Vision update

Video Transcript

Hello ASDAH members! As many of you know, my name is Veronica Garnett and I’m the Vision and Strategy Leader for ASDAH. We are coming to the close of our 2021 to 2022 ASDAH board year at the end of June. And so I thought it was a perfect time to come to you all with a little update about where we’ve been and where we plan to go in our next, you know in our next board year. 

So this board year has been an historic year really, we have so many- we’ve experienced so many wins. There have been some challenges. It’s been some ups and downs, but overall this year has been such an amazing year filled with wins. So let me just go over some of the things that we have been able to accomplish through the year. So first, we increase our event offerings. So we’ve had four educational events. We’ve had two member only events and then we’ve had two free events that are open to the community. We have increased our membership like from the beginning of this year to now we have more than doubled our membership So currently at the time of this recording we are at 1,460 members. I think I started this position in August. It’ll be two years ago and I think we almost maybe tripled our membership since the time that I started. So that is just amazing to have more of you here in the folds of ASDAH. 

This year we held, well just a couple weeks ago, we held our first conference in four years and this was the largest conference in ASDAH history. Because we were virtual, they’re a lot of people who were able to participate globally who may not have been able to join us live like in 2018 with our last conference. We had an Amazing list of speakers and facilitators and moderators. It was just an amazing event, and I hope you all got to be there. 

Um and also because of these event offerings because of our increased membership for the first time ever in ASDAH history, we have grossed more than six figures, we’ve crossed that six-figure threshold which might be surprising to some people, like people think that ASDAH is this well-oiled, well-funded machine, but we have really historically have been operating from a shoestring budget, we have mostly volunteers. And so this is an amazing feat really and because of our increase in income. We were able to pay people equitably for their for their labor. So our leadership team, every webinar and teaching presenter, every facilitator, moderator, every conference speaker. We’ve been able to pay people um for the first time in ASDAH history, which is- that’s a big part of my ethic, ethos, values is to pay people, especially marginalized folks, for their labor and their contribution to ASDAH. So I’m so happy that we were able to do that this year. 

And the last thing, one of the big wins from this year is that we revised or we proposed a revision to our bylaws and that vote, which happened in May, it passed the bylaw changes, the yeah, the bylaws changes were approved which means we’re this close like, this close to becoming a 501c3. So if you’ve been following along on the journey this past year, you know, we have been talking a lot about that that our goal of transitioning from a 501c6 to a 501c3. This opens up so many opportunities for us and this will help with funding opportunities with organizational stability. So really excited. 

So what’s next with all of that said? So first we’ll be taking a break, we will be taking a break organization-wide ASDAH will be taking a two-week break to honor our humanity and to support the team’s rejuvenation. That’s the right word- rejuvenation and rest. We want to prioritize that so we’ll be taking this break. But as soon as we come back, we’ll hit the ground running. We have a lot of things planned in these first- the first few weeks and months of our new fiscal/board year. 

Um, so right now as we speak, you know, we’ve already passed off all of our paperwork to our legal team and they will be doing the job of like doing the final preparations submitting the paperwork to the IRS so we can become a 501c3. 

We will be appointing our new board of directors. The current leadership team, the current board of directors will be appointing and voting on our next board of directors; and we have an amazing list a short list of potential appointees who we loved to have a conversation with which I’m excited about. 

We will also be hiring staff, which is amazing. We’re looking for five positions. So right now at the time of the recording of this video, our virtual assistant position is live. So the applications are coming in for that, which is amazing. But when we come back in July and August, we will also be opening up an application for our Education and Training leader, for our Communications- our Media and Communications leader and then we’ll be looking for two project associates to work on our Abolish the BMI Coalition. So definitely be on the lookout for updates about that for when those applications open up and are live on our website. 

And then we also have some events happening too, like we’re keeping the ball rolling with having consistent events. So July 24th will be having a member open mic night. So members only – if you know some folks who want to join who want to come to the event but aren’t members encourage them to become a member of ASDAH. We’ll also, on August 26th, We’ll have an educational offering called Afrofuturism: Bodies in the Future and that’s about, it’ll look at the connection between Afrofuturism or how we can apply Afrofuturism ideals to the Health at Every Size(R) framework of care. 

And then on September 28th will be holding our annual meeting. We’ll go more in depth about all of these- all these wins from this year looking at the numbers and like going more in-depth with our plans for the new board year. Like just to give you a little preview here. It’s gonna be, it’s gonna be a big year. We’re gonna be updating the Health at Every Size(R) principles, we’ll be updating the Health at Every Size(R) curriculum. Um, there might be some name changes happening to either ASDAH and HAES(R) or both, who knows? But there’s so many possibilities that can happen and we are so grateful that you have been along on the journey and that you continue to stick with us through these next steps of the journey. 

So with all of that said, I know I’m ready to go take this two week break. So I look forward to catching up with you all after July 11th when we’re back in the office, so until then. be well.