Written by Cathy (CJ) Carter-Snell, AFN President, PhD, RN, SANE-A, DF-AFN

Hard to believe it’s November already. Canada has already celebrated Thanksgiving and the United States are gearing up for it. This time of year always brings about change for the Academy of Forensic Nursing, as we vote for new members of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee. Thank you to all who cast your ballot, and to all who let their names stand for election.

We had a bit of a delay in announcing the successful candidates as there was a related bylaws change that affected how many new directors we needed to add. We reduced the number of directors to 11 and then had to clarify whether that total included the Executive Committee, or in addition to the Executive. The decision was to include Executive and then we were able to determine the number of directors. There is one outstanding decision that impacts the number of directors: the Board is split on the role of the past-president. The two suggestions are 1) past-president is an active role, supporting the president and president-elect, and thus a voting member of the Board; or 2) past-president is to be only ad hoc (PRN) and non-voting. The Board were split on this decision, so we will be bringing this to the members to decide when they vote on the bylaws. Thank you for your patience with the delay.

You can find the full results of this year’s AFN Board of Directors Election further down in this newsletter.

The current Board and bylaws working groups have worked hard to incorporate your feedback into the bylaws sent out for review last spring. As we incorporated the feedback, the latest version became significantly different from the original. In addition, the working groups removed a lot of content that should be made into policies rather than sitting in the bylaws. The Board reviewed these changes and made some further recommendations consistent with the members’ comments.

The revised bylaw version, and a summary of its changes, will be sent to all members in early November for a two-week review period. Any further changes suggested by members will then be considered by the Board and finalized. The final version will be posted by the end of November for voting for one week.

Once member voting is complete, we will need to update or create policies in line with the bylaws revisions. We will also be looking for volunteers to sit on a newly formed Policy Committee. Please contact someone on the Executive Committee or the Board of Directors if you are interested in participating (or even chairing!).

The other exciting piece of news is that next week, we will be posting an Executive Director contract position (half-time equivalent). This person will run the day-to-day operations of AFN, providing more consistency and follow-up – which is sometimes difficult for volunteer Board members. They will also have a key role in coordinating conferences and working with our continuing education coordinator.

Thank you for all the work you do to move AFN forward as a key source of evidence-informed education for the members.