December 15, 2020 Greetings to all Wisconsin Chapter IoPP members, affiliates and supporters! I hope this communication finds you and your family well and staying safe. The pandemic that began for us in the US in March still has significant impact on individuals and businesses throughout the world. The good news is we have managed to get through spring, summer, and fall. Now as we are entering winter, we have the milestones of Christmas and New Years to look forward to. While we have most recently received some very positive news about vaccination approval, let’s try to remain vigilant to keep yourself, your family and your friends safe by following the guidance of; wearing mask, distancing, and hand washing. Lets get through this together and plan for less pandemic-impactful 2021! Regarding our chapter happenings:
We completed the 2020 golf outing in August. Thanks to our many participants and sponsors, we should be able to achieve our endowed scholarship goal at the 2021 event. Please know this will be a momentous milestone and you should plan to join us in August, either as a participant or sponsor, for the 2021 event. I’m sure Kyle Kozlowski (Golf Outing Chair) will come up with something new and impressive to make the event even more memorable.
At the golf outing, the chapter awarded Eric Moe as the recipient of the Phi Alpha Kappa award. This is a chapter level award and Eric has done an outstanding job of managing our distribution list and website content. Congratulations to Eric for this award!
We did not schedule any official WI Chapter IoPP events in the remainder of 2020. Not being able to meet in person for tours or speakers has impacted our plans. As a result the chapter leaders need to find suitable ways to “meet” as it appears it will be ill-advised to host in-person meetings for at least Q1 2021.
We welcomed (6) new members to our chapter in Jul-Nov 2020. Hopefully each has received a welcome email from me and Eric has successfully included them on the mailing list (that’s the plan anyway). Please feel free to invite anybody you know who could benefit or enjoy our chapter as all are welcome.
Even through the pandemic, I have found IoPP National to be very supportive in trying to get members to connect. This is by far the best and strongest group of leaders at the national level that I have experienced in my ~35 years of involvement with IoPP and SPHE (had to dig in the archives for the reference to SPHE). They continue to promote the Happy Hour series, “It’s Five O’clock Somewhere!” and if you haven’t yet, please consider joining as all are welcome. I participated in one happy hour event in September and found the hour to go by quickly with some easy conversation with folks I hadn’t met prior to the meeting. Another available networking opportunity is the PackChat app which is a great source to find information on events, both regional and national. If you haven’t heard yet, there’s a Member Referral Program to promote the organization to your friends and colleagues. National IoPP Board Member, Tom Seymour - VP Membership, has offered a steak dinner to the person with the most referrals – also note he included himself as eligible. One of my former bosses used to say “you can’t win if you can’t keep score”, not sure if that applies here. Hoping you would find participating at an IoPP event as rewarding and adding the Packchat app to your networking and resource repertoire as I have. Looking ahead to 2021, please put Wednesday, Jan 20th on your calendar as the next WI Chapter IoPP event. Plan for a timeslot of 6-7pm. We’re going to try our hand at a virtual meeting to see if we can pull it off. The agenda will be fairly simple, along the lines of;
WI Chapter IoPP officer Meet & Greet as well as member introductions
Open discussion. Please note I am by no means an expert at doing what I would expect to be a meeting with a larger audience, but I’m sure we’ll learn as we go and make the needed adjustments to achieve a successful event. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have experience in hosting one of these larger attendance meetings as I will welcome any input and your know-how.
In closing I’d like to wish everyone Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and all the best in the New Year. Please mark Jan 20th on your calendar for the next chapter meeting along with August 2021 for the golf outing.
Thanks for your time and participation in IoPP. Best wishes for you and your family’s health and safety.
Kind Regards,
Mike