NC Partners of the Americas 2012 End of Year - Bulletin Between Newsletters Partners Counts This is an important task you can do for the organization. Please turn a statement of the hours you have volunteered in 2012 for Partners. You may fill in a form online, or download it. New Officers st At the December 1 Annual Meeting of NCPOA, the following officers were elected and began their terms of office: President - Chris Stalberg; Vice-President – Karen Brown; Treasurer – Judy Gibson (continuing); Secretary - Kitty Stalberg; Past-President/Advisor – Sallie Abbas; Board Members are Rodney Swink, Steve Gibson, George Wilson, Virginia Freedman, Richard Whitmore, Ben Timmons, Deborah Wilkes, March Krotee, Don Hopkins, Robert Pyle, Carlos Vargas, Laura Cernikova, Hank Graden. Brief Summary of the Annual Meeting Presenters of illustrated talks were travelers Kathy Johnson (women in abusive situations), Linda Watson (member of the team presenting conferences on Autism in Bolivia), Laura Cernikova (2012 Teacher-in-Residence).
Also attendees saw a specially-prepared video by Steve Vetter, President of Partners of the Americas. Even if you couldn’t be at the meeting, you can see it at http://youtu.be/RZ5DfRr9g9I; also a video on Partners Network & Affiliations, which can be found on the partners.net website. One of the new initiatives Steve mentioned was 100,000 Strong in the Americas in which the Department of State will collaborate with Partners and NAFSA to increase study abroad throughout the Western Hemisphere. The meeting finished up with a mini-workshop on input from members about what should be focus areas for NC POA in the coming year. Bramham-Marcus Award This year’s Bramham-Marcus Award was presented to Marlene Mercado, outgoing president of the Cbba POAchapter. The award is given annually by the North Carolina Chapter to a selected Partners member, in recognition of outstanding contributions as a volunteer. Marlene has worked tirelessly in helping to coordinate the visit of the surgeons, of the Autism Conferences, and the visit of Kathy Johnson who presented program on how a community can help women in abusive situation; she also put in much effort in arranging for a sports trainer project. Her work has been considerable as president for 2 years of the chapter.
Marlene is shown here receiving the plaque, presented by Rosario Claros. Kathy Johnson carried it to Cbba.