Hello and thank you for joining me for the AAOE Volunteer Training. This training is for Council and Committee Chairs and Members. I'd like to start by thanking you for the time that you are giving to AAOE. We appreciate your service and commitment and look forward to working with you to support our members in 2023-2024. My name is Cynthia Jackson and I'm the Director of Membership and Society Relations. Just wanted to give a quick introduction by picture of AAOE's professional staff. Addie is our CEO. We have Raina, Carol, Melissa, Ju Young, Vicki, and Allison. Just wanted to kind of give you a face with a name and I'm sure that you'll be working with each of these individuals sometime over the next year. I'll start with just a bit of a history about information about AAOE. The AAOE Alliance is a 501c6 association and in the world of the IRS that means it's a business league specifically for the purpose of supporting orthopedic executives. Our core member is the orthopedic executive or anyone seeking to become an orthopedic executive. And why is this important? Because as an association, as a business league, we are here to support orthopedic executives by focusing on our mission. And so every decision that you make, every discussion that you have, the mission should be top of mind as you go through your work as a council or a committee. AAOE's mission is to promote quality health care practice management in orthopedic and musculoskeletal industry. And so again, as you're talking about what might best serve members, what we should do as an organization, what your council might do for their work throughout the year, it's important to just keep the mission and vision of the organization top of mind. AAOE's brand promise is to model excellence, to lead innovation, to advocate on behalf of the industry, facilitate connection, and to be a catalyst for positive change. So when you think of who you are as an orthopedic executive and who you are within AAOE, this is what we hope is that description of who you are and who we are as an organization. Our goals are to advocate to lead positive change, grow and engage in diverse community, the awareness of AAOE among surgeons, among patients, among the community, and really ensure that people know who we are as an organization, evolve the education that we offer and the way that we deliver it, how we give it to you, and then protect the sustainability of our organization. And so again, as we think about how we work and what decisions we make, we really want to think about what these goals are, what our mission is as an organization, and how we best support members in achieving these things. I thought it might be valuable to talk a little about the organizational structure. Note that the board of directors is at the top of the organizational chart. And the reason for that is they are really the decision makers for the organization. They are the strategic leaders for the organization. They provide strategic oversight. And so, for example, let's say the membership council decided that we should buy an airplane and go visit members. The board of directors would actually be the group of people who decided if that was a viable strategic decision for the organization. And then the councils and committees are all charged with their roles based on the board of directors. And so that's just something to keep in mind. There is a chair. There are members. There's a board liaison and a staff liaison in each council or committee. The chair facilitates discussion and decision making of the council or committee members. The board liaison is the council's connection to the board. He or she is able to provide background or strategic guidance to ensure that the council or committee stays member and mission focused. The staff liaison is the AAOE staff person, which I introduced earlier on, that provides support and guidance to the council or committee so that we can support the work that you're doing. So, again, we have as part of the council or committee chair responsibilities and member responsibilities. So, I just want to talk about what the chair's role is in supporting the work of the council or the committee. The chair should know what the role of the council or committee is, what are the charges, and those are available on AAOE's website. Hopefully, you've had a chance to look at those. The chair should always attend meetings and plan to lead and facilitate discussion that is member and mission focused, works with staff to develop a meeting agenda, and to strategically align work plans and timetable with timetables and objectives of other councils and committees. So, a little bit of the collaboration that's necessary between councils. The chair should ensure that the work is relevant, should evaluate the efforts of the council, should run meetings that allow for decision-making, and communicate accomplishments, and, in fact, we do ask that the chair reports on a quarterly basis the accomplishments of the council and reports even at the annual conference about those things. The chair should encourage everyone to participate. It's especially difficult, I think, in our Zoom and virtual world for everyone to feel like they have a voice, but we really do want our council members to feel free to speak up, to give their thoughts, to give their opinions, to share expertise, and have the ability to do that and the opportunity to do that in a group setting. Always want to explore alternatives to ideas that we have. Stop impromptu conversations, which, again, is not quite as typical in today's Zoom or virtual world, but still can happen from time to time, especially with all the other distractions that happen when you're sitting at your computer. The chair should look for emerging themes, focus on issues, and the most important thing that the chair should do is build consensus. When a decision is being made, when conversations are being had, when