Raising awareness for an entire industry.

This year, NAPO-NE teamed up with IKEA Stoughton to promote Get Organized (GO) Month. NAPO-NE’s GO Month event 2012 was part of IKEA’s National Bring Your Own Friend event. This event was to encourage IKEA’s current customers and Facebook Fans to come to their local store, bring along a friend, and experience a special day of shopping, free giveaways and inspiration. With all of the wonderful offerings of this event, IKEA customers and their friends were able to feel inspired to Get Organized and improve their lives at home.

About twenty of our Members and Associate Members volunteered to participate in this event. Most volunteers worked at the Ask an Organizer Station. This was located in the Work IKEA department in the small business area of the store. There, customers were able to approach the Organizers and Associate Members and have one on one conversation regarding organizing issues they face at home. Customers were also able to submit a raffle ticket for NAPO-NE’s raffle basket giveaway, which included a two-hour photo organizing session with PSG Photo Solutions, a copy of Linda Varone’s new book The Smarter Home Office and a copy of Organizing From The Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern. Some volunteers participated in the Ask an Organizer Station for an hour, while others stayed for the entire event. All volunteers were able to wear and show off NAPO-NE’s new aprons for the first time, which everyone seemed to love!

About half way through the event, three Organizers presented in the Small Steps to Big Changes seminar, which was held in the Living Rooms department of the store. The seminar was broken up into a series of three, five-minute long presentations followed by Q & A. Many IKEA customers participated in this seminar and were very interested in the information that the Organizers were giving. There were many great questions asked by the audience members, making the seminar interactive and fun.

All in all, this event was a great success and could not have happened without the help of the wonderful Members and Associate Members of NAPO-NE.
 

January 2011 marks NAPO’s seventh annual industry-wide Get Organized Month event. “GO Month” is aimed at raising awareness about the benefits of being organized at home and in the workplace.

NAPO-New England has selected Northeast ARC as the 2011 recipient of their professional organizing services. Northeast ARC is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing lifelong support to people living with disabilities. Three key areas of ARC will benefit from NAPO-NE’s services: the Northeast ARC’s Cape Ann Early Intervention Center in Beverly, the ArcWorks Gallery on Foster Street in Peabody, and one of ARC’s administrative offices in need of scanning and purging of numerous files.

We'd like to thank our generous donors:

• Friend of Anne Lucas
• Friend of NAPO-NE GO Month
• The Container Store
• Closet and Storage Concepts
• Ikea
• Home Depot
• KDSA
• Sceris
• Smead

In 2010, more than a dozen professional organizers who are members of the National Association of Professionals - New England Chapter (NAPO-NE) donated organizing services to Family Ties of Massachusetts as part of the chapter’s GO Month initiative.

Family Ties offers parent-to-parent support for Massachusetts families with children who have special health care needs. The organizing program consisted of three elements:

• In November 2009, a professional organizer facilitated a roundtable discussion at the “Joining Voices” Conference to Support Families Raising Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs. The conference teaches advocacy and leadership skills to parents, and provides a chance to network with other parents and professionals. The roundtable discussion covered organizing tips to help parents manage busy schedules and gain some control over their lives.
• In January 2010, about a dozen professional organizers worked one-on-one with Family Ties staff in their offices in Northampton, Canton, Boston, West Boylston and Tewksbury to help maximize workspace and create new systems for organization.
• A professional organizer led a virtual training session to teach staff how to use Excel to organize database information to allow sharing of resources between offices. In addition, The Container Store and Smead donated supplies to assist with the office organizing effort.

According to Mary Summers, Director of Family Ties, the staff was pleased with the overall transformations in their office space. “For those of us who include inspiration to others on the value of being organized, we learned a number of good suggestions to share with future workshop attendees. Truly, best of all was the in-office organizational tips and assistance for many of the staff.”

NAPO-NE is currently planning its volunteer activities for GO Month in January 2011.