Greetings to all the TAEA art educators during this holiday season! As I am rolling off as your President, I wanted to take a moment to recap the TAEA activities this past year.
TAEA has been updating by making the changes needed to make us relevant to all our members. We have added online meetings for the board, so we can meet four times a year to keep up to date. We have created committees that bring in non-board members as well as board members. Our website has been revamped to bring current information to our members, as well as letting members comment directly with questions. Our Communications Committee has put us on Twitter, Instagram, and yes, we are still on Facebook.
We had 3 Regional conferences, one in Memphis, one in Franklin, and one in Knoxville throughout the spring semester. Please look for more information on this year Regional Conferences coming up soon!
I hope more of you put your students’ artwork in TAEA’s Regional Student Art Exhibitions. Each region hosts a student exhibition where the students can earn cash and scholarship prizes. Check the website for more information.
During our annual Fall Professional Development Conference at MCA in Memphis, TN in October 2017, we voted yes on constitutional/bylaw changes. The new version will be on our websites soon. We also voted on our Regional Chairs, Secretary, and President-Elect. Here are our newly voted in Board Members:
President-Elect: Melody Weintraub, Memphis, TN
Secretary: David Meade, NE Tennessee
East Regional Chair: Phyllis Ball, Knoxville, TN
Middle Regional Chair: Michelle Vinci, Fairfield, TN
West Regional Chair: Molly Brown, Memphis, TN
As always, if you want to help us in anyway, you can contact your regional chairs, your divisional chairs, or anyone on the board. Our emails are on the website also.
I also wanted to make sure all TAEA/NAEA members that NAEA has an election right now on Regional VP-Elects and President-Elect. All members should have received an email from NAEA with a specific voting number to use with your membership number to vote for NAEA SE Regional VP-Elect and NAEA President. Look in your email from December 1st…check spam folder! Let your vote count on the National level also! This vote is over in early January.
Thank you for the privilege of leading TAEA these two years as your President. I am on to my new role as Past President at the beginning of the year, which has the responsibility of organizing the next two Fall conferences. Next fall, November 1-3, 2018, we will be in Arrowmont in Gatlinburg! Please make plans to attend!