WRAMTA Regional Meeting

Seattle, Washington

March 9, 2022

Parliamentarian Report

I am happy to continue to serve as the Parliamentarian for the WRAMTA board. My duties are to oversee WRAMTA bylaws and Robert’s Rules of Order, which govern how the Western Region runs its meetings at conferences. 

I have been present for the WRAMTA meetings to assure Robert’s Rules of Order are being upheld and moving to the Executive session when necessary. I have upheld and will continue to uphold Robert’s Rules of Order within meetings for the service of the people. 

I have proposed additional Bylaw changes with a focus on DEI issues to be sent out two weeks before the National Conference for the general body to vote on. I will continue to regularly review the bylaws and continue to ask for suggestions and proposed revisions. If anyone would like to bring anything to my attention in terms of wording, addendums, or the elimination of certain areas in the bylaws, I would be more than willing to bring a motion forward. 

Additionally, I have served this past year as the WRAMTA representative for the Interprofessional Collaboration committee and the Workforce and Retention committee. Recently, I have been asked to serve as the Western Region representative for the DEI committee. The committees are dedicated and continue to take action to support our membership needs. This past year we have held, with the President-Elect and Vice President, two listening sessions with the intent to listen and raise up the voices of marginalized, minority and affinity groups. Through those conversations, we have created an ad-hoc DEI group that has objectives, action plans, and a timeline created from the needs from the listening session. We have sought out several potential members that embody and represent diversity to participate on the ad-hoc DEI committee. We are still looking for members committed to DEI work, who would want to contribute to the diverse needs of the music therapists of the Western Region.

I look forward to continuing to work with the present and future executive board to further maintain order via Roberts Rules and make changes to the bylaws as appropriate. I recommend that members look at the bylaws yearly, perhaps around national and midyear times when potential changes could be brought up and then voted on at National. Finally, my directive over the next few months will be to bring the proposed bylaws changes to the body for a vote, continue to examine the bylaws for any possible changes for inclusivity and accessibility for all marginalized groups as well as continue to become more fluent with the Roberts Rules of Order for productive meetings. 

Once again, if there are any questions or proposals of change to the bylaws feel free to contact me.

Warmly,

Vienna Sa, MA, MT-BC

WRAMTA Parliamentarian

Oct. 26, 2020