Happy New Year!
I would like to take this time to give a heartfelt thank you to the ASPA Executive Officers and the ASPA staff. They are a hard working group that keeps ASPA working for its members. In addition to being on the Executive, many of them have joined committees, some internal to ASPA and some University committees. The following highlights just some of the work they do for ASPA and its members.
Elana Geller is our newest Executive Officer. She joined the executive in the fall to fill in a vacated position.
John Costa serves on the pension committee and was integral to getting online voting established that was used for voting on our collective agreement.
Sara Horseman has taken the lead on our communications committee.
Patrick Dice serves on the social, communications and nominations committees.
Brock Egeto attends weekly new positions meetings where we meet with the Employer and CUPE 1975. He also helps out on our communications and research committees.
Andrea Smida serves on the engagement committee and also sits on new positions.
Aaron Bird serves on our finance and research committees.
Sheila is the ASPA Treasurer. She provides timely financial reports in addition to working on the engagement committee and organizing our brown bag lunches.
Lisa Bagonluri is one of ASPA’s Vice Presidents and serves on the Employee Assistance Committee and the grievance committee.
Peter Krebs is also a Vice President and sits on the Employee Assistance Committee as well as the grievance, communications, finance and research committees.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the work that these members do for ASPA. Hopefully it illustrates for you the numerous committees as well as the amount of work that is put into our organization.
I would like to also thank all of the other ASPA members that serve on a multitude of committees that help our organization and members. It is the collective work of all of these people that ensures the success of our association.
In addition, I must thank the ASPA staff, Darcy Hryn and Annetta Gellner, for their hard work and dedication to this organization. Darcy helps our members with contract interpretation and acts as a resource to the Executive. ASPA filed 17 grievances in 2016 and Darcy worked with the Presidents to ensure that they were handled as efficiently as possible. Annetta keeps us all organized and is also a resource to the Executive. She books our meetings, keeps track of our schedules and has the history of ASPA stored in her brain.
I am grateful to have the privilege of working with all of these talented and devoted people.
In preparation for our AGM in April, we will be looking for people to run on the ASPA executive. If you are interested in learning more about ASPA, or more about our campus, serving on the Executive will give you tremendous experience. It is an opportunity to work with a fabulous group of people and is also a chance to give back to our organization. If you would like more information about giving back by joining a committee, writing articles for our website or serving on the Executive, you can contact any of the executive members, myself (dawn.giesbrecht@usask.ca) or email aspa@aspasask.ca.
Respectfully submitted,
Dawn Giesbrecht
ASPA President
ASPA (Administrative and Supervisory Personnel Association) 