America’s Think Tank for Mental Health
www.ourgap.org
FALL 2021
CIRCULAR LETTER #657
Message From the President Fall 2021
Hi All, I again hope this finds you well as we are still dealing with uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic and our unpredictable socio-political environment. Modifications to our personal and professional lives continue on a daily basis as we strive for some degree of stability in this rapidly changing world. That said, life moves on, including preparations for our upcoming Fall GAP meeting. For the third time, we will be meeting virtually - necessitated by the pandemic - but we will be trying to mitigate techno-distancing with an opportunity for online socializing, thanks to Frances and those with advanced online meeting skills! Administrative meetings will take place on Thursday, November 11th, Committee meetings on Friday, November 12th (or at other arranged times), and the Steering Committee and General Membership meetings on Saturday morning November 13th, followed by a plenary presentation by our own John Beahrs, MD, on “Traumatic Sensitization and the Victim Dilemma.” Since our last meeting, we had a chance to formally survey our membership on experiences and attitudes re: online vs. in-person meetings. Beth Haase and the Climate Committee put together a survey (online, of course), receiving 95 responses. Here is a portion of Beth’s summary of the survey findings: “The results generally show that people were comfortable with the zoom format and valued it for the ease of use, cost, travel, etc - the things we would expect. The committees seemed to work about the same - some more productive, about the same number less. The sense of connection and belonging to GAP was pretty well preserved, I would say, considering. The exchanges of work and information between committees floundered but within a particular committee improved a bit. Other than that, people clearly got by just fine but really like and missed the social, mentoring, network and personal down time aspects of the meeting.” This brings me to some bittersweet news about our plan to resume in-person meetings in 2022. After decades hosting our semi-annual meetings, the Renaissance Westchester has been a casualty of the pandemic, with very limited services and an unclear future. Many of the familiar long-serving staff were furloughed, and management suggested we look elsewhere, as they felt they could not meet our needs for April. So, we are in the process of moving our April meeting – and delayed 75th Anniversary Celebration – to the Hyatt Regency Greenwich in Old Greenwich, CT. It is close to White Continued. on pg. 2
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