One of the ONS Board of Directors’ goals is to increase your familiarity with us and what we are currently working on for the Society. In July we met with more than 400 other ONS leaders in Pittsburgh for Leadership Weekend. Board members from the Oncology Nursing Certification Corporation, ONS Foundation, and Leadership Development Council were included, as well as community and chapter leaders. It was an exciting weekend with a lot of enthusiastic and energized leaders. 

Two of our joint keynote sessions discussed building strong associations and boards. The speakers talked about ensuring that the boards were diverse, especially generationally. Having involvement from each generation from millennials to boomers is imperative to reaching members’ needs. When the ONS Board had discussions regarding our Strategic Plan’s goal to “grow the Society by recruiting, engaging, and retaining a diverse mix of nurses caring for patients with cancer,” we knew that generational involvement would be critical in reaching this goal. We are working with the Leadership Development Council to ensure that we have the right mix of expertise, talent, and age to slate for our elections as well as reaching out to emerging leaders to help in their development. 

The Strategic Plan helps to guide all of our board meetings and discussions. We consider the strategic plan for each item in our meeting agenda to keep that in the forefront of our minds. Another Strategic Plan goal is to “advance the quality of cancer care and patient/staff safety.” Much work is being done to update and identify resources for nurses to provide safe, quality care. The Board discussed the report from the Putting Evidence Into Practice (PEP) task force, a group formed to determine innovative ideas to best update and use the current PEP tools in a format that would reach more nurses at the point of care. 

For further updates, keep reading this monthly column and watch for regional meetings in your area. The ONS Board is always striving to be accessible to you, and we look forward to hearing from you.