By the time you read this, SNAME’s Council Retreat 2016 will be in the history books. The whole council will have met in Alexandria, VA with all the new leadership for 18 sections and 41 student sections from around the world. Just think, when I became president, there were only 35 SNAME student sections; now there are 40.
Council Retreat is a weekend training event for new SNAME leadership of the sections and student sections. They came from all over the world to our headquarters in Alexandria to spend a weekend together to “learn” SNAME, get to know each other and SNAME’s business, and have fun.
We started off the weekend with a tour of the Navy Museum in Anacostia, then lunch to get to know each other. We heard about the membership recruitment initiatives and got to see the new recruiting brochures. These can be downloaded from www.sname.org. Next was section operations training, the “how to” part of how new leaders should think about managing their sections to grow and provide value to all our constituents. These include students/educators, researchers, designers/engineers, shipbuilders, equipment manufacturers, operators, and recyclers/salvors. We need to know who we are so we understand how best to serve all maritime professionals.
The highlight of the weekend is the student-led design competition. The whole council was divided into teams, young and old alike. On Friday evening, there was an organization meeting where we learned who our team members were and what the challenge was going to be like. On Saturday evening, we built our models and we only had two hours. And then on Sunday morning, we competed and ate ice cream. What a weekend!
If this sounds fun and informative to you, please consider volunteering for a leadership position in your section. It might get you to Council Retreat one day. You and your career and your business will be better for it. Another good way to meet SNAME leaders is to attend the SNAME Maritime Convention in Bellevue, WA, November 1-5. If you can be there, you also should plan to stay over Saturday to race in the SNAME regatta.
By the way, if you want to know who won the design competition, check out www.sname.org.
Joe Comer
President of SNAME