Congratulations to the following

Region 19 chapters on current and

upcoming charter anniversary
milestones for the months of
October and November
1. Sacramento area Chapter- 40
years
2. San Diego Chapter-33 years
3. Hangzhou China Chapter-17
years
4. Santa Barbara County
Chapter-32 years
5. San Francisco Chapter -32
years
6. Nap Valley Chapter- 10 years
7. Central Coast of California
Chapter- 7 years
FANTASTIC&THANK YOU!!!!


AACN Region 19 CAT Monthly Communication Circle and Updates
(California, China, Japan, Germany, and Kingdom Saudi Arabia Collaborative)
October, 2014









Mission
AACN Region 19 CAT"s mission is to guide, support, inspire, and empower region 19 chapters in
their noble quest to advance AACN's Mission and Vision.

Reflection

Im currently reading a wonderful book by Margaret J. Wheatley. It is called
Perseverance (I highly recommend it). Going through the book, I came across the
page that describes success and reading the words made me reflect deeply on
evaluating the measures of success that sometimes seems unrealistic. So, I
thought to share with you. One reason is because it is, in my view, very
enlightening and second, I love how success is defined, not by society standards,
but by every day actions. I hope you enjoy it. In the book, she prefaces the success
page by this quote

If we have been aware of the processes of our lives, including moments that we
hate and are just aware of our hating- I do not want to do it, but Ill do it anyway
that very awareness is life itself. When we stay with that awareness, we do not
have that reactive feeling about it. Were just doing it. Then for a second we begin
to see Oh, this is terrible-and at the same time, it is really quite enjoyable. We just
keep going, preparing the ground. Thats enough.
JoKo Beck
Zen Teacher
Success
What are your measures of success? Both your conscious ones that you proclaim
and your unconscious ones that manipulate you invisibly?
When you get depressed or upset with yourself because youve failed, what
measures are revealed by your distress?

At the end of your life, what measures of success do you expect youll still be
clinging to or proudly proclaiming?
Can you accept as a measure of success that you kept showing up, day after day,
even when you werent feeling helpful or effective?
What about times that you didnt get caught in others drama, or swept away by
dark emotions?
Or the times you refrained from striking back and refused to counter aggression
with aggression?
Or the moments when your heart opened up to another persons predicament
because you had the same experience and realized were all just only human?
Simply staying on the path, no matter what, keeping on with your direction, finding
your way back when you get lost or diverted- this seems enough success for a life
time.

If weve returned again and again to our work, if weve taken on challenges rather
than avoiding them, if weve known when to give up, when to change, when to open
up, when to love

Well, I for one, will feel very successful.
By Margaret J Wheatley




What is New in the Resource Library?

New links in the Resource Library

Some chapters have expressed difficulty encouraging new
members into a leadership role, or expressed that current
members on the board or in Officer Positions are not sure of
their role.
Check out the Elections-Willingness to Serve templates that
was added to the Resource Library (officer permission
level). They are made generic and posted as Word
documents so any chapter can use them. Thanks to the
Rochester Chapter for sharing with all Chapters!

Chapter Governance Resources- Click to view and
download
Elections - Willingness to Serve Form - Generic
Elections - Willingness to Serve Form - President
Elections - Willingness to Serve Form - President-elect
Elections - Willingness to Serve Form - Secretary
Elections - Willingness to Serve Form - Treasurer

Best Practice Ideas Certification
CCRN-K Certification

AACN Launched its New CCRN-K Certifications
Check out and Click on the CCRN-K link to review this
enlightening power point to get your questions answered and
share with your chapter members. Many members may benefit
From this new certification and avoid relinquishing their CCRN
status.


Upcoming Evidence Based Webinars: Saving Face: Preventing
Device-Related Pressure Ulcer
Presented by: Jennifer Markowitz, RN, BSN, ATC, LAT
Live webinar Thursday November 13, 2014 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM PT

Jennifer Markowitz, RN, BSN, ATC, LAT

Promoting Chapter Events
Submit events for posting on the Events Calendar.
Post events on chapter website (free). Post on
Social media (FB, Twitter, Google, etc.)
Send the chapter advisor the flyer/brochure so the
chapter advisor can send it to all of the other
chapters in the region to distribute to their
members.
Contact the area Ambassadors and ask them to
promote the event.
Creating Chapter newsletter and posting the event
there along with fun pictures can be a great visual
for members to attend. Click on the link or take a
Look at the attached SFVAACN Chapter events
Contact the educators at all the local hospitals (or
use their hospital liaisons if they have them) and
ask them to post the flyers
Chapters could challenge their members to bring
someone to the event make it a contest
o The one who brings the most people wins a
gift certificate or something
.








