FAND 2022 New Year Update!

Hello fellow friends, dietitians and diet technicians, registered. Happy New year!!  We hope you enjoyed the holidays. Your FAND board and committee members have worked hard this past quarter. We have had monthly board meetings as well as numerous committee calls, including the FANS Planning Committee, our Finance Committee, the Diversity and Inclusion committee and the nominating committee to just name a few. Boy, do we have some great news to share with you.

1. The FAND board members voted to adjust our fiscal year to align it with that of the Academy, which runs from June – May.
   2023. That means the current board will serve a full year PLUS another 7 months to get us to the next new fiscal year, June 2023.
   2024. This also means our elections will be adjusted and you may not see a call for new board and committee members for a little while since that new board won’t start until June 2023
2. We have a new Diversity and Inclusion team.
   1. Sheetal Parikh and Karen Two Shoes lead this committee and the D&I initiatives
   2. Keep an eye out for great D&I resources and webinars for next year.
3. Mark your Calendar!! FANS is March 5^th and 6^th
   1. It will be virtual again, but we look forward to hosting a live FAND member reception right around FNCE in October in Orlando, FL.
   2. This reception will host our legislative update as well as our awards ceremony
   3. We are also working on a South FL (April) and North FL (June) live event.
4. The district Training took place last November 11^th, 2021
   1. Adam Lax, Chair of District President, Brittany Robinson, Treasurer and I updated the district manual and shared all pertinent district information, such as budgeting and keeping the districts registration active.
5. Our House of Delegates Chair, Jennifer Farrell, and delegate, Claudia Sealy-Potts, will attend two upcoming HOD meetings. Below is an update from our Delegates:
   1. A survey revealed multiple issues of interest to be addressed in the upcoming year. Some of these issues such as: nationwide licensure, reimbursement for nutrition services and diversity and inclusion are already being addressed by AND. AND is working to increase communication to keep members abreast of these issues. Three critical issues have been selected for the House of Delegates to work on.

Critical Issues to be addressed in Spring 2022:

1. COVID-19- What are the short and long-term implications of COVID-19 on nutrition and dietetics practitioners, nutrition and dietetics practice, and the profession? What actions might the Academy take to effectively address them?
2. Volunteerism- How might the Academy evolve its member leadership model to meet the needs of current and future volunteers to ensure a robust pool of engaged leaders?
3. Academy Position Papers/Stances-What gaps exist in the current list of Academy position papers/stances that need to be filled to support members’ practice?
4. An important step to addressing these critical issues will be identifying subject matter experts in the above areas. Please reach out to FAND or AND if you are interested in serving on these issues as a subject matter expert. info@eatrightflorida.org

6. Last, but not least – an update from the Public Policy team
   1. Legislative Day workshop will be virtual again this year on February 9^th from 6 – 8:30 pm.
      1. Please visit our website to register
   2. Our lobbyist Team – The advocacy Group – has been retained for the year.
   3. This team, which is sponsored by our President-Elect, Elizabeth Bobo, has been feverishly working on getting a grass roots promotion out to you all soon. As you may know, the 2022 legislative session will be early – mid-January through mid-March.
   4. Our goal is for as many FAND members as possible to meet with their Florida State legislators prior to or in the early part of the Legislative session – Session runs from January 11^th through March 11^th, 2022.
   5. Capitol hill is allowing visitors, but small and scheduled teams. So, our best efforts should be spent NOW, before they head to Tallahassee.
   6. Stay tuned for more updates coming your way.

We will be sending updates as the year continues which will include student and member highlights, and calls to action.

Quick recap on Federal Legislation efforts to recruit support for the MNT expansion bill.

Former AND and FAND president and longtime Nutrition legislation advocate, Lucille Beseler, invited me and fellow South Florida dietitian, Krista Yoder Latortue, to attend a fundraiser for FL Senator Marco Rubio. We had an amazing learning experience and have further connections scheduled with his team to recruit support the MNT expansion bill. I have attached Lucille’s experience [attach PDF].

• Don’t forget to fund the FAND PAC so we can keep reaching out to legislators in the state of Florida or those representing our state at the federal level to support all important nutrition legislation.
• Please check the AND Action Center page regularly to ask your federal representatives for support of important nutrition initiatives by using the email templates.