The Annual Meeting of Members wrapped up at noon last Saturday in Ft. Worth. Many thanks to the Ft. Worth Chapter for welcoming us to their city. About 20 brave souls even got up for a 6 a.m. walking tour of downtown led by Lei Testa and Kathy Kelly on Saturday. I have to confess to not being that energetic!
The meeting was a whirlwind of activity for me starting with the golf tournament on Thursday, two meetings that afternoon and Executive Board dinner that evening (where Kym Anderson and I got to roast last year’s chairman, Jeff Gregg). After dinner, the Ft. Worth Chapter hosted a reception for the members of Jeff’s and my executive boards.
On Friday morning, my husband, Steve, who was already the golf tournament chairman, got roped into filling in to do a 2 hour presentation on cloud computing when the presenter had a family emergency. I was able to sit in on the first 45 minutes and he did a great job – if he hadn’t told everyone he only had about an hour to prepare, they wouldn’t have known. I guess that’s what 30 years of experience will do for you! I left that presentation so that John Sharbaugh and I could do the orientation for new board members. It’s always fun to welcome new people to the board and hopefully we helped them to understand their role a little better.
The big meeting kicked off with the awards luncheon – congratulations to all the winners. At the end of this, Jeff passed the virtual gavel to me (since the real one was missing in action). Friday afternoon’s meeting agenda was full with Jeff giving us a recap of his year, and Rick Baumeister reporting on last year’s financials and Tracy Stewart presenting the year’s budget for approval. It’s always fun to be the CPA providing financial information to a room full of CPAs, but Rick and Tracy were up to the task. We had an energetic presentation by Joe Gerstandt entitled “Illuminating the Value of Difference.” He had some interesting ways to make us think about our differences and how they affect our leadership and our working together to make good decisions, which was a good segue into my Saturday presentation.
The meeting was followed by a PAC reception and then it was off to the evening dinner and dance. I was excited to have not only my husband, but both our daughters and my mother in attendance. I challenged the CPAs to break the stereotype of boring CPAs and dance the night away, and I’m happy to say that many of them did just that. We also raised $13,500 for the TSCPA Accounting Education Foundation by holding a silent auction. As usual, Pat Winters’ amazing quilt brought in big money!
I kicked off Saturday morning by discussing my theme of the year “Strong, Diverse, United” and went over some of my initiatives. I asked for suggestions for naming my blog, and thanks to Diane DeCou, it is now Donna’s Diary. We were honored to have our own TSCPA member and U.S. Congressman, Mike Conaway, speak to us about the Federal deficit. It was not an uplifting discussion, as you can imagine, but one the country needs to hear. We are lucky to have Mike working on our behalf in Washington.
Our related entities also brought us up to date on their activities. As you can see, it was a full agenda and by the time we adjourned on Saturday, I was ready for a nap!
Mike Conaway's remarks were extremely worthwhile. It lead to a lot of discussion in the hallways about our nation's condition.
Posted by: Tony Ross | 06/29/2011 at 09:44 PM