[Wctcca] Fall WCTCCA Newsletter

[Jennifer Houge]

WCTCCA Fall 2022 Newsletter

Hello Colleagues!  Happy Fall Term!  Initially this started as a summer
newsletter but life got in my way and then Covid got in my way and now it’s
fall.  Anyhow, I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing all your beautiful
faces in a few weeks at our quarterly meeting!


NEWS/UPDATES

We have had some recent changes to our Steering Committee and Executive
Team at WCTCCA and I wanted to update all of you.  First of all, we would
like to acknowledge and express our absolute gratitude to Devon Klein,
outgoing President, Gloria Rose Koepping, outgoing Treasurer, and Margaret
Vlahos, outgoing Western Rep. as well as Meg Irby who had to step down from
the VP position earlier in the year due to health issues.  We will miss you
all AND hope to still see you in our quarterly meetings so as to have
access to your experience and wisdom.

As of our 2022 Spring Conference, I have taken over as President and Sarah
Hoaglin has permanently moved into the Vice President position.  We also
welcome Kristi Leksen as Treasurer, Matthew Cullen as Technology Guru, and
Kattie Dang as Western Rep.  We still need to fill the Secretary and
Eastern Rep positions as well as many other representative positions from a
variety of regions in the state.  According to our by-laws, here are our
requirements:

Article V: Steering Committee

  1.  There shall be a Steering Committee consisting of the officers, plus:

  *   two representatives from the seven community and technical colleges
east of the Cascade Mountains (Eastern Region: Big Bend, Columbia Basin,
Spokane, Spokane Falls, Walla Walla, Wenatchee Valley and Yakima Valley);

  *   two from the eight community and technical colleges within the
Seattle/Puget Sound- North Metropolitan area (North Puget Sound Region
Bellevue, Edmonds, Everett, Lake Washington, Seattle Central, Shoreline,
North Seattle, South Seattle);

  *   two from the seven community and technical colleges within the
Seattle South/Tacoma area (South Puget Sound Region: Renton, Green River,
Highline, Tacoma, Pierce, Bates, Clover Park);

  *   and two from the other ten western community and technical colleges
(Western Region: Bellingham, Centralia, Clark, Grays Harbor, Lower
Columbia, Olympic, Peninsula, Skagit Valley, South Puget Sound, and
Whatcom).

Representatives shall be voting members of WTCCA and only one may be
selected from a given campus.

Yikes!  We are nowhere near where we need to be with these requirements!
Please give some thought to serving on our committee or at least to talk
with your colleagues about our Association.

If you are interested in being part of the Steering Committee feel free to
reach out to the current members and they’ll happily answer any of your
questions.  You can reach them here:

   -

   Jennifer Houge - President - jhouge at lcc.ctc.edu OR wctccapres at gmail.com
   -

   Sarah Hoaglin - Vice President - shoaglin at rtc.edu OR wctcccavp at gmail.com
   -

   Kristi Lekson - Treasurer - klekson at everettcc.edu OR
   wctccatreas at gmail.com
   -

   Matthew Cullen - Technology Specialist - mcullen at grcc.edu or
   wctccatech at gmail.com


Generally we meet once per month during the September through June months.
We also have started quarterly meetings for the full membership as well as
any counselor or student counselor who may be interested.  During our
meetings, we usually conduct any general business, discuss general topics,
but also plan for our Spring Conference and spend time just talking with
each other.


Membership/Benefits/Ideas

One thing we’d really like to focus on in the new year is increasing our
membership.  Initially I joined the group because I felt alienated on my
campus and in desperate need of support from my colleagues who understood
the day to day challenges, stresses, and joys of our job.  I have met some
amazing, wonderful, and insightful counselors through WCTCCA and want to
make sure other counselors throughout the state know we exist and
understand all the ways we can help each other and support one another in
good times and in bad.

We are currently creating an environment of information sharing through a
bank of ideas/presentations/updates built by our counselors and available
to our members within our WCTCCA website: https://www.wctcca.org.  All of
us have been asked to teach classes or give campus-wide presentations on
topics from Stress Relief to De-Escalation to Helping Students in Crisis.
Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to completely reinvent the wheel?
We could access each other’s (shared with permission) presentations and
edit them to fit our specific campus needs.  If you have anything you’d
like to share, please do!!!

There would also be sections on Best Practices, WA state RCWs and laws, and
basic news articles that are pertinent to our work all in one place.  We
already have sections on the website for past conferences, archived
newsletters, and counselor resources and are continuing to add when ideas
come up.

Another work in progress is a change to how we are able to accept payments
for membership or conference fees.  We hope to be able to offer a credit
card or Venmo-type payment option within our website to make it easier and
more accessible to more members.






Member Input

What are your thoughts?  We really want to be a place for everyone.  We
want to give you what you need from our organization.  Please email me
directly with your wish list and we will do our best to provide the
services you need.  Here are some ideas:


   1.

   Support Network
   2.

   Resources
   3.

   Social Networking
   4.

   Job Postings
   5.

   Help with Retirement planning
   6.

   More focused/frequent meetings


Please join us for our meetings and really do think about if you would like
to be involved with our group.  We would welcome anyone who is interested
with open hearts and minds.


Thank you for your dedication to students,

The WCTCCA Steering Committee; Jennifer, Sarah, Kristi, and Matthew







*Jennifer*
*Jennifer Houge, MS LMHC*
*WCTCCA **President*

*360-261-8601*
*wctccapres at gmail.com <wctccapres at gmail.com>*



*"My religion is simple.  My religion is kindness." - Dalai Lama*
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