NSNA 52nd Annual Convention A Success!!

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

4/30/04

thirty-five hundred nursing students, faculty, and exhibitors from across the country packed the opryland hotel and convention center march 31-april 4, 2004, for the national student nurses association (nsna) 52nd annual convention, themed: "we make the path by walking it."

highlights included the election of john d. arce, a senior nursing student pursuing a bsn at charleston southern university, as nsna president; and ana president barbara blakeney, a keynote speaker, who explored the convention theme by discussing the many paths to nursing excellence, encouraging students to "tend the profession like a garden," throughout their careers. blakeney also emphasized the importance of political activism, and highlighted key ana legislative initiatives, including the "safe needles save lives" and "handle with care" programs, designed to protect nurses in the workplace. for more information on nsna's actvities, go to www.nsna.org.

[wonderbee, BSN, RN]

See ya next year in Utah. Care to share ideas for fund raisers for our local NSA? We're a brand new junior board and could use some fresh ideas.

[TopCat1234]

i would like to hear your personal observations.

thanks,

topcat

[NurseWeasel]

I went. My personal observation is that it is what you make of it. There are a wide variety of people there, which I found the most interesting aspect of attending. You've got the extremely focused career track types, the wild partier types, and a whole spectrum of types in between. Sometimes faculty goes with the students and act as a chaperone, and sometimes the students go alone. Like any other convention or employer sponsered "class" or "conference", you get the people who are only there to get out of their daily grind / get a free trip and will do as little as possible once there... and the people who are there to learn and be involved.

[NurseWeasel]

Fundraisers: There were LOTS of t-shirts... very few of which really caught my eye. I bought 2. There were scrub bottoms and shorts with sayings along the lines of "nurses kick butt" on the rear end. Some groups sold jewelry (some 'quality', some 'homemade', not that those are mutually exclusive, just a wide variety). There were people selling books and badge holders and stethoscope covers and 'tools' such as penlights, clipboards, even stethoscopes. Sorry I'm not in the groove for new or innovative fundraising ideas... believe me if I could come up with something I'd do it.

One of the neatest things I saw (not a fundraiser) was "matching" business cards for attendees from the same SNA... the "company" was the SNA, but each person had their own card with their own name and position (president, treasurer, member). DO make labels for yourself, to put on slips for drawings in the exhibit hall. Include your name, address, phone, email, school, degree you're pursuing, graduation date, and areas of interest (that's alot of info but you can squeeze it all on there... I did).

[mitchsmom]

I don't know what kind of scale you are looking for in the way of fundraisers, but a small group I know of (it wasn't at school, but I think it could work at school too) had a successful fundraiser by having a drawing for a "Pampering Day" and it cost them nothing up front because they just got everything donated. The tickets were cheap, I think only a dollar and they had lots of people buy them. They got LOTS of stuff donated- spa stuff, meals, gift certificates, I can't remember everything but it made for a pretty desirable package :) Like I said I don't know what kind of scale you're working on but that is a pretty easy project to do if you have a couple of good schmoozers to go around sweet talking people into donations. Maybe not super innovative but it was successful!

PS... with this you could set up at school but everyone could also do it outside of school so even those who can't commit to being at a certain place at a certain time can still probably unload some tickets.