- Nov 23, 2012
NEJETAA elections are now open for President, Membership Coordinator, Communications Coordinator/Webmaster, and Social Chair. Kasey Doran, our current Social Chair has decided to step down due to other commitments. Luckily we have a candidate who would like to finish the remaining 6 months of the Social Chair term.
Please cast your votes ONLINE here on our website: www.nejetaa.com by 6pm Nov. 28th. (As a reminder, we’ll have a General Meeting that day, at 6pm, so you may vote in person if you prefer. More details about the meeting TBA) The voting section will appear on the right side of the page after you login with your username and password.
Click the “read more” section below to access voting instructions. To vote, you need to be a registered user on our site (just takes a minute to sign up!).
PLATFORMS
Stephanie Simpson-White for President
Hello. My name is Stephanie Simpson-White and I’m running for re-election to the position of President for NEJETAA. The past year has taught me a lot about what it means to be an active member and leader in an organization. As President I still firmly believe that it is my responsibility to be a strong leader for and tireless supporter of the JET alumni members and the alumni association board. As one the many Japan-related organizations in Massachusetts, I also believe it is our responsibility as a group to do what we can to promote Japan while also providing support to those who have served on the JET Programme. One way to achieve this goal is to work closely with other organizations throughout the area–the Consulate-General of Japan, the Japan Society of Boston, Showa Boston, JREX, LEX America/Hippo, the Massachusetts-Hokkaido Association, the various Japanese student and community groups, and Anime Boston, to name a few–to host events and sponsor opportunities for networking and mutual learning between Japanese, Japanese-Americans, and Americans. As President I will continue to strive to be a representative for NEJETAA at the local and national level, both to show support from our organization as well as to get support from others. I will do my best to serve my fellow board members, the members of NEJETAA, and the country and people of Japan, to whom we owe so much. Thank you.
Brian Peckrill for Membership Coordinator
Over the past year as Membership Coordinator, I have spearheaded several initiatives that has improved NEJETAA’s membership databases. In June of 2012, with the help of our Webmaster, we led NEJETAA away from Yahoo! Groups and to Mailchimp. Mailchimp has proved to be a more effective method of maintaining contact with current members, as well as simplifying the signing-up process, a change that has led to impressive membership yield numbers in Fall 2012. Beyond administrative changes, I have made a concerted effort to market NEJETAA to newly returned JETs, as well as JET-alumni new to the New England area. I have assisted with other duties beyond Membership, arranging Japanese Lessons for all NEJETAA members in the winter of 2011-2012. Recently I had the honor and privilege of representing NEJETAA at the 2012 National Conference in San Francisco. I took away many valuable antidotes from the conference which I plan to use to improve as a NEJETAA executive board member and your Membership Coordinator.
Going forward, I have many goals I hope to realize in 2012-2013. I will continue to work with Mailchimp and use the knowledge I gained in San Francisco to develop an organized and stream-lined system from attaining, maintaining and updating membership information. Additionally, I hope to continue to work with our Vice President to develop organized and funded sub-chapters. It was an honor serving as NEJETAA’s Membership Coordinator in 2012, and I hope to have the opportunity to continue in 2013.
Sincerely,
Brian Peckrill
Katie Mulroy for Social Chair
Hi NEJETAA Members,
My name is Katie Mulroy, and I’m running for the Social Chair position. I was an ALT in Aomori Prefecture from 2008-2011.
I have been involved with NEJETAA since my return to the US in 2011 and have helped plan social events such as karaoke parties and the Nihongo Dake dinners. In the future, I would like to take a more active role in organizing these events as a way to give back to the NEJETAA community.
My goals for the next 6 months include connecting returned JETs with each other through the Nihongo Dake and Shinnenkai dinners, happy hours, and other events. I love planning social gatherings and would be happy to make your suggestions for any other activity a reality. I would also like to tap further into the relationship that we have with the Japanese community living in Boston. By doing so, I hope to allow our members to continue the strong connection with Japan that they gained on the JET Program.
Thank you for your consideration.
Best regards,
Katie Mulroy
Christina Omori for Communications Coordinator/Webmaster
Hi to NEJETAA members. My name is Christina Omori and I would like to run for my fourth term as NEJETAA Communications Coordinator/Webmaster. It has been an absolute honor to serve for the past three terms. As I mentioned in my previous platform, my goals are and have always been, to be open and transparent about what we do at NEJETAA, be a useful resource for JET alumni near and far, and to continue to maintain a presence in the New England area’s Japan-US community. In January this year, I had the opportunity to attend the JETAA USA Regional Tech Conference which introduced me Mailchimp, an email software that many other US chapters had been using successfully to communicate with their members. Thanks to the conference workshops, I was able to learn how to set up and use the program, and brought back the information I learned to our chapter officers, and we agreed to make the switch to it. I supported our Membership Coordinator, Brian, to get it set up and train other officers on how to use it, and our members have said they prefer it over the previous Yahoo Groups format. Our Facebook Page has attracted more users, while our Twitter account has grown in followers and is now much more closely connected with other JET alumni chapters across the US and in Canada. For the coming year, I plan to make some updates and improvements to our website and provide more integration across our social media outlets so keep communications streamlined. I would like to spend more time improving our LinkedIn group to be more resourceful for NEJETAA members wanting to build their professional network. Finally, I’d like the front-end of our website to have a nice, new makeover in 2013. If there is a JET alum out there who wants to redesign our site, is looking to build his/her design portfolio and references, we’d love to hear from you! Thank you for your consideration.
