Report from the Chair: RMSO Recap
In the last issue of Wise Water Words, I encouraged attendance at the Regional Meeting of Section Officers (RMSO) which our Section had the honor of hosting in Omaha. I would like to say it was a real success. The following Nebraska Section members attended and assisted with the event:
- Ben Day
- Bruce Dvorak
- John Keith
- Mary Poe
- Jim Shields
- Gary Thurlow
- Doug Woodbeck
There were 25 total attendees from six AWWA Sections and from states including Colorado, Utah, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wyoming. In addition, we were honored by the attendance of Jon Eaton (AWWA Vice Chair) from Minnesota.
The RMSO was very insightful for me to gain an understanding of the goals of AWWA, how membership works and how statistics are tracked and used to increase membership, new initiatives, an update on government affairs, the Community Engineering Corps, and Section Sharing.
A presentation was given on the Community Engineering Corps along with an interactive exercise to give folks an idea of what the initiative is all about. The Nebraska Section left the RMSO agreeing to learn more about the Community Engineering Corps and ready to organize a committee within our Section to identify communities in need of infrastructure improvements and offer assistance to them to study and design projects with volunteer help from the Nebraska Section of AWWA as well as others across the nation. More to come on this initiative as the Section starts to develop this committee.
Section Sharing was also very intriguing. We learned how other sections operate and I was somewhat surprised to find out that the Texas Section is so large, it is broken into chapters -- many of which are as large as Nebraska's entire Section. While we are a small section, you all should be pleased to know that the other larger sections were very interested in how we operate, in particular, they were interested in the card-reader system for operator credits and the training calendar.
The evening meal on Friday night was organized by Jim Shields at Omaha Prime. Our out-of-Section guests were impressed by the Old Market and the great food that Omaha has to offer. As for me, I left the RMSO regretting that I had not attended earlier in my AWWA service career. I encourage all who become active on the Board and even at the Committee Chair level who are interested in future Board involvement to attend an RMSO early in in your service. You will gain a great wealth of knowledge about how AWWA operates and how we can work to provide even more benefit to our members.
A big thanks to the Section for helping to host and fund this event and to all the volunteers from the Section who assisted in preparing and running this year's Region IV RMSO.
