NAPO-NY NEWSLETTER

June/July 2009

VOLUNTEERS:  Where Would We Be Without Them?

This chapter wouldn't be here if people didn't step up and take on extra responsibility without compensation.

There have been many people who have volunteered on board committees for years. These are volunteers who have done immeasurable service to our organization, most recently, Audrey Lavine, Chapter Administrator and all-around go-to person; Brenda Kamen, Newsletter Proofreader and Member Spotlight Coordinator; Linda Goldfarb, Neighborhood Group Coordinator; Stephanie Paci, Registrar and Venue Coordinator; and Sally Madden, Librarian.

There are many volunteers who quietly operate behind the scenes and make the wheels turn without formal recognition although we appreciate the hard and dedicated work they do each month. Our newsletter would not exist without their devoted and extensive sincerity. They are Elizabeth Quincy, Newsletter Assistant Editor. She and her team provide newsletter coverage for many of us who can't always attend chapter meetings. A special thanks goes to Emily Herrick who will be leaving the newsletter team after many years of service as Proofreader.

Another dedicated volunteer working behind the scenes is Nicole Chamblin. Although she is unable to make most meetings since she is caring for her newborn, she still has time to help update our organizational chart and to offer her guidance when needed.

There are many veteran organizers who help our membership grow by welcoming the new organizers to our chapter and answering questions that they may have. Among them are Donna Jaroslawski, Donna Goldberg, Linda Rothschild, Lisa Zaslow, and Gail Furgal.

To those members who have recently joined our association, we want you to know how much we appreciate your active participation! Some of these members are Dayna Brandoff, Board Member, Acting Newsletter Editor and Acting C&T Director; Susan Kranberg, Refreshments Coordinator; Jordana Jaffe, Speaker Panel; Stephanie Shalofsky, soon to be Marketing Director.

There are so many volunteers to thank. If I did not mention your name, please know how much we appreciate the time and energy you put into the chapter!

It goes without saying that our organization is dependent upon the loyalty and hard work of a membership that has moved us forward and upon our Board of Directors, who have worked with tireless devotion to continuing our chapter's success. The dedication of all of you is greatly appreciated!

Applause, Please

Sheila Delson, CPO-CD and author/developer, successfully presented the "Managing Your Clutter Program Series." The four-week program module on procrastination was held at the LaGrange Public Library in Poughkeepsie, NY.

Jordana Jaffe, founder of live ORGANIZED, was featured on NBC's Open House to the Rescue this past spring, where she helped to transform a client's space from chaos to calm.

Elizabeth Quincy of Matter of Heart Organizing completed the foundation courses for the Coach Approach for Organizers series led by Denslow Brown, CPO®, MCC. This nine-month series completes the skills-training, which will culminate in certification as one of the first certified Organizer-Coaches. Elizabeth is also currently leading a four-part workshop series entitled "Inhabiting Home," June 10-July 1, at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX) in Brooklyn.

Ron Shuma, CPO® of A+ Organizing, has received the following certification from the NSGCD: Certificate of Study in Basic Mental Health Conditions and Challenges Affecting the CD Client. Ron has also received a Level II, CD Specialist Certificate.

Sarah Stitham, CPO® of Revamp™, was featured in the article "Organizing Expert Helps Hospital" in the April 6, 2009 issue of the Hudson Valley's leading business newspaper HV BIZ. The article discusses Sarah's volunteer work assisting the director of the Oncology Support Program at Benedictine Hospital in Kingston, NY. "My sessions with Sarah have been a terrific way to improve my work environment and implement techniques that help me function more efficiently in a busy and sometimes stressful environment." - Sarah Urech, Director, Oncology Support Program.

Lisa Zaslow, founder of Gotham Organizers, provided tips on organizing a closet on a budget in The New York Times article "Stretching Out Closet Space" on April 30, 2009.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: MAY

 
Lisa Reeves
Clear My Clutter

I am so happy to be part of NAPO and introduce myself. My business is called Clear My Clutter, and I've been organizing since October 2007.

I was born and raised on the Jersey Shore. I majored in psychology in college and moved up to the Boston area for five years afterwards where I joined a community action program involved in energy conservation work. I spent a lot of time in houses and apartments, assessing the windows, doors, heating units, water heaters, and the presence or lack of insulation. We used governmental funds to help low-income folks make major home improvements and implement energy conservation methods. Throughout it all, there was a teaching component to it - educating folks on best practices for energy conservation.

In 1990 I shifted from "house plumbing" to "people plumbing." I went to medical school and became a general internist. I practiced in New York City for eleven years until burnout ensued, and in 2006 I stopped practicing medicine.

I then spent 2 ½ years traveling back and forth to Sao Paulo, helping my Brazilian partner deal with family matters. In New York City, I organized two 40-vendor flea markets and, like many of you, I helped my Mom downsize and move. A friend told me about personal organizing and it sounded perfect.  

Voila! In Oct 2007, I started my business. I enjoy the tasks, the challenge of helping someone solve a problem, the physicality, the variety of clients and arenas of work, the schedule flexibility - and, wonderfully, the ability to talk to a client on my own clock, not dictated by an insurance company.

As you all know, the work can be extremely intimate. I didn't expect this. Frankly, I find it is as intimate - just differently so - than doctoring.

