Mistakes and Do Overs

Pearl S. Buck wrote in “What America Means to Me” that “every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.”

Over the years, like most organizations, LAMA has experienced its own fair share of mistakes and near misses, plus we have had the fortunate ability to have “do overs” thanks to the great loyalty and support of our members. Looking back, some of our mistakes have provided us with great memories to laugh over and others have provided us with the basis to change our organizational procedures to prevent repeating our mistakes.

A “do over” example is our upcoming North Carolina BBQ at Oehler’s Mallard Creek in Charlotte. We will again be partnering with ASLAP for the social event at the National AALAS Convention. However, the BBQ will be the first time for LAMA to be the host of the annual social event since we established a written agreement with ASLAP. The written agreement simply clarifies our relationship with ASLAP regarding the running of the social event and allows each organization the freedom to coordinate the event when it’s their year to host. LAMA hosts the social event on the odd years and our ATA Corporate Partners are not asked to provide financial support to the event. ASLAP hosts on the even years and the event is coordinated through the ongoing work of Fred Rock and Darlene Brown.

Earlier this year, the LAMA Membership Directory was prepared and mailed to our members thanks to the work of John Occaso, Membership Committee Vice-Chair, Katherine Good from Harlan and the wonderful generosity of Harlan to cover all of the production and postage costs for the directory. We fully recognize that many problems exist with the membership directory due to way our membership database was established. Keith Knapp, ASI Staff is in the process of contacting each member to work on correcting the information in the database. I encourage each member to take the time and effort to work with Keith (kknapp@AssociationSolutionsInc.com, (#952-253-6235 x139)) on getting all of your contact information correct in the membership database.

John Occaso has informed us that Harlan has graciously offered to produce our 2008-membership directory. Thank you Harlan!