President's Message

Welcome Message from AzAHPERD President Leslie DeRuiter-Hudson
October 2008

Welcome to the AzAHPERD website! We are working hard to keep the most up-to-date information on here for our members.

I would like to first thank Angie DeMarco for her leadership and hard work this past year. We will continue our efforts in the area of advocacy that she started. She made a request of all of us:

"My call to each of you is to illicit as many of your parents, colleagues and administrators to join us in this fight. This can be done by asking them to call their local legislators to express their concerns about this need. In addition, we need to get fellow colleagues to commit to becoming members of AzAHPERD. We all know that numbers are very important to the legislators who can make this happen for our state. By doing these two things we will become stronger, and we will be able to make our dream of mandated physical education and health education a reality in Arizona."

With the support of current and new AzAHPERD members, parents, administrators and community members, we can continue to fight our programs.

We have several upcoming events for your calendars. Join us for some great professional learning opportunities.

SWD/AzAHPERD Convention - "The Journey is the Reward"

January 21-24 2009

Phoenix Airport Marriott

Pushing the Boundaries

Arizona and New Mexico AHPERD joint convention

Late April in New Mexico 2009

2009 AzAHPERD State Convention

September 24-25, 2009

**New location** Phoenix Convention Center

In the heart of downtown Phoenix with access to the light rail

For more information on these, see the link on our website. There are a couple of other conferences/workshops coming up. Here are the dates and websites:

National AAHPERD Convention in Tampa, March 31-April 4, 2009

www.aahperd.org

Arizona Coordinated School Health Conference, November 7, 2008

http://www.ade.state.az.us/health-safety/CoorSchoolHealth

Pre-conference workshop Nov. 6Th, 2008 PECAT
(Physical Education Curriculum Assessment Tool)

This coming year we will continue our commitment to advocate for our professions but need your help. We want to continue to increase our membership and partnerships in and out of Arizona. I look forward to meeting and hearing from you in the coming year.

Respectfully,
Leslie DeRuiter-Hudson
AzAHPERD President 2008-2009
hudson@azahperd.org