Summertime

“Summertime...and the livin’ is easy…”  these are words to a popular tune from American composer George Gerschwin’s famous English-language opera, Porgy and Bess. And while those of us on the WATG Board are enjoying the beginning of summer (as we hope you are), our “living” has been busy! As an organization, we have many projects and initiatives in progress, and we’d like to share these with you.

As you may be aware, we at WATG are experiencing some much-anticipated growth. As we ramp up our efforts in government action, membership and networking, and educational programming, we are in the process of interviewing candidates for the position of Executive Director of our organization. Our very talented Executive Assistant, Nancy Woodward, will continue to serve as Executive Assistant, but it is time to augment her services with those of an Executive Director. This person will become one of the important faces of our organization, and will allow us to fulfill our mission more completely, “to educate about and advocate for the needs of the gifted in Wisconsin.”  At this writing, a team of board members and consultants are completing the interview process. Stay tuned for an exciting announcement in the very near future!

As a Board, we also value the fresh talent and expertise that our interns bring to our organization. We’d like to thank Everett Harmelink and Camryn Ballweg, our former interns, for their immense enthusiasm and contributions to upgrading our website, our google presence, and our podcast; many people have commented on their work. Good luck to Everett and Camryn as they continue their studies. We have learned a lot from you, and we hope you have learned a lot in your internship with our organization! 

At this writing, we are pleased to introduce our newest WATG intern, Kurt Getchell, a journalism, advertising, and media studies student at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. Kurt assumed his role as the Digital Marketing and Media Intern at WATG on June 1, and will be with us until the end of November. Welcome, Kurt! We look forward to tapping into your talent!

In addition to the “busy-ness” at the administrative level, our entire board has been engaged in goal-setting and planning for the future. On June 18, we held our annual “face-to-face,” (but this year virtual) meeting of the Board of Directors. As a result of this meeting, we have a proposed operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year, and goals from each of our three committees. 

Our programming committee announced these ambitious goals for the following year:

• Increase attendance at the 2021 Virtual Fall Conference to 200 fully paid attendees
• Increase parent attendance at the 2021 Virtual Fall Conference to 20 attendees
• Increase exhibitors at the 2021 Virtual Fall Conference to a total of 18
• Present two webinars 
• Present six Town Hall meetings, October 2021 through May 2022
• Present at least one podcast per month

Our membership committee announced these ambitious goals for the following year:

• Parent Goal: Increase the free-parent/caregiver membership to at least by 100 persons by the end of May, 2022
• Partnership Goal: Increase the formal communication link with each of the 12 CESA’s (Cooperative Education Service Agencies)  Gifted and Talented liaison, and continue the work of supporting gifted students in each CESA during the 2021-22 school year
• With or without a formal partnership, we will remain open to other conversations with organizations in order to build possible new formal partnerships within our state

Our government action committee announced these ambitious goals for the following year:

• Continue work begun with legislators to increase funding for gifted and talented education within our state
• Continue encouraging, involving, and supporting members and others in actively supporting legislation furthering gifted education within our state

As the summer progresses, we at WATG will certainly enjoy some easy-living moments with families and friends, but will also continue our work together - planning our Virtual Fall Conference, Leading the World Into the Future, October 3, 4, and 5, 2021, creating webinars and podcasts, speaking at various conferences, answering requests from parents, caregivers, educators, and students, and communicating with legislators and our membership. We hope that you will support us in our efforts. How are we doing? What else can we do to serve you? How can you help us further our goals? Let’s have a productive summer together.

“Summertime - and the livin’ is easy - and busy - and exciting!”  

WATG extends a huge thank you to Dr. German Diaz of Milwaukee Public Schools for translating this article into Spanish for our families and educators who speak Spanish. The translation can also be found on our website.

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