Thanks to Darcy A. Czarnik Laurin, Executive Director, of the Thumb Rural Health Network, MI for sharing this quote from Ralph Marston, “True, effective leaders do not demand or proclaim or intimidate. They encourage, inspire, and lead by example. True leaders become leaders not because of their titles, but because of their work. Real leaders have no need to make promises, because it is already obvious to everyone that they get results. The world can always benefit from more good, effective leaders. You can make the choice to be one. Leadership is difficult and demanding, and often a thankless job. Yet without honest, authentic, effective leadership, the world would devolve into chaos. The job of a real leader is not to tell people what to do. The job of a real leader is to enable each and every person to be his or her absolute best, and to point all those people in a positive direction. You don’t need anyone’s permission to be a leader. All you have to do is to genuinely and respectfully make a positive difference in the lives of others.”

As network leaders, you all make positive differences in the lives of others. You encourage, inspire, and lead by example. NCHN’s mission is to support you in your role as Network Leader and we are pleased to announce a new resource that will allow you to make even more positive differences in the lives and work of your colleagues. We are looking for network leaders to serve on the NCHN Executive Coaching Team. We will be providing training next week, Tuesday, July 23 and again on August 13 for NCHN members interesting in serving their Association in this role.  Click here to learn more about the NCHN Executive Coaching Training. 

Thanks to everyone that completed the Coffee/Tea Chat Survey.  We have scheduled the Chats through December 2013, so check the NCHN Calendar of Events and watch for Save the Date messages in your inbox and read more about the July 31 Chat in this issue.

The Membership Benefit Survey is still open and we encourage you to complete. Thanks so much to the members that shared suggestions on how to improve the instrument.  We changed the required demographic information to optional to ensure confidentiality of members’ identity that complete the survey.  The more members that participate in this survey the better your Directors, Officers, and Committees can serve your needs.  Please give us five minutes of your time -- http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2013MembershipBenefitsSurvey 

The second webinar of the HCAHPS Webinar Series was on July 9^th.  The session was excellent!  If you have hospitals as members of your network and you have not taken advantage of this program, I encourage you to take another look at it!  It is a wonderful educational series on HCAHPS and how to assist the hospital to increase their scores.  The first two sessions were recorded and can be viewed by appropriate hospital staff.  It is not too late to take advantage of this series. You can read more about the program here or give me or Christy a call at 540-352-2529 if you would like to discuss. 

I would also like to remind you of another NCHN benefit, the NCHN List Serve.  If you have a question or need information or an example, please send the request to me and I will be happy to post to the NCHN list serve.  And when questions are posted, please take the time to respond if you have information to share with your peers. 

Enjoy your summer!  We know lots of you are still planning and taking vacations. We will be looking for those photos of network leaders at play, send yours in today!