Greetings to all of our members as the weather continues to warm and summer is under way!

As always, your SNDS office is entering the busiest part of the year.  We’re putting together this year’s Continuing Education Series and getting the information together for it.  Same with Community Night, our SNDS/UNLV mentor program, and even Give Kids A Smile!

We just finished up the first full year of our new CE Café series, and had very good comments.  Thanks to our partners at Burbank dental, who help with speaker costs, Nevada State Bank, who provide the meeting space and share food coasts with Burbank Dental Lab, there is no cost to the SNDS for the CE series, and, of course, no cost to the members.  So our next season of these two-hour, after work seminars is also in the works.

Our mainline continuing education series concluded this spring, and we want to thank our speakers, and our participants for making the series a success.  We also need to thank our faithful sponsors, especially Henry Schein Dental, Burbank Dental Lab, TDIC Insurance, Wealth Consulting Group, among others.  For this coming year we are putting together an interesting slate of speakers, including Dr. Carl Misch and Dr. Robert Cronin, among others.  Watch for the upcoming fliers for details.

Community Night has grown each year, and so this year we are making sure we have plenty of room.  Over the years we have gone from 40 to 60 exhibitor tables, and the meeting is our best attended of the year.  An important component of Community Night is the presentation of the Fae Ahlstrom Heritage Award.  This award is intended to highlight lifelong members who have contributed to the dental profession and organized dentistry here in southern Nevada.  Past recipients have included Dr. Fae Ahlstrom, Dr. James Jones, and Dr. William Busch.  This is the time of the year when we accept nominations for our 2010 recipient, so please give the SNDS office a call if you have a suggestion.

We’d also love to hear from you if you’d like to participate in our Mentor program, a joint venture of the SNDS and the UNLV School of Dental Medicine students.  We’d like to be able to pair students up with practicing dentists to help them make the transition from the classroom to practice.  Give the SNDS office a call if you’d like to participate.

Other committees that can use volunteers include our Peer Review Committee and Membership Committee.  Participating on committees can really help a member to feel a part of things and make them more aware of all the work the Society does in the community as well as for the members.  Feel free to give the SNDS office a call if you’d like more information.

I hope you’ll have a great summer, and we’ll see you in September at Community Night!