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Hello CMAA! I hope to see many of you at the World Conference and Club Business Expo later this month. We have excellent registration numbers that have exceeded our member and supplier expectations. To accommodate everyone, we added two additional hotels for attendees, and we will be running a daily shuttle to/from those satellite properties. I suspect this may be a post-COVID anomaly as last year some members and suppliers were still uncomfortable with travel and vaccine requirements. I am so glad those days are behind us. I am excited for the World Conference, and I look forward to sharing about CMAA during the Opening Business session. One area I will ...
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Hello CMAA and Happy New Year! As 2023 begins I want to share our CMAA goals for the new year. These goals are established by the Board of Directors and CMAA’s professional staff each fall and coincide with our fiscal year beginning November 1. These are listed in no priority order: Update CMAA’s Strategic Plan leveraging Board and Committee work as we look to adjust due to changes in clubs and society since the 2021 approval. Complete work with CMAA member group(s) on a verified club internship program for student members/others interested in pursuing a club management career. Continue to work with university faculty to encourage better ...
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Hello CMAA! As 2022 nears an end, I want to share some of our accomplishments from the past year. You will receive a more thorough update in CMAA’s Annual Report, released near the World Conference. I will also be sharing more in my State of the Association live at Conference. Next month, I will share our areas of focus for 2023. In the meantime, below are several of our 2022 operational highlights: The lifeblood of any member organization is its members, and we are pleased that over the past year, we welcomed 900-plus members and now have more than 7,300 CMAA members . These numbers are both significant and record highs. My thanks to CMAA Chapters ...
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Hello CMAA! One thing we all have in common is volunteers who shape our clubs and our Association. We all have volunteer committee members, and/or board members. A legal definition would share that a volunteer “is an individual who performs hours of service for a public agency for civic, charitable, or humanitarian reasons, without promise, expectation, or receipt of compensation for services rendered.” Many state statutes indicate “any volunteer shall be immune from civil liability in any action on the basis of any act or omission of a volunteer resulting in damage or injury if: 1) The volunteer was acting in good faith and within the scope of such volunteer's ...
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Hello CMAA! I grew up in a small town of a few thousand people in northeastern Pennsylvania (the Poconos). While I wouldn’t change the experience where I lived, my upbringing gave me so many biases. Let me explain; it was never said, but we believed those from rural areas like my town, were not quite as bright as those from the city. We weren’t quite as sophisticated either. We thought we had hit the big time when our first fast food restaurant, McDonald’s, came to town. Ok, I was a child and that was exciting! Maybe that example is cute, but there were many more learned biases too. It wasn’t that local townsfolk purposely wanted to skew our thinking growing ...
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Hello CMAA! A few weeks ago, I went to the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE)’s annual conference. I have belonged to ASAE for more than 30 years and rarely miss attending, except for other obligations--or more recently, COVID. It was the first time we have gathered in three years and a couple of things surprised me. First, there was a vaccine mandate for the event in addition to a requirement of a negative COVID test. As you know CMAA dropped policies like this in early spring, but it made me realize how some throughout America and beyond are still focused on this as a key measure for safety. I was also reminded once I saw the reduced attendance ...
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CMAA National Headquarters Alexandria, VA Hello CMAA Members! I want to share my thoughts on member dues, specifically CMAA National dues. I know your clubs have seen costs rise with the dramatic jump in inflation. I suspect the vast majority of you have already implemented or are contemplating member dues increases. Last month the CMAA Board of Directors met, and one important area of focus was the FY2023 budget, which begins November 1, 2022. CMAA 2023 membership renewals were mailed earlier this month and, as you likely noted, Professional membership dues increased by $25 or about 3 percent. There was a great deal of thought put into that decision ...
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Hello CMAA! How many of you belong to a peer/mastermind/support group – or more than one? I counted mine and I have four that are really core to my interests and principles. They range from a kitchen cabinet within CMAA that I look to for insight and feedback, to a couple of industry peer groups, and a core group within my own professional association. I would be lost without them and leverage them often. These groups have helped as I have managed through business situations. They have helped as my career has evolved. They have helped me get through some personal challenges as well. While I have also had one-to-one mentor relationships, these groups have ...
