designing the curriculum and the participant notebooks – she is more than well prepared to serve as Vice President for 2005-06!

Beth Bartlett from UNC-A served as our Local Arrangements Coordinator, and whenever we thought we had run into a problem that could not be resolved, Beth took care of it! She was tenacious in making things happen that ultimately contributed to the success of the workshop and the well being of our participants.

Our lender assistants this year worked together so well as a team – they literally worked around the clock to make sure that everything behind the scenes was taken care of and that the participants had a place to go to in the evenings to kick back for a little while. The workshop could not function without the lender assistants and the ones we had this year (listed below) went above and beyond their call of duty.

Finally, we also had Ann Martin and Brian Davis from UNC-A as our conference staff. They both worked very hard to make sure our workshop ran as smoothly as possible. Brian is a senior at UNC-A and he was assigned to work with us 24/7 – he did an awesome job and has even asked to be able to work with our group again next year if the decision is made to return to UNC-A.

Final, final thanks also go to Lester McKenzie for all his work with the registration and payment process prior to the workshop and to both Lester and Heather Boutell who managed the registration process at the workshop and willingly helped with so many other tasks; Erik Melis for working with ATAC to get the online registration process up and running and altered when the size of the workshop was increased; Janet Sain for always being there to answer questions and provide advice; Guy Gibbs for being there at the workshop opening session to encourage participants to get involved with SASFAA; and Bob Godfrey for soliciting additional sponsorship for several key activities/items.

I had a great time serving SASFAA as Vice President this past year – it will be something I will always remember and treasure. I wish Tolly Tollefson all the best this and next year and know she will do a great job!