Embracing Change Dear Members, March is upon us and our theme this month is flexibility. Our first organizational networking event will take place on THURSDAY evening the 15th. Our pattern has been the 2nd Tuesday of each month but in order to take advantage of some opportunities for some outstanding speakers this year we are going to ask everyone to exercise some flexibility.

Over the years we have tracked our attendance and have tried different methods to meet our member?s needs. We have tried staying in one location and on a certain day each month. Some liked it that way and to others it did not matter that much. This year we are trying to refine our programming, location and budget needs to better serve our membership. For those reasons there will probably be two meetings this year that will be held on a Thursday instead of the traditional 2^nd Tuesday.

One of our 2007 goals was to increase public awareness of our chapter and the resources that we provide. We also want to build a strong organizational network and increase member involvement. We want to identify and work with other organizations in our community that have common interests and overlapping skill sets. These are some of the reasons we have partnered with the local chapter of the Project Management Institute for our March meeting. Another very important reason is that PMI had a speaker coming that was a member of both organizations and who indicated he was interested in speaking to both groups in one meeting.

Finally, PMI is about twice our size and is represented by many businesses in our community. This provides our members who attend the opportunity to expand their network and make new contacts. This kind of partnering with meetings and on our website is a win/win for both organizations. Again, it will require some flexibility on our part but the rewards to everyone should make it worth the discomfort of change.

Linda Lumen, President

COC-ASTD