The Alternate International Reference Person
I became the International Reference Person (IRP) in July of 1999. One of my first steps was to ask Diane Shisk to become the Alternate International Reference Person (AIRP)—the position that I had held for many years until then. She seemed surprised but agreed.
The AIRP’s job is to prepare themself to do everything the IRP does if they need to suddenly become the IRP. There are no duties specific to the AIRP role in the meantime. For those of us who have held the AIRP position, getting prepared to be the IRP has meant attending and leading RC activities in RC Communities around the world, so that we gain understanding of those Communities and the people in them, and so the people begin to know who we are.
Diane became the AIRP in 1999 and has been confirmed in that position by World Conferences every four years since then. She has led widely in our many Communities—workshops, webinars, gather-ins, and more, on many different topics. She has been an excellent example of leadership and taking initiative. She could have effectively stepped in as the IRP at any point over these twenty-some years if that had been needed.
Over the past several years, I have been encouraging those of us who have had a referencing role in RC for many years to work on preparing others to take our places. Our Community needs people who represent our developing diversity to take on [assume] and grow in those roles. At the World Conference in 2017, I announced my intention to leave the IRP role in 2025. I still intend to do that. I also plan to keep doing many things in RC for the rest of my life, as does Diane.
Diane and I decided that we needed to start preparing someone to become the IRP when I leave the role—someone who is younger than either of us and who represents our Community’s growing diversity. We decided that the best way to accomplish this was to have that person become the AIRP at the 2022 World Conference. And we both saw Teresa Enrico as the person to take on the role.
So at the World Conference in August of this year, via Zoom, the conference participants heard Diane’s and my self-estimations and then confirmed me as the IRP and Teresa Enrico as the AIRP until the next World Conference.
I am very pleased that Teresa has agreed to take on [undertake] this challenge. I look forward (as does Diane) to assisting her, in any way she requests, in being the AIRP and preparing to become the IRP.
Seattle, Washington, USA
(Present Time 209, October 2022)