AACN Introduces the New CCRN-K
CCRN-K certification is for the nursing
professional who in their practice applies
knowledge in a way that influences
patients, nurses and/or organizations to
have a positive impact on acutely and/or
critically ill adult, pediatric or neonatal
patients but does not work at the
bedside.
CCRN-K certification may be obtained
through completion of an initial exam or
as a renewal option for CCRN and CCRN-E
certificants




AACN Region 19 CAT Monthly Communication Summary and Updates
(California, China, Japan, Germany, and Kingdom Saudi Arabia Collaborative)




October, 2014











Upcoming AACN Conferences and
Webinars

AACN Nurse Manager Priorities
Conference 09/28/14. Nashville, TN
AACN Progressive Care Pathways
Conference 09/28/14. Nashville, TN
AACN NTI MAY 17-21. SAN DIEGO, CA
AACN Critical Care Webinar Series

Post-Intensive Care Syndrome: ICU
Interventions Matters
Presented by: Brenda Pun, RN, MSN,
ACNP
Thursday September 11, 2014 10:00 AM
- 10:30 AM PT







Meaningful Recognition


November 1
st
is the deadline to submit for
Chapter Circle of Excellence Awards. DO Not
MISS OUT!!
Focus the Flame and nominate your chapter for
the 2015 AACN Circle of Excellence Awards for
Chapters. The awards recognize exemplary
efforts to make a difference in the healthcare
profession and communities and further AACN's
mission, vision and values. This is your chapter
opportunity to be recognized for them! Being
nominated is an honor in itself!!
The award categories are:
Excellence in Chapter Collaboration
Excellence in Community Education & Public
Service
Excellence in Educational Programming
Excellence in Leadership Development
Excellence in Promoting the Value of
Certification
AACN President's Award for Chapters
(deadline for this award only is 2/15/15)
A maximum of 3 chapters per category will be
selected and each chapter will be awarded
$1,000. Nominations close Friday, Nov. 1,
2014. Learn more, see last year's winning
exemplars, and nominate.
Questions? Please let me know or
contact Chapters@aacn.org.
















































AACN Region 19 CAT Monthly Communication Summary and Updates
(California, China, Japan, Germany, and Kingdom Saudi Arabia Collaborative)












Our Board of Directors decided to
upgrade to the Premium version of
the software ($90/year) in order to
get a few extra features and
remove the ads. We've never had
any issues with it, and it's
definitely worth the $$$.
Once we had created our website,
we connected it to our domain
name purchased from GoDaddy.
This made it much easier for
people to find us, and also helped
to optimize our visibility on search
engines like Google/ Bing.
With WIX, we can connect with
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
YouTube, Google Calendar,
LinkedIn, Constant Contact and
several other social media
platforms.
The most challenging part of this
project has been finding someone
to routinely and consistently
update our website, which means
that most of it has been done by
Board Members who also wear
other hats.
My biggest tip: find someone
who is willing to serve as
webmaster before you start
designing your website. Make
sure that they know what they are
signing up for, and make sure you
layout your expectations up front.
I hope you find this information helpful. I've
got tons of specific advice if you want
more detail.
I highly recommend that you look into
designing your own custom website. It
makes a huge difference in the way
people perceive your chapter,
Collin R. James- SFAACN President