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June 2022: Fishing

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Hello CMAA! Throughout my career in association management, each organization I have been with has always had an advocacy-related role at the federal or state level. We would regularly conduct member fly-ins to DC; had a team of association staff working in a federal and a state legislative affairs department; and, for one organization, were responsible for educating new members of Congress on the intricacies of the financial markets via our foundation. At one point, I had the honor to testify in front of a Congressional Committee about equity ownership in the stock market. The Q & A portion was very nerve racking, but what a great experience representing ...
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I recently saw a CMAA member’s post on LinkedIn that shared a concept called “meaningful success.” Meaningful success marks the points in time when: 1) we are doing things we love, 2) we are doing it well, and 3) we are serving others. These times can occur in our career, at home, or any place in life. At times when we are doing things where all three concepts intersect, we are in that space of “meaningful success.” Our life in this space is likely the most meaningful, most purposeful, most fulfilling and we are probably the happiest. I love this and strive to live my own life in this space as much as possible. Life is not just about success. It is really ...
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Hello CMAA Members! In some respects, the last two years of life in a pandemic have been a blur. I can hardly remember the early days of worries about restriction of nonessential travel between states; the closing of non-essential businesses for a time; or not having toilet paper! But like you, I have certainly felt pandemic-induced stress over the last couple of years with concerns for home, family, work, staff, and friends during this period. To better understand the impact of the past two years, the American Psychological Association conducted a study on current stress in America . According to the study, despite the pandemic being a stress-inducing ...
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March 2022: Trust

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Hello CMAA! My sincere thanks to all who attended the World Conference and Club Business Expo in San Diego, CA. It was exactly the break we needed to recharge and spend time with each other. Thank you for making this Conference a special one. 2022 Executive Committee February 2022 San Diego, CA This month I want to ask about trust: Does your club team trust you? How about your members? I am sure your answer to these is an affirmative one. Our ability to give and receive trust is paramount to healthy clubs, a healthy environment, and a healthy relationship with our boards and members. Now let’s switch and put you in the driver’s seat! ...
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Numbers are an arithmetical value, expressed by a word, symbol, or figure, representing a particular quantity and used in counting and making calculations and for showing order in a series or for identification. February is when CMAA releases its annual report, audit, and I share an update in my State of the Association address at World Conference. So let me use numbers to share our journey over the past year. Check out CMAA’s Annual Report for even more details on 2021. 924 – The number of new professional members who joined CMAA in 2021 . Kudos to all involved, especially recruiting efforts within CMAA Chapters! We also went live with an easy ...
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Happy New Year CMAA! It was President Harry S. Truman who said, “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” I know many of you subscribe to this quote and I do too. As we kick off the new year, I want to share some leadership messages I have read over the past few months that resonated with me, some of which may do the same for you, as our leadership abilities continue to evolve in 2022: Visiting with CMAA Past President Tony D'Errico, CCM, CCE January 2022 Leadership by Experimentation: The pandemic forced us to change in so many ways – casting aside tradition. We had to experiment to find success. As we enter 2022 and beyond, ...
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Hello CMAA Members and Happy Holidays from all of us on the CMAA team! We hope you, your family, and your club have a joyous holiday season. While we still have a few weeks before we officially welcome the new year, CMAA began its 2022 fiscal year on November 1. We will be sharing a review of this past year in our Annual Report and via my “State of the Association” address at the World Conference and Club Business Expo in February. Today, I want to share some of our organizational goals for the upcoming year: Continue to work on various student-focused initiatives including creating a standardized club internship model, better educating university ...
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February 19-23, 2022 San Diego, CA Hello, CMAA! Registration for the 2022 World Conference and Club Business Expo opened in late October and sign ups to date are impressive! Like you, I am really looking forward to being back live and in person in San Diego, CA, February 19-23. As a community, we have all missed being together. Personally, it has been special to be part of several local and national events during the last six months where members and Chapters are seeing each other for the first time. The positive vibes are just awesome as we all crave that social interaction. For many of these meetings, safety protocols were in place – from limiting attendance ...
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Hello CMAA members! I am in an ‘80s mood as I write this. I hope I can get you there too. I have the voice of Chris Clews bouncing around in my head from his talk at CMAA’s Leadership/Legislative Conference where he used ‘80s movies that were imbedded with leadership lessons. Like Ferris Bueller, from the 1986 hit movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , showing us how to have work-life balance. I am not suggesting you skip work and pretend to be sick, but you must admit that Ferris knew how to kick back, have a great time, and recharge. We all need an escape like Ferris right now as we continue to be challenged with labor shortages and the pandemic. Another example ...
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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 31 st . 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 ...
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