It is ironic that I have been nominated to represent the Local Conference Committee for the Conference Blog. I say this because one of the main things I have been asked to do is provide information about St. Louis and what to do while you are here. The irony is that I have lived in St. Louis less than two years, compared to the rest of the committee who have all spent most of their professional lives here. Because I was the only one who knew what blogging was and how to do it, I got the job. The other members of the committee have assured me they will provide lots of information to share.
One of the things I plan to emphasize with this blog is how important volunteer assistance is in making the conference possible. The People Power Committee already has commitments from approximately 200 persons to volunteer and is anticipating adding another 100. Having attended conference numerous times in the past, I was never aware of the amount of work provided by volunteers. Volunteers serve as session scanners, workers in the AOTA Market Place, at the Registration Desk, at the Hospitality booth and with the Reasonable Accommodations area. That amounts to needing a lot of people to complete a lot of different tasks. The commitment of time already shown, speaks to the importance placed on service by occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants. A group that has been strongly to volunteer are students. We are fortunate in that St. Louis is home to three different occupational therapy education programs and three occupational therapy assistant programs. The committee has made a real effort to get students involved and excited about participating in all the events that national conference offers.
As Chair of the Reasonable Accommodations Committee, I have had a variety of duties to complete. The most interesting was touring each of the hotels planned for use during conference. Frank Gainer from national office and I assessed each hotel’s accessible rooms and developed a report of our findings. Surprising to me during this process was the differences between the rooms in each of the hotels. I was very happy to see AOTA making a real effort to effectively meet the needs of all conference participants. In future postings I will do my best to keep you update to date on what is happening behind the scenes.
On a personal note, I want to share how excited I am about conference being here in St. Louis. As a previous nine-year member of the Representative Assembly, I became a “conference junkie”. I look forward to learning new things, meeting new people and most of all seeing old friends.
In closing, I will share one those things you should do while in St. Louis. The thing is to try toasted ravioli. Toasted ravioli is a traditional meat-stuffed ravioli that is rolled in bread crumbs and deep fried until golden brown. They are served with plain marinara or red meat sauce. In either case, they are delicious and an authentic St. Louis treat.