I have started educational talks for medical and health care providers - topics such as the "health implications of hoarding." I will give a talk at a national medicine conference this June. I am very excited about my new career. Thank you for welcoming me into the NAPO community.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: JUNE

 
Amanda Wiss

Urban Clarity

Growing up in South Orange and Maplewood, New Jersey, my first exposure to organizing was at the age of three, when I helped a neighbor put away her weekly groceries and she taught me about sorting. (We are still close, and as she prepares to move after 50 year in the same home I am helping her downsize).

After attending Oxford and graduating from Wellesley, I started my career planning programs and events for the Women Presidents' Organization, a non-profit committed to helping female entrepreneurs. Bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, I worked for a start-up tutoring company that was bought by Kaplan, and moved up through the ranks to become Director of Training.    

I met my now husband, James, on my first day at Kaplan, which was 10 years ago last week. Our older daughter, Charlotte, was born in 2006, and her younger sister, Sadie, arrived 18 months later. Many of you met them at conference in Orlando in April when they briefly crashed the NAPO-NY party. We live in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, which in my opinion is one of the most incredible communities to raise a family. As an outgrowth of a very successful parenting group I created, I also launched a babysitting co-op that was featured last fall on CNBC news.  

After my girls were born I was ready to combine my passion for entrepreneurship and my training background to help others, and created my professional organizing firm, Urban Clarity, in November 2007. I volunteered with NAPO-NY immediately, and learned quickly what an inspiring, incredible group of new colleagues I had. 

Urban Clarity works primarily with residential clients and small businesses throughout the Tri-State area. I've recently expanded my team as we're doing more estate clearance work, basement purges, and relocations. I was featured on Rachael Ray.com in both 2008 and 2009 as an organizing expert, and have recently begun to explore social media and share my organizing tips on the blog A Child Grows in Brooklyn, via the Urban Clarity Facebook Page, and even more recently via twitter. Come play!

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT

 
COMMAND™ QUICK CLIPS FROM 3M

Diane Albright
All Bright Ideas

Sometimes the simplest things can make life so much easier. In this case, I am referring to the Command™ Quick Clips from 3M. The Quick Clips can be used at home, in the office, or at school to easily hang up papers where you never thought possible.

The Quick Clip is a small, clear clip that adheres to most smooth or semi-smooth surfaces. You don't have to worry about damaging surfaces with the Command™ Strips as they provide for damage-free decorating and organizing.

When it comes to Quick Clips, all you have to do is use your imagination as to where you might like to hang a schedule, a list, or your child's artwork. You can put a Quick Clip inside your kitchen cabinet door, on your stainless steel refrigerator, or on your cubicle walls at work. Recently, I had one of my corporate clients remove all of the push pins from her quilted cubicle walls and replace them with Quick Clips.

If you consider trying the Quick Clips by Command™ right now, you will find $5.00 worth of Command™ coupons at Command™.

BOOK REVIEW

 
IT'S ALL TOO MUCH
by Peter Walsh (New York: Free Press, 2007

Dana S. Lehrman
Rooms for Improvement

Peter Walsh of TLC's Clean Sweep and an Oprah Winfrey Show regular is the man who made "uncluttering" a household word. An Australian-born educational psychologist, Walsh calls himself "part-contractor, part-therapist," an apt description of the consummate organizer and author of It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff. 

Walsh tells us about Jared and Lisa, young parents with so much clutter they can't see the floor. In his tough-love style Walsh tells them, "Your home is the physical and emotional base for your family...where you live, breathe, rest, love, and create... Get rid of the clutter, get organized... and every aspect of your life will change." Throughout the book we hear his mantra, "It's not about the stuff; it's about your life."

Living and working in a disorganized space is more than poor aesthetics and bad feng shui. A cluttered environment, he explains, takes a heavy toll in lost time and productivity and can lead to extreme emotional stress affecting our work, our family life and all our relationships.

Walsh asks us to envision the environment in which we want to live and work. Then he guides us through our home or office, room by room, asking us to decide what to keep and what to purge as we create an environment that resembles the one we've imagined.

Walsh's success and celebrity-like status confirm how effective his approach is. But he deals not only with the bigger, psychological issues but also with the roll-up-your sleeves, nitty-gritty. He even voices two pet peeves - rental storage units and junk drawers. With the exception of large seasonal items like skis, BBQs, and Christmas decorations, storage units become places to hoard stuff we don't need or use, he says. As for junk drawers, rather than organize them (sorry, Container Store), Peter Walsh wants them banished altogether and everything put in its rightful place - pencil holder, tool box, sewing basket, medicine chest or trash can! Now excuse me while I purge my junk drawer. 

NAPO-NY LIBRARY

The New York Chapter Library catalog of books, audiotapes, CDs, videos, articles, pamphlets and DVDs continues to grow in breadth and depth thanks to the generosity of our members. Donations in any type of media about organizing and related fields are appreciated. Titles from the Certification recommended reading list are especially welcome.

Members may contact Sally Madden, our Chapter Librarian, by email to order these or other library items. Requested items will be mailed or delivered to members at the next chapter meeting.

To view our current holdings, please visit the Library Holdings page of our website.

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