President’s Letter

The regional rationale

by Roy Harris, National President; Senior Editor, CFO

Reading Amy Fischbach’s accompanying article about chapter presidents getting together in a Western-region conference call, you might wonder why ASBPE is establishing another level of organization. Isn’t there enough bureaucracy in the world?

The answer is yes. And no.

While our Azbee Excellence Awards for many years have been presented through four regions — Northeast, Central-Southeast, Midwest-South and West — ASBPE has had almost no coordination of chapter affairs on a regional basis, until now. At our last national board meeting, ASBPE’s directors decided that much could be accomplished by having the chapters stay in touch this way.

More joint events

For one thing, many chapter events are significant enough to draw from members who hail from other cities that have their own chapters. The New York and Boston chapters have coordinated events for years, if there’s promise of a “Northeastern draw.” Often, those two chapters keep Washington, D.C., (now in the Central-Southeast region) in the loop as well.

As we begin to plan Webinars to promote the ASBPE educational mission in new ways (see the article on page 1), regional connections could become even more important.

Further, chapter presidents believe that the regional connection could help encourage ASBPE membership, along with participation in the Azbee awards. Regional awards banquets will certainly be easier to plan if chapters are in touch. And we hope that the regional networks will help promote additional contest entries from publications outside immediate chapter areas — in places like the Pacific Northwest or Arizona. Indeed, ideas for new chapter locations could well arise from the discussions among the heads of current chapters.

Finally, chapter presidents at our board meeting felt that ASBPE overall is becoming so much more active these days that another forum for interchapter participation would be useful for discussing national initiatives more regularly.

California split

If there’s any doubt that this new forum is serving us, Amy’s “Western Expansion” piece should dispel it. A plan to rename the San Francisco and Los Angeles chapters grew out of the call, and those Northern California and Southern California designations seem promising as a means of drawing the state’s two organizations together under chapter presidents Tyler Davidson and Mary Slepicka.

As the Southern California and Dallas/Fort Worth chapters are now being reborn, the regional structure lends more nurture to those efforts. The Kansas City chapter, now under president Bill King, has become a powerhouse that injects the national organization with energy.

Now, some of that energy is being channeled directly to smaller and newer chapters.

In future issues of Editor’s Notes, you’ll see how the new regional presidents’ groups are working in the Midwest-South, Central-Southeast and Northeast, respectively under Twin Cities president Lisa Jo Lupo, Washington’s Steve Roll and New York’s Warren Hersch.

By conferring regularly, the Northeast presidents organization — currently just Warren and Boston-New England’s Alan Earls — should give a boost as well to planning for the August National Conference in New York.

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