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Inkspot
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Greetings
from the President by Leo Gonzalez Well, enough time has passed I feel that a summary of the 2002 CWEA Annual Conference–from the volunteer's perspective– should be given. I want to do this to show all of you out there who, perhaps have not volunteered to work on a conference committee, what it is like to do so. The most satisfying aspect of volunteering, particularly for a conference, is to feel the sense of camaraderie with others working toward a common goal. Working together with a team of fellow volunteers to put into form what was once just an abstract concept is a most amazing thing. The key to teamwork is to have the leadership in place so that all these discrete people, with their different styles and ideas, can be coalesced into a single entity, moving with a cohesive purpose. The leaders who provided this for the 2002 Annual Conference are Karl Royer of EBDA and Ray Busch of Oro Loma. Under the leadership of these two individuals, the conference committee put on one of the most successful annual conferences ever. And, I can safely say that the entire committee had fun too! The start of a successful conference committee is the picking of the individuals. Karl and Ray did a master job of this. Their intent was to have the majority of volunteer's come from the San Francisco Bay Section. Your Section is the one in the state with the most people willing and desiring to assist in furthering the mission of the CWEA. This is quite the statement! I am so proud to be a member of the SFBS… particularly for this reason… because our members care. Karl and Ray handpicked a group of 24 individuals to work on putting the conference together. We met monthly to discuss each of our pieces as well as the conference as a whole. The goal of the committee was to put on the most successful conference ever… and to have fun in doing so. We accomplished both those goals with flying colors! The 2002 Conference was most successful in terms of both number of attendees and revenue generated. The Annual Conference is the largest source of revenue that the CWEA receives, thus it funds many of the programs of work that the state provides to the membership. This year's conference provided 29% over the revenue goal set at the beginning of the conference planning. This is amazing and really speaks to the dedication and commitment of the conference committee. In addition, the number of attendees was 1226, matching attendance of the previous four conferences. I just want to leave all of you with the words that working on a conference committee or, for that matter, volunteering for any aspect of the CWEA/SFBS is a fun, rewarding, satisfying experience. And, if you've not tried this before, I highly recommend you do. |
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