- JETAAI
Officer Elections for 2019-2020
Elections for the 2019-2020 year concluded in March, and we are happy to report that Ashlie O'Neill will be returning for her second year as Chair while Nathalie Ng will be moving from the Board of Advisors into the Vice Chair role previously occupied by Rose Tanasugarn.
Rose will be taking on Country Rep duties for Japan (again) for the coming year, and we look forward to continuing to work with her in this capacity. Everyone at JETAA-I would like to say a big "Otsukaresama deshita!" for her years of support, from the early stages of pulling together JETAA-I 2.0, to her service on the Board of Advisors, and then as Vice Chair.
Nat has also been involved since the earliest days of 2.0, when she was Country Rep for Singapore, through her service on the BoA, and now moving into the Vice Chair role.
We have brief introductions for Ash and Nat below.
Message from Ashlie:
Hello again, I am Ashlie O'Neill and I am very excited to be continuing in the position of JETAA International Chair for another year. For those of you that I am yet to meet or connect with, here are just a few quick pieces of info about me. I completed 3 years on JET in Hyogo Prefecture from 2013-2016. I consider myself very lucky to have been placed in such a beautiful and accessible part of Japan. When I was on JET I got quite involved with Hyogo AJET and National AJET, holding a variety of positions including Block 6 Rep, Director of Alumni Relations and Vice-Chair.
After being elected for another year to this position, I am hoping to use my knowledge gained from now over 6 years of working with JETAA and 4 years with JETAA International to lead multiple projects and guide the wonderful JETAA-I team. The JETAA-I team includes 19 Country Representatives from across the globe, as well as a team of 4-5 individuals (including a member of National AJET) who make up our Board of Advisors, our new Vice Chair, Nathalie Ng, and the Webmaster, Eden Law.
It is another big year ahead for JETAA-I with the 30th anniversary of JETAA as well as active projects such as KenJETKai, building resources, sharing best practices, supporting new JETAA chapters, working alongside various parties to build mental health and sexual assault resources, as well as of course always working with CLAIR staff, National AJET and external stakeholders.
But even though we are currently working on these projects we would love to hear from you and what you want from JETAA International. JETAA-I 2.0 is still a new project and we are always interested in new ways to improve and service those that we represent.
Feel free to reach out at any time on my email, chair@jetaainternational.org, or through any of the social media or professional networks.
Message from Nathalie:
Nathalie was an inaka ALT in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, from 2010 to 2011. She spent a month after JET to travel around Japan saying her goodbyes. She now relives her days on the JET Programme by being a part of the alumni chapter in Singapore, and volunteering with JETAA International. Originally a member of the Board of Advisors, she is now stepping into the Vice Chair role.
She wants to pass on to incoming JETs the goodness that she’s received from her sempais before she left for the Programme and from everybody while in Shizuoka. Coming from a smaller chapter, it’s always been her motivation to have better small chapter representation on an international level. During her years on the JETAA Singapore chapter committee, she’s found that it’s hard to get members to step up to help create better events on the board. Through the International Meeting in 2016, once she found that other smaller chapters are having this issue, she’s made it her goal to help smaller chapters with topics like outreach and funding.
To fund her yearly expeditions back to Japan for snowboarding and nomikais, she now works as a sales engineer in a lighting company. She can sometimes be seen looking at the various lighting and also furthering her skills as a street photographer (something she picked up in Japan, and can’t seem to get rid of).
Feel free to contact her at vicechair@jetaainternational.org.