MSAE President's Update - July 2020

What are we going to do now? How can we handle this situation? What will be the impact on my association and industry/profession? What changes do we need to make to survive? Who can help us? Will we ever meet in person again? These questions and many more have been going through my mind over the last 6 months. Working for an association of family physicians, we are on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and the public health crisis of racism. As president of MSAE, we are here to help you answer these questions through our education sessions, newsletters, and networking. But, MSAE has also been impacted by these issues. What can we do to protect our members and continue the services and benefits provided by MSAE. Our associate members are struggling through these unprecedented times and we are in this together with them!

MSAE has struggled financially for several years and the board started seeing the decline about five years ago. We have utilized different association management companies in hopes of moving MSAE to provide more and better benefits to you. Most recently, the MSAE board determined that we are unable to continue utilizing Sentient Strategies for the management of our 194 member organization. As you can see from the balance sheet, we have assets to fund the organization for rainy days; well if you haven’t looked outside lately, it’s raining. We are fortunate to have the reserves available, but more importantly, that we have a board that is committed to MSAE and will serve as your umbrella until the sun shines again.

We have a strategic plan that we are utilizing to guide our efforts, and then the COVID-19 pandemic spread throughout our state and country placing a pause on these initiatives. Our programs are heavily dependent on sponsorship and advertising from our associate members. We have offered complimentary webinars on how to respond to this pandemic during a time of social distancing. And, we will plan more virtual events for you as we recover from this pandemic, including a webinar on implicit bias.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the MSAE board unanimously voted to not renew the Sentient Strategies contract and to internally assume the management of MSAE by the board. We have become a working board which will be challenging for each of us as our time commitments are stretched between work and family life. The committees will assume the responsibilities of the programs and initiatives that fall under their purview. The Executive Committee members will serve as a liaison on each committee to ensure consistency throughout the operations. We will be utilizing a communication platform for board communication and access, in addition to maintaining MemberClicks for the association management system.

You will still contact MSAE through the established methods of communication. Our telephone will remain the same at (573) 659-8898, but automatically be directed to voicemail and checked regularly. Email should be sent to [email protected], and will be monitored daily. The website will be through MemberClicks. Registrations and membership data will continue to be processed through MemberClicks.

We ask for your patience and support as we work through this transition. We need you to volunteer for a committee – you have great ideas and expertise – share it with MSAE! We all want what is best for MSAE and by working together we will achieve more and better opportunities for MSAE.

I’m sure you have many questions regarding this transition and we want to be transparent in our efforts. Please direct all questions to me at [email protected].