The Foreign Service Journal, March 2013

54 MARCH 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 2012 AFSA ANNUAL REPORT AFSA NEWS • In 2012, we had 260,867 visits to our Web site—up from 198,738 in 2011—representing an increase of 62,129 or 31.3 percent. • Our Web site saw 186,347 unique visitors in 2012, compared to 139,204 in 2011—an increase of 47,143 or 33.9 percent. • Statistics for pageviews tell an even more impressive story: we had 1,166,258 pageviews in 2012 and 685,872 in 2011. That’s an increase of 480,386 or 70 percent, an astounding number. AFSA on the Web AFSA’s Web site and social media outlets continued to grow in 2012, with all of our online outreach tools seeing the most traffic ever. WWW. AFSA .ORG TRAF F I C I N 20 1 2 AFSA News Riding on the coattails of The Foreign Service Journal ’s redesign provided AFSA News with an entirely new look and feel. With the new design came a number of new features for the newsletter: a calendar of events on the cover page; “ Life in the Foreign Service ,” original cartoons reflecting the Foreign Service lifestyle; a new column, “Active After Active-Duty,” highlighting how busy our retirees are and the interesting things they are doing; and a greater effort to provide timely event coverage and information. Last year saw a continuation of increased coverage of AFSA’s constructive dissent awards: the awards ceremony, profiles of the winners and a series of articles on dissent appear throughout the year. Our dissent awards, unique within the government, provide FS members the opportunity to effect change. AFSA’s VP representatives did a thorough job of highlighting many of the difficulties, joys, frustrations and issues the five foreign affairs agencies and their employees face. The columns give our VPs the platform to express their concerns on everything from agency consolidation, the effects of budget constraints, security issues or family member matters, among many other pressing topics. AFSA News encourages FS employees and their family members to submit articles. Please contact Donna Ayerst at ayerst@afsa.org.