Each year that I’m a union member, I seem to find new ways to be involved or new ways to be involved in things that I’ve already been doing. Being a delegate has been part of that. Running for the local board is another part. But I’ve also been working on being more involved with different committees.
It’s not always easy to get onto committees in the union. There are only so many spots for committee members and a lot of people apply for each one. But the more I’ve been involved in the union, the more people know who I am. And having people know who I am has been helpful with getting onto committees because they are aware of my past union service and what I can bring to the group.
It’s been a process with getting more involved in committees. After the election in 2019, I was an alternate for one national committee and a member for a local committee. And I tried to be involved in the meetings and events, but because of the pandemic, the opportunities were more limited than they normally are and there weren’t as many meetings so I know I wasn’t as informed as I probably should have been about the committees I was a part of.
But when the applications came out this year for both national and local committees, I knew I wanted to apply again and hopefully get back on the committees I was a part of before and possibly be added to additional committees if possible. We haven’t heard back from the local committees yet, but I’m hoping I’ll be asked back to the one local one I was on before. And I was asked to be an alternate again for the national committee I was an alternate on last time.
But this year, I also found out some exciting news about one of the national committees. The Health Care Safety Net committee is all about providing information for different health care related opportunities and helps to organize things such as health fairs, clinics, and screenings. And not only was I asked to be a member of this committee, I was asked to be the Vice Chair!
As Vice Chair, I will help the Chair to run the committee and meetings and make sure that we are accomplishing all of our goals. I had my first training with the union recently and I learned a lot about how the national committees work and what we need to do behind the scenes to keep a committee running smoothly. It was really informative and I understand the process that the committees go through a lot more now. As the Vice Chair, I don’t pick who is on the committee, that was already done. So I know who is on the committee and our staff liaison will help us contact all the committee members when we have our first meeting (which will likely be around the beginning of the year).
I will have other trainings about running meetings and other union rules and policies, but I’m already really excited to be even more involved with the union than I have before. I never thought I’d be asked to be one of the leaders of a committee yet, I was just hoping to be a member. But I do know I’ve been working hard the past few years with my union involvement and I guess others are seeing that as well. And while I am a little nervous to be a leader because it is something new for me, it’s very exciting too!
I can’t wait to see what I’m able to do as the Vice Chair and what the entire committee can accomplish during the next year and a half. And as I’ve said every time I’ve gotten more involved in the union, I love that this is adding more ways for me to feel connected to my acting career when so many things about acting are out of my control.
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More Virtual Union Meetings (or Hopefully We Will Be Back To In-Person Meetings Soon)
First Union Meeting In A While (or Feeling Informed Again)