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VOTING INSTRUCTIONS: for registered members
Visit www.nejetaa.com and login on the bottom left corner. Click “Forgot login?” if you can’t remember your username or password and it will be resent to you. After you’ve logged in, on the right side you will see the voting/polling area. Please select the candidate(s) you wish to vote for.
While you’re logged in, please take a moment to update your profile. In the left column, click “Your Profile” in the “User Menu” box (3rd from the top). Then select “Edit” –> “Update your profile” –> “Contact Info”. Please update your JET town and prefecture and your dates on JET if you haven’t already. This allows us to verify voter authenticity as JETs and also so we can differentiate between spammers and real NEJETAA-ers! VOTING INSTRUCTIONS: for unregistered members
Visit www.nejetaa.com and click “Register” in the bottom left corner and fill out the registration profile. You’ll receive a confirmation email and then after confirming you can return to the site and login. You’ll see the on the right side the voting/polling area. Please select the candidate(s) you wish to vote for.
NEJETAA officer elections and the General Meeting is on Wed., November 28. Save the date! More details about the meeting will be announced shortly.
At that time, members will be voting for President, Membership Coordinator, Communications Coordinator/Webmaster and Social Chair. The Social Chair position is a 6-month filler election until the official Social Chair election in May 2013
Officers are entitled to a free ($45 value!) membership to the Japan Society in Boston, as well as other perks.
*Please read officer duties at the bottom of this post.*
Positions are normally for a one year term, no term limits. Officers are expected to attend as many of the 6 general meetings (held every two months) and 2-4 executive meetings (held as necessary) per year as possible, with 50% attendance as a minimum.
We are asking for platforms of all interested candidates to be submitted for review by our membership. If you’re interested in joining the NEJETAA board, please submit a platform!
What we need: *Less than 200 words *Self-introduction *What you want to accomplish in your time as an officer
Please don’t include any sensitive personal information (phone number, email, etc.), as your platform will be posted online for the membership to read. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just introduce yourself to everyone and tell us what you want to do!
Please send your platform to Christina at webmaster at nejetaa dot com BY WED. NOV. 21. Shortly thereafter it will be published for the general membership to review.
Thanks, and we’re looking forward to hearing from you! The NEJETAA Officers
Click below to read the officer responsibilities.
NOTE: All officer duties are listed in the Officer Description and Duties file in our downloads section.
President
The President takes leadership in planning the direction of our group and events; creates meeting agendas and chairs meetings (or delegates those responsibilities) , and makes sure we are fulfilling all of our obligations as a JETAA chapter. The President also serves as our public face, making remarks at events such as the Recent Returnee Dinner at the Consul General’s home. The President also oversees any educational events, such as Japanese classes or special classes to prepare new JETs.
Membership Coordinator
The Membership/Marketing Coordinator reaches out to welcome back new returnees each fall; develops strategies to keep members engaged with the organization and updated on NEJETAA events and activities; and takes meeting minutes to be distributed to the yahoo group and posted online on the NEJETAA website. The Membership/Marketing Coordinator welcomes new people who register with yahoo groups or on our website throughout the year and collects their membership data, which is required by CLAIR to substantiate our funding.
Communications Coordinator/Webmaster
The Webmaster maintains our online presence, keeping the website up to date in content and with photographs. The webmaster also assists people to post content to the website, such as job descriptions and events for the calendar. The webmaster supports marketing/outreach with the NEJETAA website and Facebook pages to attract more users and make the site more comprehensive and resourceful.
Social Chair (6 month term, up for full 1-year term election in May 2013)
The Social Chair provides leadership to the Social Committee in planning and carrying out various social events. The social chair works closely with the Membership Clerk to provide integrated planning so that we can reach new members and understand member needs and interests.
Social Committee Members (Volunteer ANY TIME!)
The Social Committee plans approximately one event per month, such as Happy Hours, the Welcome party, NihongoDake dinners, etc. The members of the social committee (generally about 3-5 members at any given time) are volunteers (rather than elected people) and are not considered officers.
- Nov 2, 2012
Please note: Due to an unfortunate scheduling conflict, one of our speakers won’t be able to make it to the career seminar tomorrow night, and we are forced to cancel the first part of the event from 4:00-6:00 at Boston University. We will still hold the networking session at Cornwall’s in Kenmore Square at 6:00 PM, so we highly encourage you to stop by and meet some of the other JET alums for food and drinks. Please let me know if you have questions, or if the cancellation will affect your RSVP for the networking event. Thanks for your understanding and hope to see you soon.
Jason, Vice President vicepres at nejetaa dot com
The networking reception will be at Cornwall’s, 654 Beacon Street (in Kenmore Square), Boston, MA 02215 from 6:00 PM (map here). We will also provide some food during the networking event. The networking event is open to all, but we ask that you RSVP to the same address above so we can plan for how much food to order.
To Cornwalls, you can take any Green Line train except for an E train to Kenmore. Cornwall’s is near the top of the right set of stairs after the subway gates.
We look forward to seeing you!
The NEJETAA Board
(Stephanie, Jason, Trish, Brian, Christina, Kasey)