2014 Winter Newsletter

This achievement is tangible evidence of how your chapter is leveraging technology to gain efficiency. It wasn‟t too long ago this accumulation of 25 years of historic data existed in the form of 16 banker boxes that was transferred between board secretaries by SUV. Vice President Alice Weinberg then un- dertook the monumental task of scanning those 16 banker boxes worth of data onto a hard drive. Katie then made it easily accessible to each board member by sorting the data and creating a web portal on Google Docs. Please also see Katie‟s announcement on page 6 highlighting her efforts to bring the Chapter into the era of social media and the chapter‟s new Facebook page. For those of you who have recently registered for the TPP seminar or renewed your membership, you may have noticed that the Chapter now accepts PayPal and credit card payments through the website. Secretary Brian Loughrey spearheaded this long-discussed effort which again leverages technology and improves efficiency for our members and the executive board. On a related note, Director Justin Edwards is working on redesigning the Chapter‟s website. The goals of this project are not only to freshen-up the look and embark on a total chapter “rebranding”, but also to update the site‟s internal architecture to allow the executive board to modify pages, photos, text etc. easily from their desktops, thereby eliminating the need for long term maintenance contracts. 2013 ended with a successful TPP seminar on Wednesday December 4 through Friday December 6 in Lake Mary. Please see Katie Casey‟s article on page 5 for a full review of the two day event. Lastly, your executive board met Wednesday evening December 4 to discuss the status of these projects, future goals of the chapter and de- velop plans for the 2014 Annual Con- ference which will be held April 30th to May 2nd in Ft. Lauderdale at the renowned Pier 66. Please mark your calendars for this event which will not only be educational, but offer net- working opportunities in an excep- tional location. We‟ll also have a special guest joining us, so you won‟t want to miss it. So as we close out this busy but productive year, I wish each of you a blessed and Merry Christmas, and a healthy and prosperous New Year.

Neil “Nick” Nikkinen, AAS, CFE FCIAAO President

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Winter 2014 Newsletter of the FCIAAO