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September 2021: Forecasting the Year's End

  

Hello CMAA members! For those of you who attended CMAA’s Leadership/Legislative Conference (LLC) it was great to see you. At the start of LLC, one of our traditions is for the National Board of Directors to share some of the Board and Committee related activities from the past year. I also have the opportunity to share a fourth quarter update on CMAA as we approach our year-end on October 31st. I want to share those highlights with you now too. I also look forward to a more robust year-end report at World Conference and in the CMAA Annual Report in February.

Like you, our year has not been normal and the COVID adjustments continue. Just when we thought COVID might be tamed, the Delta variant created more challenges. COVID, in addition to labor challenges, are having widespread impacts across the country and throughout the American economy. As an organization, CMAA is weathering the pandemic fairly well. 

SeptCEOBlog2021-LLCOur programs, conferences, and events stayed virtual through the first half of the year. In May, we returned to in-person programming. We began with the presentation of several elective Business Management Institutes (BMI) that we could not do virtually, and then moved on to Summits, and now LLC in-person. While we have made adjustments to add masking and require COVID vaccines when required by local clubs or governments, the programs have continued. We are constantly evaluating and making necessary adjustments to do our best to keep attendees safe and comfortable.

Our financial impact has probably mirrored many of your clubs in that it has not been a normal financial year. For CMAA, new joins and renewals have been largely constant, but our adjustments to moving to virtual programs had the biggest financial impact. Conducting World Conference virtually was a unique experience for all of us. I am thankful so many members decided to participate. While we had lower income from the Club Business Expo, everyone characterized our virtual programs as a pandemic success. Thanks to qualifying for and receipt of one quarter of the Employee Retention Tax Credit, we were able to make up for the lower expo income. Before I go any further, I want to share a huge thanks to our Partnership Network. Our partners have worked with us throughout the pandemic and continue to strongly support CMAA. I am pleased to report that we will end up with a very modest profit in what has been one of the most unique years of my association career.

CMAA’s National committees and staff have been active throughout the year too and focused on efforts including DEI; students; a new online membership application; club key performance indicators; and much activity in The Club Foundation (CF). For CF, a new Strategic Plan brought a general review of much that we do including scholarships and fundraising. I am pleased with these activities for the year, despite the time-consuming nature of the pandemic as we spent more time managing our operations.

We are all weary from the pandemic without a clear understanding of when we will see normal again or even what normal looks like. The pandemic has been tough, but add the labor challenges clubs have and your situation is exhausting. I hope each of you are watching your own mental health and that of your staff. This is a time when we all need to continually support each other. Hopefully the “light at the end of the tunnel” is near. That’s it for this month. I hope you stay safe and have a good rest of your September.

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