Happy New Year from your 2010 President
January 17th, 2010Happy New Year!
I hope you had a wonderful holiday with your loved ones and friends. A new year is always a perfect time to look back, reflect, give thanks, make resolutions and set goals for the coming year. It’s a fresh start, and your AFPNEPA has already been hard at work setting goals for 2010.
Before we discuss 2010, I wish to take this opportunity to reflect upon 2009 and give thanks. Let me begin by thanking each of you for your support of AFPNEPA. I hope you will continue to stay highly engaged with our great organization, because together we can provide a stimulating professional development track that will help each of us in our careers. Let me also publicly thank John Dawe, CFRE who completed an outstanding two year term as President of our Chapter. I am fortunate enough to move into the Presidency with him in the wings, along with an outstanding Board and dedicated executive leadership team of Mary Dolon, Kay Young, Mary Lou Miller, Barbara Vitcosky and John. It’s truly an honor and privilege to serve as your President. I’m very excited about 2010.
Over the past year, we’ve listened to your feedback and worked hard to bring you programming that is engaging, stimulating, and worthy of your time and effort. That high-quality programming will continue in 2010. January is traditionally a “silent month” for programming because of weather concerns, but the Board has already met and planned an interesting calendar for February, March and April.
On February 19-20, the Board of Directors, along with a limited number of members of our membership, will undergo a strategic planning process. We have invited Patricia Bjorhovde, CFRE, AFP’s Chapter Services Director, to lead us through this process. We will spend an intense two-day weekend together, but our hope is to that the end result will be a strong directional focus and blueprint for guiding our future leadership over the next five years. If you have genuine interest in this opportunity, kindly email me. Pat wants us to keep this planning group to twenty or less, so availability is limited. We believe this will be a great resource for our future. Please save a few hours for dinner on Friday, February 19th. We will host a reception and dinner opportunity with our chapter representative from AFP International. John will be sending out more information soon.
On March 19, Patrick Feeley, CFRE - Assistant Vice President for Institutional and Event Fundraising at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Foundation, will present on Corporate Sponsorship: Building a “Don’t Go Nuts” and Bolt Strategy to Corporate Giving. This promises to be an engaging event for everyone, so be sure to get it on your calendar now.
On April 27, AFPNEPA will partner with the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber and provide a philanthropic track during a full-day collaborative event, “THE Conference” at the Woodlands. You will learn more about this exciting opportunity in the near future, but please “save this date” because you will not want to miss this important event.
John Dawe, CFRE, Bonnie Lauer (our Chamberlain Scholar), Joanie Brenton, Carol Maculloch, and several others from our chapter will be attending the AFP International Conference in Baltimore Maryland April 11-15, 2010. Please visit http://conference.afpnet.org if you are interested in a wonderful professional development opportunity with almost 4,000 fundraisers.
Once again, thank you for your continued support of AFP. I speak for the entire Board of Directors in wishing you personal health and prosperity for 2010, along with best wishes for a record breaking fundraising year. We promise to do everything we can to serve as educators for programming and credentialing, trainers, mentors, researchers and library repository, and advocates for ethical fundraising. Through your support and vigilant marketing and promotion of our organization, we will continue to improve, set lofty goals, and serve as the recognized leader and “go to” organization for promotion and expert advice on philanthropy.
Thank you for the work that you do every day promoting ethical fundraising and makes this a better world.
Warmly,
Carol Maculloch
2010 Chapter President,
AFP NEPA