brainstorming is happening and decisions need to be made based on those things, it is essential that the chair build consensus and find the best answer for the council or committee to move forward. And so with that, we'll talk a little about what a volunteer does on the council. If the chair is, in fact, leading and facilitating the conversation, what is the role of the volunteer, of the council member themselves? So as a volunteer, it's essential that you know a AOE's mission, that you try to review it regularly so that as a council or committee meets, you're able to participate, make decisions that align with the mission, really keeping members top of mind. Remember what is your group's responsibility. For example, the membership council should ensure that everything they want to do is for the benefit to support members first, while on the other hand, the finance committee will focus on the financial stability and sustainability of the organization. And so those things could be at odds, they might not be, but everything that your committee is charged with, make sure that you're really focusing there and then we can collaborate and foster collaborations as necessary. Meetings are generally held on a monthly basis. You should have received an appointment with a Zoom link and the agenda can always be found on AOE's website. And so we'll kind of walk through that the first time we meet so that you have a good understanding of where to find the agendas, you can prepare in advance for what will be discussed and be ready to really share your expertise, your thoughts, and your ideas. Again, you are the industry expert. And so staff really looks to our volunteers to really help us with what are those things that are going to best support members that are going to help you grow in your careers, help you grow in your practices, support your practices and your staff. You want to support the board's strategic leadership. Again, keep that mission top of mind, brainstorm and share ideas, speak up. I think it's really, that's probably the biggest tip for a volunteer committee or council member is really be willing to speak up and share your ideas, complete the tasks that are assigned and really have fun. I always say that a volunteer opportunity should not be a dreaded opportunity or dread the meetings or anything like that. It's really an opportunity to meet other members, share ideas, find ways to really support AAOE members and really it should be a fun and valuable experience. And if it's not, then let's talk about that. That should be a highlight of the council's meeting discussion. You should have already received the volunteer program policies and procedures, but wanted to just list those here just so you understand what's kind of expected from the work that you're going to be doing. Council has limited authority because the board is the strategic leader of the organization. You've been accepted as a volunteer based on your application and your interest. We hope that you have made at least a one year commitment to your service with AAOE and we have a maximum of three years. There's a quarterly update that is given to the board of directors. We take attendance at all meetings and if you miss three or more meetings, we'd really like to talk about that and kind of what that means for your role and what you would like to be doing. All right, I want to just touch briefly on policies that kind of affect your work as a volunteer. And I know you're probably thinking I've saved the most fun topic for last. You've already received a nondisclosure agreement and probably have signed and returned that already. And that really is to maintain confidentiality as a volunteer. You're going to hear things and see things and get information that really needs to be kept confidential. Obviously, there's a place for transparency in much of what we do because this is a membership organization. But there's also just a little bit of a need for confidentiality as well and so you've agreed to that already. Antitrust is a topic that it maybe can be sometimes confusing, particularly for members of an association. We don't talk about pricing or compensation because associations are especially vulnerable to antitrust violations. And so it's really important not to discuss things like how much you charge for a specific service or a thing or how much you're paying your physician or front desk person because it that qualifies as antitrust violations and those penalties for those violations are very, very steep. And so I always say if you hear somebody talking about pricing, if you hear somebody talking about compensation, I strongly urge you to put a stop to it because antitrust violations for associations are such a big deal. Just want to touch briefly on a conflict of interest, which is a situation in which a person is in a position to derive personal benefit from actions or decisions made in their official capacity. An example that I can give of this might be the advocacy council decides to hire someone on the council to serve as their lobbyist. That could be potentially a conflict of interest and so a conflict of interest is not necessarily not doing anything about that, but it is disclosing that there is a conflict and really talking about what that means for the organization. So those are just a few things to keep in mind. If you have any questions, I urge you to reach out to your staff liaison, to your board liaison, all the 800 number, we're happy to talk through any questions that you might have. But with that, that is the end of the training. So if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to AAOE. Otherwise, I just want to thank you again for your service and let you know that we look forward to working with you. Thanks so much for your time. Have a great day.

AAOE Volunteer Training

Council and Committee Chairs

Orthopedic executives support

Mission alignment

Collaboration fostering