My thoughts related to the value of face-to-face meetings were again validated during GNA’s October Professional Development Conference (PDC) and Membership Assembly.  The warm hugs between colleagues, the interactions between CE presenters and their audience, the buzz in the hallways, and the sharing of community over meals are simply not available with high tech online or teleconference gatherings.  For me, the Conference was like a professional family Thanksgiving celebration.

At press time, we did not have the official event evaluations back, but I can share that this new format attracted a 66 percent increase in attendance compared to previous formats!  I have no doubt that the attendees this year left feeling enormously enriched.  The cornucopia of personalities and viewpoints were a real treat for me – and for that I am personally thankful to all who participated.

I presented on the topic of Emotional Intelligence.  As a presenter I was nervous.  Would my material resonate?  Did I have too much material – or not enough?  Was the technology going to work?  Would I connect on a personal level with an audience of professionals about my own challenges with being emotionally intelligent?  In retrospect, I don’t know why I was so nervous!  It was a tremendous comfort when I looked out at the audience and saw that so many leaders I admire, and have worked closely with over the years, chose to be there to support me.  We had a shared history (a pool of shared meaning).  It meant the world to me to see them sprinkled throughout the room.  We had a bit of “shorthand” when it came to my decade as a servant leader in the GNA CEO position.  For others in the audience that I did not know so well, I was impressed and often amused by their responses to the group exercises – especially the one about “going shopping – after devouring a big hunk of chocolate.”  A sort of emotional bliss!  It was important for me to have that interaction, and the feedback I received about what was most meaningful to them.  I will “call upon” those interactions in the future when “the going gets tough” – as it invariably will.

The economy has presented a need to prioritize resources on a personal and professional level for all of us.  It was particularly encouraging to see how well employers supported their staff to attend the PDC.  ANCC Executive Director Karen Drenkard gave an excellent keynote on Transformational Leadership.  She shared two days with us and also contributed to panels on Healthy Workforces and Healthy Workplaces.  But I also saw Karen as an attentive audience participant in a number of other presentations.  It is the ultimate compliment when a national keynote speaker is so impressed by the other session leaders that they choose to attend those sessions, instead of catching up on their Blackberry or socializing, although I know Karen enjoyed the socializing with those in attendance as well.  GNA offered a very impressive roster of faculty for this event and the only “complaint” I heard was that it was too hard to choose among the concurrent sessions.  They were all valuable!  Thank you again to all of our content experts (who by the way were all GNA members)!

We received some really nice thank you notes and messages from the attendees including one from an Emory Healthcare nurse who is a MSN candidate for 2013 who wrote: “This was my first experience at the GNA Conference and I truly enjoyed myself on Thursday!  I saw old friends that I hadn’t seen in YEARS, and made so many new connections that will benefit me and my patients today and in the future!  I gleaned such a vast amount of new knowledge that will allow me to provide even better care of my patients in the future from the guest speakers that I was privileged to be able to sit in on, as they lectured us on new and innovative concepts for optimal patient outcomes!  However, this new knowledge will not only benefit me and my patients, it will also benefit my colleagues and their patients as I share with them the nuggets of knowledge that I carried away from the conference lectures!  I am already looking forward to the next GNA Conference!”

Thursday night we put on our Hawaiian outfits (some were outrageous), and led by the Drum Café we enjoyed beating our drums until we were all in concert with each other.  Then GNA member Debbie Davis led us all in the hula and other island interpretative dances (with grass skirts and hula hoops of course).  But for those present, don’t worry - What happens at the party stays at the party…

A very special thank you is in order for our sponsors this year.  They helped us put the cherry on top of a very ambitious program. 

As impressive as the whole PDC program was, and as much fun we had with each other, we were all brought back to our “humility state” when during the closing luncheon we were VERY honored to have civil rights leader and U.S. Representative John Lewis with us to receive recognition by GNA for his lifetime of achievement.  WOW – it was a powerful experience.  The stage was shared by some very special nurses who were also honored.  You’ll see pictures of them in this issue.