Mar/Apr 2017

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Meet the Candidates continued from page 15

ASHLEY WEAVER | Section III Representative How Can I Contribute? I’ve asked myself this question many times during my career. The answer I keep coming back to is “get involved, stay involved”. Whether it was projects at work I enjoyed or really had no interest in, I volunteered to be a part of it. Why? Knowledge, growth, and the realization it was going to happen with or without me. If I wanted to be able to have any influence on the decisions that were ultimately going to affect me, I had to be there and I had to be involved. We cannot influence change if we sit on the sidelines, sitting on the sidelines is accepting the status quo and what others want for you. The status quo does nothing to move us forward. H H H H H H

I got involved with the North Carolina Chapter of the FBI National Academy Associates not long after graduation from the 238th Session, in 2009. I attended my first re-trainer three weeks after graduating, and haven’t missed one yet. I was elected by my chapter to serve as a District Representative in 2010 and during that time decided I wanted to be even more involved. In 2011, I was elected to serve as the Chapter’s Sec- retary/Treasurer from 2012 to 2015. I served as the North Carolina Chapter President in 2016 and am currently serving as the Immediate Past- President. During that time, I have had the plea- sure of meeting many of your chapter officers and sharing lessons learned and chapter successes. My time serving as a chapter board mem- ber has given me the opportunity to meet many of you and discuss concerns about things such as the discontinuance of the magazine and the discussion both for and against allowing associate memberships. Many of you have spoken with me about the diversity and the cultural make up of our organization and I want to find ways to capitalize on that diversity. I want to get our membership motivated to show who we are, and show we are not the status quo, that we are the leaders of this profession and beyond. I have be- gun the conversation about involvement and will continue to keep that dialogue open, to under- standing how we can support each other, both active and retired, and grow this organization in a way that will broaden our perspectives and ex- pand the unity of this great family. I look forward to the opportunity to help move this organization in the direction YOU, its members want it to go. We tend to get caught up in platforms of what the candidate wants to do with the organization and I applauded the efforts

of those who have come before and their plat- forms as they were and are great motivators. It is my belief the candidate is meant to be the voice of the people, so I ask, what is it YOU the members want to see in this organization moving forward. We need to stay ahead of the trends and to do so we need to listen to our membership and focus on both the needs of the active members and the retired members. We need to focus on YOU, after all you are what make this organization great. You will have a difficult decision to make this year at the 2017 National Conference in Washington DC, but am confident that no mat- ter what that decision is, the candidate selected will serve you well. I ask for your support and look forward to the opportunity to serve as your Section III Representative. Thank you all for your dedication and com- mitment to our profession and this organization.

Ashley Weaver

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