It’s Labor day already?!

Wow. Did this summer fly by or what?! It seems like it was just a few weeks ago that the NC Region and the Kansas City chapter were hosting the Annual Meeting.  As I am sure you may already be aware of, the Kansas City chapter has been on summer vacation, but that changes next week. They are starting back up on Wednesday, September 9th. This dinner meeting will be held at Cinzetti’s Italian Market Restaurant at 7201 W. 91st Street (91st and Metcalf) in Overland Park, KS. Dinner and the meeting will begin at 5:30pm and the cost is $20.00.

A lot has happened within ASCET over the past 3 months and there appears to be plenty more changes, modifications, and additions to come. Please plan on attending the chapter meeting to listen to ASCET President, and local member, Randy Boney discuss his plans for the Society over the coming 2 years. This is the perfect opportunity to ask questions and make comments about the Society. For more information go to the Kansas City chapter website at: www.kcascet.com.

Some subtle changes to the way we are now communicating with members on the National Level have been implemented. Some you may be aware of and others you may not. The CET Newsletter is now being delivered electronically via an email link sent out quarterly. The next issue is due to go out on October 1st. Printed issues are still being sent to members we do not have email addresses for, but beginning next year the newsletter will no longer be printed and mailed to you. So if you received the last issue by mail or receive this coming issue by mail, please go online at: www.ascet.org and update your information by providing an email address.

And while you are on the website…we are now on FACEBOOK! Click on the link on the website and become a friend of ASCET!! I’m pertty new to all this FACEBOOK stuff, but this is a pretty easy way to see what is happening with ASCET and posting comments on the wall. We are also working on getting information about ASCET on Wikipedia. This will be a good resource to send people you work with to if they have questions about who ASCET is and what we represent.

Again, I wish everyone a happy Labor day weekend and I hope to see you at the Kansas City Chapter meeting next Wednesday. Be sure to stop by and let me know what you think about this Blog. I’d be interested in your comments and suggestions!

Not much to update on

Well, as I’ve mentioned in the past, I have not done a very good job of sending out updates once a week. I would imagine that makes most of you happy, but it really is my intent to keep you all informed of the inner workings of ASCET and of what is happening in our region.

As some of you know - not to make up excuses - I have taken on the task of editing and publishing the CET newsletter. Hopefully you all received a link to your copy via email. If you did not, it could be that we do not have an valid email address for you or that your email service thought it was SPAM and delivered it to the Spam or Trash box. In either case, please let me know you have not received a link. If we did not have a valid email address for you, you should be receiving a hard copy in the mail shortly. The goal of ASCET is to have the CET sent out digitally and not as a hard copy through the postal service. It isn’t that we dislike the United States Postal Service, it’s just that our revenues have been down the past few years and we are doing what we can to reduce costs. At the same time it seems that most people prefer electronic commmunication (such as this blog) over mailed information or phone calls. And because of that we are looking to expand our electronic communication with our members. In addition to the CET newsletter my other ASCET duties include the website. I am currently working on re-designing the website with a new look and also how it functions. Eventually you, as a member, will be able to access your contact information and make changes as necessary. You will also be able to renew online with PayPal. I hope to have the new website up and running by the end of the year.

The Kansas City chapter of ASCET will be starting back up with monthly meetings beginning in September. You should be receiving an email with the date and location within the next week or two. I will also post the information on this blog once I know the details. Please plan on attending the meeting if you can. The goal of the Kansas City chapter is to once again have speakers at each meeting, but we need members to attend in order to make it worth everyones time.

Have a wonderful 4th of July

Well I’m getting this post out a little later than I had hoped that I would. I hope you all receive it before the long holiday weekend, assuming you get a long weekend!! I know I will be working on Saturday!!
Just another friendly reminder that you should have received your national and local dues renewal notices. Please do not forget to get them turned in!
As I mentioned in the last post, there are many changes headed in the direction of ASCET. I feel that they will be a positive for our society and for our membership. As with everything, change can sometimes be hard and painful, but it will make us better in the end. One thing that we are looking at is the dues and membership structure that we currently operate under. At the moment you can be a member at the national level, but not have to be a member at the local level, and vice-versa. If you look at other professional organizations, very few operate like this. Most all require membership at the national level to be a member of a local or regional chapter. We will be looking this year into connecting the local and national levels of our society. With that will also be a change in the dues structure. Currently each year you pay $50 for your national dues and, at least in the Kansas City region, $10 for your local dues. We are looking at combining the payments so that you, or your employer, will need only to write one check and send that check to one place. At the same time we are looking at a possible increase in membership dues. Nothing has been determined yet, but we have discussed increasing the dues to $75. Now remember, this fee will now include your national and your local and/or regional dues. I will discuss all of this in more detail in later posts. In the meantime, if you have any comments or questions regarding this possible change, please feel free to comment. I will take all of your suggestions and use them further as we discuss these changes.
Again, I want to wish everyone a great holiday weekend and I will post again shortly!

