GNW Region Message - May 2012

The final figures are in and all I can say is WOW! Not only was our Great Northwest Region Conference a hugely successful educational event, it was equally successful financially! Because of this success, each of our chapters, as well as the region, will receive a nice share of the profits. Why is that important? Because it means that financial boost will help the chapters to provide more educational opportunities to you, the members! It also means that the region can help to provide for the chapters. Thanks once again to our host, The Boise Valley Chapter, our Co-Chairs Dave McDermott and Bruce Walters and their fantastic committee, and as always, the best Region Team on the planet.


So what’s the next great region opportunity? The Leadership Conference is swiftly approaching! Hosted this year by the Columbia Basin Chapter, we are traveling to Richland this June 8-9th. Our conference will be at the Hampton on the river. The view will be great, the weather should be gorgeous, in the heart of wine country, networking with your ARMA friends, learning new leadership skills, sharpening old ones, sharing ideas and just plain having fun. What could be better? We’ve even lowered the registration fee this year to make it easier for more people to attend! How can you miss it? You can’t! Keep watching the region webpage for the registration information and brochure which will be posted soon.

Do you need a little financial help getting to the Leadership Conference? ARMA International provides two Leadership grants in each region to assist chapters in sending their leaders to this training. But you don’t have to be on your chapter’s Board of Directors to receive this training! If you are interested, please let your Chapter President know! For more information and/or the application, go to http://www.arma.org/Leadership/Files/Leadership_grant.pdf .

And will the $75 carpool grants for carpools of 3 or more still be available? Of course! Just watch the region website at www.armagreatnorthwest.org .

I’d like to close with a few words about leadership. I started my career in the ARMA leadership in February 1995 as Program Director for the Puget Sound Chapter. That summer I attended my first Leadership Conference. It inspired me to continue in what has now spanned seventeen years of ARMA service on the chapter, region, and association levels. A young, and first-time Chapter President, Dave McDermott, who would later go on to being President and Chairman of ARMA International, sat next to me at that conference in 1995 and told me something that has stuck with me all of these years. He told me the more I put into ARMA the more I would get out of it. How right he was. The past seventeen years have brought challenges to be sure. But I have learned so much and grown both professionally and personally. I have met so many colleagues and made many great friends, some lifelong friends. And who knew that a chapter visit would lead to finding the love of my life? (For those of you who may have missed the announcement, Peggy Striefel, Columbia Basin’s Immediate Past President and the GNW Region Director of Marketing and Membership and I were married this past March.) There is much to be said for being involved and participating in this organization of ours!

June 30th brings me to the end of my term as your Region Manager. I can not tell you how honored I am to have served in this role. Getting to visit all of the chapters and meet so many of you has been such a pleasure. Truly, you are the greatest. I have also been blessed to have had the finest people on the Region Team. Thank you to Fran Blaylock, Cindy Fredrickson, Andrea Bettger and Deb Martin for propping up the new region guy four years ago. And thank you Jenny Winkler, our soon-to-be Region Manager, Tim Hunt, Denise Simons and Peggy Simpson for continuing to make me look good. It’s been an honor and a privilege to serve with you.

I hope to see you all at an ARMA event down the road!
Very truly yours

Marc

Marc J. Simpson, Region Manager
Great Northwest Region
ARMA International, Inc.