The Academy is fortunate to have the devotion of so many volunteers. Orchestrating an annual meeting with the complexity of ours doesn’t just happen; it requires the guidance and energies of our wonderful staff, and the tireless efforts of all of our committees.
The volunteers make the Academy meetings successful. We see the fruits of the Admittance Committee’s labors when we welcome the new class of Fellows each year at the annual banquet. The Awards Program recognizes the outstanding contributions of the very best in optometry and reaffirms why our Academy exists. Many Chapters of the Academy work all year long to promote membership and attendance at the meeting to Fellows and non-Fellows. Our Communications Committee develops a fast paced press conference program each year that highlights for the press many of the outstanding discoveries unveiled at our meeting. Our Exhibits Committee assures that the exhibit hall gets bigger and better every year. The Lectures and Workshops Committee members you see at the education desk work tirelessly to make sure you have the best CE offerings and coordinate the hundreds of hours of lectures and workshops presented at each meeting. The Scientific Program Committee’s efforts bring us the latest and greatest new discoveries each year so we can all be on the leading edge of patient care. Our Research Committee develops one of the best symposia offered each year, and for those who attended the Hirsch Symposium this year, you know that the program on the bionic eye was intriguing.
My point to all of this is to let you know how many of your colleagues are involved with so much of what the Academy does. The activities I’ve listed above certainly are not the complete list of the Academy’s committees, and my apologies to those committees I haven’t named. All of us benefit from the combined efforts of all of our volunteers.
Yet the Academy faces a double-edged sword with respect to volunteers. We need many to make our programs successful, but making appointments to each committee every two years is difficult because we have many more individuals who would like to be involved than we have slots to fill. This is a nice problem to have, and I want to assure you that your Board is committed to involving as many people as we can. For that reason we only make appointments for two years at a time; so if you have served in the past and you were not reappointed for this term, it is because we face this dilemma. I wish to thank all who have agreed to serve during these next two years, and for all of those who have served in the past. You are the reason that the Academy is so unique, important, and special to us all.