Regional Update

Well it has been a while since I last posted here and I apologize. Earlier this month the Kansas City chapter hosted that ASCET Annual Convention and that kept us all pretty busy. For those of you who attended the conference, I want to thank you and I hope that you found the seminars informative and interesting. Personally, I thought we had a great group of speakers this year. For those of you who were unable to make the conference, I’m sorry that you couldn’t make it. You really did miss out on some great speakers and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points towards NICET recertification.

One of our own, Randy Boney, was elected as the National President of ASCET. Thank you all for taking the time to vote for Randy. Please help support him as he moves ASCET into a new stage of its life. There will be a lot happening this year at the national level, which will affect us both regionally and locally. The Executive Committee believes that these changes will make us a much stronger organization in the long run, so we ask for your support.

You should be receiving your National and Local dues renewals in the mail, if you have not already received them. Please take the time to fill out the forms completely and return them with your payment. We are working hard to send out the CET magazine electronically this year, so please provide a valid email address which the link to the magazine can be sent to. The magazine is one thing that will be changing this year. You will begin receiving it quarterly instead of bi-monthly. It was felt that we could provide a better product by making this move. Please let me know if you have any ideas for articles that you would like to see included in the CET.

As I mentioned, lots of changes are about to occur. I will use this blog to update you on the upcoming changes over the course of the next few months. Now that the Annual Meeting has concluded, I hope to get back to my once a week posting of this blog.

Please forward this blog to other technicians, ASCET members or not, that you think might be interested in reading it. The goal of this, and of ASCET, is to provide information that is beneficial to the engineering technician field. I have hopes for some regional training sessions this winter, so the more interest we have, the better the training can be!

Voting Deadline looming!

Greetings all!

The deadline for voting for ASCET officer positions is fast approaching. The last day to vote online, or to have your paper ballot postmarked is Friday, May 15th. It takes less that 10 minutes to read through all of the candidate resumes and less than a minute to actually vote. Choosing our future officers is a very important step in order for ASCET to continue to grow. This is Your organization so please take the few minutes necessary to vote.

To vote online it is as simple as clicking On The Nomination Link, reading the bio’s and then filling out the online voting page. It’s pretty simple. It’s pretty painless. But it is a very important function of being an ASCET member.

I know I said that I would try to limit the amount of Blogs to one per week, but there are several deadlines coming due shortly and I will be blogging on those this week, so be watching your inbox for more information!!

Bits and Pieces

There has not been much to report this past week and a half in regards to local or national happenings, so I thought that I would take this time to just send out a couple of reminders.

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Remember that tomorrow (Wednesday the 22nd) is Administrative Professionals Day. If your office environment is anything like mine, then I’m sure that your administrative assistant does a lot of printing and filing for you. Please be sure to, at a minimun, thank them for the work that they do for you on a regular basis.

Polls are still open to vote for the next ASCET National President, so please take a few minutes to either fill out the ballot from the latest CET magazine, or vote online via the website by going to the ASCET Voting Page. Be sure to read the bio’s for each candidate and vote for who you believe will continue to lead our organization in the right direction.

Progress continues to be made on the Annual Meeting that the Kansas City chapter will be hosting this coming June 11-13. If you have not already done so, be sure to get your registration forms filled out and turned in. The price for these seminars has been kept as low as possible to make it easier for you to attend. We have been in the process of contacting most of the larger Kansas City engineering firms to let them know about this training opportunity for their engineering technicians. Please let us know if your company has not been contacted and we will make sure that we get with them. For those of you NICET certified, this is a great – and inexpensive way – to earn continuing development points towards your recertification. Don’t let the opportunity pass you up!

And finally, this is Earth week. Please do something as simple as turning off unused lights and appliances to help save energy and our earth.

NICET News

For those members who are thinking about testing through NICET, or those of you who have already, or will be in the near future, here is some information on upcoming testing dates and locations. Please check the NICET Website for any changes in testing dates and/or locations. Remember that all paperwork must be into NICET 7 weeks before the scheduled testing date. All locations are different, but currently in the Kansas City area there is about a 6 month backlog to get into a testing date.
IOWA

• Hawkeye Community College, Waterloo – Sept. 12, Nov. 21
• Southeastern Community College, W. Burlington – May 2, Aug. 22, Dec. 5
• Iowa Electrical Apprenticeship, Clive – May 16, Jul. 25, Nov. 14

KANSAS

• Kansas State University, Salina – Jul. 11, Oct. 17
• Overland Park/Kansas City – Jun. 13, Aug. 29, Nov. 14

