Happy Fall Y’all!

I hope your fall season is off to a good start! Yes, those of us in the central and eastern half of Virginia spent the first official day of fall working Tropical Storm Ophelia, but I am just very thankful that she wasn’t a “biggie”. 

Just a few things I wanted to share with you about VEMA business and happenings so you are informed and can be engaged: 

I would like to thank Danielle Spach for her time served as the Membership and Marketing chair the past couple of years. Danielle’s motivation, kind personality, and leadership made us very successful in growing our membership and membership opportunities. 

I would like to welcome Ryan Burkholder, VDEM as our new Membership and Marketing chair. We are working to get Ryan on boarded into the role and we are very excited to have him lead our committee. 

We would like to have a Membership and Marketing co-chair for Ryan – this committee is integrated into many areas of our association’s operations, so we want to make sure we have leadership coverage since life happens. If you are interested or have questions, please reach out to Steve Davis, VEMA Secretary at [email protected]. 

We are really looking to up our social media game. The social media Sub-Committee falls under membership and marketing. We really need a chair for that committee as well. If you are interested or have questions, please reach out to Steve Davis, VEMA Secretary at [email protected]. 

Regional Reps needed! Each region has two representatives who sit as voting members on the VEMA Board of Directors. Regional representatives are responsible for working with VDEM CRCs and advocating for the needs of your region within VEMA. In addition to attending quarterly board meetings and working within the VEMA board to make business and programmatic decisions, regional reps are asked to submit information for the newsletter every other month. If you are interested in serving as a regional representative or have more questions, please email me at [email protected]. We need one representative each for region 4 and region 5 to fill vacancies. To find who your regional reps are, log into the VEMA website, go to Leadership at the top and then select “officers and board” from the drop down list. 

As always, thank you for your time and dedication!   

Jess Robison, President