For some chapters, having the ability to set up and customize their
own website may be beneficial and an option they want. The
SFAACN president Collin R. James has kindly contributed the
SFAACN chapters perspective in developing their website and
outlined the steps needed for other chapters to utilize is a miliar
need arises. The steps are outlined below. Thanks Collin for your
contributions and collaboration with other region chapters. We
Region 19 chapters find this helpful.
Banners. It is quite easy to use and requires absolutely no
computer program. Our website is one of our most effective
tools, and I'd be happy to share some tips with you.
We wanted our website to reflect our chapter name, so we
purchased the rights to sfaacn.org on GoDaddy.com
($15/year).
We created Gmail accounts for all of our board members
using a standardized
format, sfaacn.POSITION@gmail.com. For
example sfaacn.secretary@gmail.com or sfaacn.marketing
@gmail.com. Later we connected these accounts with
events. Info and bios on our website.
We wanted to create a website that would allow us to tap
into cutting edge technology, social media, live video
streaming and discussion forums. We partnered with a local
technology and design university and offered students a
summer internship testing various website platforms and
internet hosts. After many experiments, we selected a
website building software called WIX. They have a free
version that allows new users to build a custom website,
however, in full disclosure, it also has small advertisement





Designing and Customizing a Chapter Website
By Colin R. James RN, BSN, CCRN, CPHOPN
President San Francisco AACN Chapter
www.sfaacn.org
Congratulation to the San
Fernando Valley on the
successful launch of their new
website http://www.sfvaacn.org/
Check it out!!
If you have a story or best practice about
your chapter that you like share with the
region, please send to
Region19@aacn.org







Contact: Angela Benefield
Region 19 Chapter Advisor
949-939-4883 Call or Text
Follow us on Twitter @ aacnregion19CAT
Like Us on Face Book AACN Region 19.


Annual National Teaching Institute & Critical Care
Exposition (NTI) is May 17-21, 2015, in San Diego
Registration Opens in November.
NTI Housing is Open. The earlier you book your hotel
room, the more choices you have! Call (800) 340-
1840 with your questions.

Registration opens in November. See you in San
Diego!






Region 19 NTI Get Together Facilitation Update

A huge thank you to all chapters that participated in the
region survey. The following chapters expressed
interest in participating on a planning committee for the
NTI get together event. These chapters are:
San Diego, GLBOC, Sacramento, UCLA, San Fernando
Valley, Inland Empire, Ventura, and Napa Valley. Once
a meeting date and meetings are scheduled, I will be
sending updates to the region about the progress and
keep you all informed of the work. Thank you all for your
collaboration!!!!



What Is A CAT And How to Become One?
It Is Never Too Early for Succession Planning
Most recently, I was asked by several chapter members
what does exactly a chapter advisor do?. Is it a paid position
by AACN? And how does one become a CAT?

Chapter Advisor is an AACN volunteer role. The Chapter
Advisory Team (CAT) functions as a vital link between
chapters and National office, ensuring effective
communication among the AACN Board of Directors,
National office and local chapters on pressing issues
chapters face. Advisors are volunteers who have expert
knowledge on chapter issues and trends in their regions of
the country, and are well informed about what is happening
at the National level and how that affects chapters. They
directly support chapters and chapter leaders in a number of
important ways; it is not a paid position and the CAT is not
employed by AACN. The CATs travel expenses to chapters
and meetings are however reimbursed by AACN.
For more information, please check out the following
http://www.aacn.org/wd/chapters/docs/public/chapter-
advisory-team-position-info.pdf

AACN chapters that work together with their Chapter
Advisors and the National office have the greatest success
achieving their goals
As part of early succession planning, I would love to hear if
any of you- chapter leaders- may have an interest in serving
as the next region 19 CAT. I would love to talk to you and
answer your questions. It is an amazing opportunity to grow,
develop, and give back to our nursing community and
chapter members. And it is never too early to begin
succession planning



CAT Reminders

October 31at: Deadline for Research Grant
applications for 2015
November1st: Deadline: Circle of
Excellence Awards. Go to
www.aacn.org/Chapters > Awards for
details. GOOD LUCK!
November 15th: Quarter 1 Financial
Report due (July-Sept)
The report forms are located on the Forms
webpage in the Chapter area of the AACN
website and must be submitted online
Thank You for Focusing the Flame!!





Region 19 Photos Corner
Happy October/ November Anniversaries to the
Following Chapters
Santa Barbara
Chapter


Central Coast
Chapter

San Francisco
Chapter



San Diego Chapter

Hangzhou
Chapter
(China)

Napa Valley
Chapter


Sacramento Area
Chapter