MINNESOTA

• Lake Superior College, Duluth – May 2, Sept. 19, Dec. 12
• Dunwoody College of Technology – Apr. 18, Oct. 24
• St. Cloud Technical College – May 2, Sept. 19, Nov. 7

MISSOURI

• St. Louis Community College @ Florissant Valley – Jul. 11, Oct. 3

NEBRASKA

• University of Nebraska, Omaha – May 9, Jul. 11, Oct. 24
• North Platte Community College – May 16, Aug. 28, Nov. 21

NORTH DAKOTA

• North Dakota State Univ., Fargo – May 16, Sept. 12, Nov. 14

SOUTH DAKOTA

• Southeast Tech. Institute, Sioux Falls – Jul. 17, Oct. 23
• Western Dakota Tech., Rapid City – Jul. 11, Oct. 17

NICET is currently seeking volunteers for the next Water-Based Fire Protection Systems Layout (currently Automatic Sprinkler Systems Layout) item writing session. For more information and to submit your name go to the Application Page

Remember that you must accrue and document Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points for NICET recertification. Active participation and involvement in professional organizations, such as ASCET (Hint – Hint!) can earn you a majority of your CPD points. Any members in a location where there is not an active chapter, who want to become involved, let me know. We can work at getting a chapter started if there is interest. It only takes 5 national members to form a local chapter. We are also looking at starting web-based chapters where we do not have enough membership interest to form a chapter, but enough interest where web-based makes sense. This is being done for a chapter in the Pacific Northwest region and it seems to be working pretty well for them.

Have a great Easter weekend. Next week I will have more information on the Annual meeting coming up June 11-13th!

Kansas City April Chapter Meeting

Notice has been sent out regarding the next monthly chapter meeting for the Kansas City chapter. If you are located in the Kansas City area, please consider attending this meeting.
The Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 8th at the Granite City Brewery at Zona Rosa (8641 NW Prairie View Road, KCMO). There will be social time at 5:30 PM with dinner and the meeting beginning at 6 PM. The main focus of this meeting will be on upcoming Annual Meeting that the chapter will be hosting in June.
RSVP to Victor Godinez at (913) 895-6019 or by email at: victor.godinez[at]opkansas.org by noon on Monday April 6th if you will be attending. More information can be found on the Kansas City Chapter website.

2009 Annual Conference

The 45th Annual ASCET Conference is headed to the North Central Region. The Kansas City Chapter has been busy organizing the event. The dates for the conference are June 11-13, 2009.  The Hotel has been reserved and the Seminar topics are being finalized. NICET testing will also be taking place at the hotel on Saturday June 13th. More information regarding the conference, including registration, can be found on the ASCET Website.

I believe that we have a very good program set up for this meeting and I would encourage you to attend. Past meetings have been aimed more towards the civil engineering side of our society. But this time we wanted to get the fire protection and alarm technicians involved. Phillip Brown, SET, with the American Fire Sprinkler Association will be giving an update on IBC/IFC Fire Requirements. Wayne Moore, P.E., with Hughes Associates will give you The Best 75-minute Overview of Critical Fire Code Changes Ever!’ There are also seminars on Leadership and Communication, AutoCAD Civil 3D; GPS, BMP, Traffic Modeling and much more. Additional information can be found on the website. For people NICET certified, or thinking of becoming NICET certified; this is you chance to talk to the General Manager of NICET, Mike Clark.

We hope that you will be able to attend the annual conference and look forward to seeing you there. In this time of economic hardship we understand that it may be difficult to get your employer to allow you to attend a training conference, and that is why we have kept the registration price as low as we could. We believe that this provides an incredible value to cost ratio for you and your employer!

Take the time to vote

Voting is now open for positions at the National level of ASCET. Please take a few moments and submit your vote. Voting can be done in two ways. A paper ballot was included in the latest CET magazine. This can be filled out and mailed back to the address provided on the ballot. New this year is online balloting. The bio’s of each candidate can be found online for you to look at prior to voting. In order to vote online you will need to know your ASCET membership number. This number can be found on your wall certificate or your wallet membership card that you received when you join or renewed your membership. Important.. Only one vote can be cast. All votes will be validated and only your first vote will be registered. So if you have already sent in a paper ballot, do not vote online and vice versa. Members of the North Central region can cast a vote for President and for Secretary/Treasurer. Regional vice-presidents will be nominated by members of those regions.

As you can see, we have 3 nominees for President this year. This is the first time in several years that we have had multiple nominations for a position, so please take the time to vote! I know all three of the nominee’s, and any of the three would make a good president. One of the three, Randy Boney, is from the North Central region and the Kansas City Chapter. I’m not going to tell you who to vote for, but I will say that Randy will bring fresh ideas to an executive committee that had the same people in it for several years.

Be sure to vote and plan on attending the annual meeting that will be held this June in Kansas City, MO. More details on that to come!!