2001 Fall Newsletter

Colorado Athletic Trainers' Association

Fall 2001 Newsletter

In this Issue...

Dear CATA Members,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who attended and /or participated in the CATA annual symposium in May. We all felt that it was a successful event and we are already planning for next May.

It has been brought to my attention that if you move and change your address you not only need to contact the NATA (www.nata.org) and do a change of address form but also contact the NATABOC (www.nataboc.org) as well. It was my understanding that both entities communicated a change of address, which usually does occur. In certain situations this communication line has broken down. I have contacted a NATABOC representative and she suggests that you go ahead and contact both the NATA, and NATABOC and do the change of address form for both organizations. I would also like to suggest that you contact the CATA and let us know as well as it does take the NATA quite a while to communicate that change of address with us. You can do that by going to the CATA web site (www.prolynx.com/cata).

I would like to thank everyone who brought up suggestions or made comments at the business meeting in May. It is through your help that the CATA has evolved to where we are now.

I hope that you have a successful Fall season and if you have any questions please contact us.

Best Regards,
Kelli Sheehan

Vice President Report on Annual Meeting

Larry Willock

The annual meeting was held at Regis university with an attendance of approximately 100 paid attendees. Many were from the Denver area which speaks well for holding the meeting in the metropolitan area.

Site location of Regis was popular and for the size of attendees was adequate, but future potentials of 400 are not able to be accommodated at the Regis site.

The practice of having exhibitors will be discussed by the Board , and if having exhibitors is decided to be continued and developed, the Regis site does not offer sufficient space for large exhibitor numbers or traffic flow. This must be weighed against the low cost to the association which the Regis site offered. Hotel type venues which can support larger attendee and exhibitor numbers come with large costs for meeting spaces, and food costs , which either lead to large registration fees, or large costs from the association funds.

The topics format of having varied topics presented appeared to be popular, and will again be investigated this for next year. Many Local speakers provided excellent presentations and being from the area were able to relate to many of the attendees.

Regis University catering did a great job, however the concept of a free dinner on Saturday evening , which was poorly attended, will be revisited by the Board with either a charge for attendance, or cancellation of the event. The greatest loss was paying for food not consumed.

Actual cost to the association verses income from the meeting is still pending report from the Treasurer and will influence the Boards decisions on site and quality of items provided to the attendees.

The actual items raffled to the attendees was of a great quality and was perhaps the most successful raffle in years. Thanks to all the Athletic Trainers whom supported the raffle both by purchasing tickets and more so by providing outstanding items to be raffled. Many lucky attendees walked away with gifts valued at many hundreds of dollars, for a few dollar investments. The real winners are the Scholarship recipients, whom will be benefited by the continues financial support having scholarships offers.

Many thanks to all those whom worked hard behind the scenes to make the meeting a success.

Public Relations Committee Report

Bob Timm

The CATA's public relations committee has started brainstorming ideas in which to build on what we started last year. We had five ATC's volunteer to be members of this committee: Jason McWilliams, James Campbell, Autumn Lecero-Hunt, Kathe Morck and Valerie Rich will work with Bob Tim to reach
our goals.

If there are any other ATC's who would like to join this committee please contact Bob Tim. Even if you are not a member of this committee you are promoting our profession by your performance at work every day. Just a reminder, we have a section on the CATA's web site which explains our purpose and goals.

CATA Newsletters On Line

In the past year the CATA has spent over $2200 (an exact figure was not available from the treasurer) in printing, postage, and other associated fees with the three previous newsletters of 2001. The executive board feels that that money could be put to better use elsewhere. They have made the decision to post the quarterly newsletter on the association’s website, and inform the membership of its publication via a postcard. The Rocky Mountain Athletic Trainers Association (District 7) is also attempting such a delivery avenue at this time.

It is estimated that the total cost of printing and postage for an announcement postcard would be around $200 per quarterly mailing ($800 annually). That is a significant savings of precious association funds. It is the desire of the executive board that those extra funds could then be allocated to other interests such as the annual meeting and clinical symposium, public relations efforts, the two annual scholarships, and anything else that might arise.

It is hoped that eventually an association mailing list could be utilized, and the announcement post cards could be eliminated all together. The idea of an association e-mail list was introduced at the annual business meeting, however only 23 e-mail addresses, less than 5% of the association’s membership, were submitted to the website for inclusion on the e-mail list. This was a disappointing turn out, and the executive board is currently evaluating other avenues to “acquire” e-mail addresses.

The number of “visits” to the newsletter page will be closely monitored, and any feedback provided by the membership will be taken into consideration when deciding if this will be a permanent method of delivery of association news. Please contact any executive board member and let them know what you think of the new change.

Jobs Galore in Colorado

During the months of May, June, July and August 2005 people have visited the CATA website, of those people 1675 of them went to the job Placement Page.

In years past the CATA has had only one or two positions advertised at a time on the site. This spring in hopes to increase the value of the CATA website, the executive board “launched” an advertising campaign to inform potential employers (high school athletic directors, clinical managers, and clinical outreach managers) of our website and our desire to advertise their athletic trainer positions on the website.

The campaign has had a very positive effect. At one point this summer the CATA website had job announcements for 17 athletic training positions across the state. These postings were for a variety of settings, high school, college, clinical, and clinical outreach.

When asked, the AD’s and clinical managers said they all received a positive response from the CATA Placement Page posting. They all said that they intend on using it again for future vacancies. A great deal reported that the individual they hired for their positions came to learn of their job opening via the CATA website.

At the time this article was written there were 6 positions listed on the website. Please browse the CATA Placement Page, and examine the positions available. Feel free to encourage anyone you might know who would be interested in an athletic training position in Colorado to visit the site.

The CATA Placement Page is a FREE service, to the CATA members, and anyone else who might be searching for, or wishing to advertise an athletic training position in Colorado. Submissions are place exactly as they are received and will remain up as long as the employer wishes.

Please send all questions and comments to: Kelly Brick, ATC, Webmaster