Kathy White, a court reporter for Grant County Circuit Judge Robert P. VanDeHey joined more than 1,000 fellow court reporters, captioners, students, vendors, and guests at the National Court Reporters Association 2013 Convention & Expo in Nashville Aug. 8–11.

“Attending the NCRA convention is a great experience,” said White.” I had the opportunity to choose from so many valuable networking occasions and informative, fun, and insightful sessions.

“It was very exciting and rewarding to be there when NCRA’s new slate of officers and Board of Directors were announced, including Chris Willette from Wisconsin, and to hear keynote speaker Mack Dryden’s hilarious, touching, and motivational speech during the opening session.”

This year’s convention offered attendees a wide array of educational and vendor sessions and special workshops that featured top-rated presenters from the court reporting arena.  Among the topics addressed were using the Internet as a resource, ethics matters, wireless networking, stadium captioning, safety tips for court officials, growing your business, punctuation, and much more.

NCRA’s government relations team was also on hand to provide legislative and regulatory consulting services and insights.  The team offered tips and strategies to help members and state associations create successful campaigns at the state level to address recent or proposed changes that could potentially have a negative impact on the court reporting profession.

“We were able to ask questions and learn more about the issues facing the profession and walked away better armed to address these issues,” said White.

Other highlights of the 2013 NCRA convention included the attempt to break the current Guinness World Record for speed, the National Realtime and Speed competitions, and the President’s Party which took on the theme of James Bond’s Casino Royale. The session that featured the canines and their handlers from the National Search Dog Foundation was also a huge attraction. The NCRA-funded dogs are sponsored through donations to a community service memorial project in memory of Julie Brandau, a court reporter who was killed in a mass shooting in Atlanta several years ago.