If you are a member of any SSA chapter located in the NAM Area and are interested in volunteering for the position of Area Coordinator, please take a moment to read over the job description for this position (download here) and if your skills match our needs, please send your CV/Resume and a letter of interest to our Global Communications Coordinator, Anisa Haddad at anhaddad@ssafara.net or communications@ssafara.net.

If you have any questions regarding the position, please do not hesitate to contact me at dlamas@ssafara.net . Applications close on July 31st. 2008.

June 23, 2008 (Anisa Haddad, SSA Global Communications Coordinator) – SSA Needs Your Help in Putting Together Our First Global GREEN Newsletter!- How Green are you? What types of programs (recycling, repurposing of left over materials, etc.) are available in your area? What do you and your family do to contribute to global “Green” movement?  Has your SSA chapter participated in any local Green activities? If not, what could you do in your area?

The SSA will be producing a Global Green Issue that we hope will highlight Green programs in each SSA Area and give ideas/suggestions on how each of us can conserve our remaining precious natural resources.  What can you and your Local Chapter do to help? On the home front: you can write an article chronicling the day to day things that you do to conserve resources; send us pictures of your family participating in a local Green event; or get your children involved by writing a short article or making some sort of original artwork depicting what they think can be done to help them inherit a cleaner, less energy dependant planet. As a SSA chapter: you can start a campaign to collect items that are not recycled often enough (home printer ink cartridges, small kids meal toys with dead batteries in them; batteries, etc.) and keep track of the amount of materials collected; participate in a local Green activity; sponsor an activity to collect information for your chapter members on what types of recycling activities are available in your area.

June 16, 2008 (Anisa Haddad, SSA Global Communications Coordinator) – HOT Off the “Presses” – Get your copy of the Middle East Area edition of the Wayfarer newsletter here! - The latest edition of the SSA newsletter, the Wayfarer, is dedicated to our members from the Middle East Area. I would like to thank Azza Abdel Aziz, SSA Middle East Area Coordinator and her Local Chapter Coordinators for distributing our request for submissions – and submit they did – 24 pages of articles, original artwork, stories and photographs! They did a great job and I really appreciate them taking the time and making the effort to make this a very special issue. Last, but definitely not least, I want to thank our SSA Kids for their submissions. They always add a special dimension to our newsletters and we really appreciate their participation. I hope you enjoy the Middle East Area edition of the Wayfarer newsletter and as always, you can e-mail your questions/comments to me at or . Download The Wayfarer here.

Dear Friends:

Although we are a welcoming organization and try hard to look after each other with care and compassion, it is not always easy to reach out to all our members worldwide. It is more difficult in some locations than in others, but most of our chapters are facing the same problem - how to welcome newcomers in a timely manner.

There are some locations where the relocation company gives the information to the newcomer about the Local SSA (but due to privacy laws in some locations, this is not always the case); in other locations it is the Family Liaison Officer or Personnel Department who provides the contact information for the new member; and in other locations we hear from our spouses (the employees) about somebody new in the office and then we start to try to contact the new member to help them settle in and to get information to him/her to allow that member to get involved in the SSA’s regular activities in their new “home”.

The problem however, usually comes in the amount of time it takes to make the first contact with new members. Looking at this from the welcoming aspect, the association might not be as helpful as it could be if the first contact is made three or four months after the newcomer arrives. How many of us have gotten upset and disappointed with the SSA for not being welcomed when you first arrived in your new location? How can each of us help our local chapters to solve this problem?

If we understand and accept that the SSA belongs to each of us and that the board in each chapter is there to coordinate the welcoming function and to organize chapter activities, each one of us should be able to understand also that the responsibility for making ourselves known to the chapter ultimately rests on each us. Why do we need to wait for someone from the local board to contact us? Why don’t we contact the local board in our new location if we know they are there?

Can you imagine how helpful it would be for us, if we start making the contacts once we officially know we are moving to a new location? How much valuable information, available from local SSA, we could get? As our Africa Area Coordinator, Catherine Richards, said: “With contact, a dialogue begins...Questions about life in the area can be asked, and it’s a great way to have more control over expectations and worries about the new location.”

I have heard that some of you may have tried to reach your new local chapter before moving and have received no reply. This may have happened because the person you contacted is no longer in that location or is no longer part of the board; or this person is on vacation; or for many other reasons. If you have contacted your new chapter and received no answer, please always remember you can contact your Area Coordinator or any other member of the Global Board, including myself (at dlamas@ssafara.net ), and we will do our best to help you make contact with your local chapter.

This time of the year is when most of the relocations take place worldwide, so please, do not wait any longer…if you are about to move to a new location, contact the local board in that chapter. They will be happy to try to answer the non-Schlumberger (work) related questions you have. If you do not know whether there is an official chapter in your new location or who the contact person is, please contact your Area Coordinator (a link to each Area Coordinator is listed below); they will provide you with the most recent information they have about the Local Board contacts in your new chapter. Very soon, when we have our new website up and running, we will have a web form available for you to use to contact your Area Coordinator, for information on your new location or with any other SSA related question, but for now you need to email them directly.

Let’s all together take the welcoming function of the SSA into our hands and let’s help our association to reach its full potential!!!

Best regards,

Deysy

May 20, 2008 (Anisa Haddad, SSA Global Communications Coordinator) - SEG (Shukeir, Egypt) Family Day Participant Shares Her Story - Family Day participant, Safaa Fekry has been kind enough to share her story about the Defensive Driving Course she attended as part of a day full of fun and activities organized by our SSA Middle East Coordinator, Azza Abdel Aziz and SLB QHSE. The article is available in both Arabic and English.

Would you like to share a story/photos about a HSE activity you have attended in your Area? Please send article and/or photos to or or .