My husband and I need people from West Virginia to help us start a local chapter. Anyone out there interested? Please contact us at
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Anyone interested in helping with a new OCF chapter in West Virginia? Please contact me.
darcy - I finally have someone that is going to help me coordinate the state chapters, and she is going to start with OCF part time in a week. We will be working together with all the OCF volunteers to identify what needs to be done in each state, and key people that you will want to interface with there. As we develop our relationships with institutions and schools in the area, our hope is to get volunteers from these places to augment the family/survivor people from OCF to make things happen. In just a few acalls to places in MA for instance we were able to identify and bring in 6 people who are either oncology students, dental students, nurses, or social workers who wanted to help organize the state.
A lot of the work in the first month is information gathering. We need to identify all the key stakeholders in each state that are vital to us putting together a cohesive community of individuals that can effect change. These people run from dental school deans, to professional societies like the ENT group and the dental professional and hygiene community leaders. Media people need to be identified to help us get our messages our such as the medical reporters and producers at local TV, print and radio venues. There is a lot of getting the lay of the land to be done initially, and then the setting of some initial goals. Once identified, we can begin the process of coordinating these groups to specific targeted goals, legislation, events, and more.
I wish that I had had more time when I brought this up two months ago to really get everyone started on it, but I have one more week of travel and lectures before I am back home and can begin to concentrate on this. We will be able to identify people in West Virginia to work with you, and we will work on things that can make a difference.