AITP Region 5

December 2002 Newsletter

Mark S. Gilfand, CDP
Region 5 President

It has been a busy fall season in AITP. The Association held its Annual conference and meeting of the members. Region 5 had an outstanding Region Conference. Our Region gained another prestigious award. Several Region 5 members earned Lifetime Achievement awards. The Association, Region, and Chapters elected new officers and directors for 2003. And all of us are in the middle of planning for 2003.

Region 5 Conference an Outstanding Success

The Twin City Chapter hosted an immensely successful Region 5 Conference November 14 and 15 in Bloomington, Illinois. With a theme of 'Quality in Information Systems', this multi-track conference had something for everyone. There were educational sessions hosted by high-quality speakers on managing change, project management skills, customer service, quality in education, software quality and other topics. Those who attended this year's conference walked away with a wealth of information and ideas.

Along with the educational conference, there was the annual meeting of the Chapter Liaisons who are the representatives of each of the chapters within the region. In this meeting, the liaisons discussed the state of the association, learned about new association initiatives, planned region activities and elected new officers for 2003. The Chapter Liaisons will be reporting back to their chapters with detail information.

The Region Conference also held an informative and helpful Chapter Leaders Workshop. Rick Piunti, Association Director and Region 5 Secretary, covered the brand new (and not even released yet) Chapter Financial Manual, which is a handbook for Chapter Treasurers. Ken Adams, the workshop chair, led the attendees through the Association and Region websites. The wide range of manuals, guidelines, best practices, discussion forums, and general resource information on the website was covered in the workshop.

In short, the attendees learned how much valuable information is available to assist chapter officers, directors, committee chairs, and committee members. Plans are to hold similar workshops in other cities, in conjunction with the Region meetings.

Overall, it was an outstanding educational event for both AITP members and the general public. Cathy Clary, CDP; Jeff Ritsema; Lorenzo Marshall; Kent Sunderland; Karen Essington, CDP and the entire conference committee deserve a hearty 'well done' for providing an educational opportunity that will be hard to beat.

Plan for the 2003 Conference in St. Louis

As good as the 2002 Region conference was, St. Louis is out to top it in 2003. Please mark your calendars for the 2003 combined Region 5 and Association conference, Oct. 23-25, 2003 in St. Louis. The St. Louis conference will be available by web cast. This will allow members from all over to participate in the conference and gain the education without the cost of traveling to St. Louis. Region 5 Chapter Liaisons received information at the Region 5 meeting on how chapters can sponsor seminars that will hook into the web cast. And even more information will be coming soon about this exciting new opportunity for both chapters and members throughout the association.

Twin City named Association Outstanding Chapter

The Twin City (Bloomington, Illinois) Chapter walked away with the top prize this year at AITP's Annual Meeting and Conference in San Antonio, Texas. The Twin City chapter, which was named the Region's 'Outstanding Chapter' earlier this year, competed with other Region winners for this prestigious association award. Twin City Chapter Liaison Karen Essington, CDP and Region President Mark Gilfand, CDP accepted the region and association award banners at the annual meeting. Congratulations to the Twin City Chapter for not only another year of great performance, but also for showing the association why Region 5 is the 'Pacesetter Region'.

Region 5 Members Earn Lifetime IPA Awards

At the Association Board of Directors meeting in San Antonio, the Board approved the awarding of Lifetime Individual Performance (IPA) Awards. Three Region 5 members were among the recipients. The Region 5 Lifetime IPA Award winners were: Past Association President Nita Adams, CISSP, 2003 Region 5 President Ken Adams, and Windy City Chapter President Rich Barnier.

These awards are given to members who have shown their dedication and devotion to AITP by attaining at least 800 Individual Performance Award points. Nita Adams received the Gold Lifetime IPA for 900 points. That is a remarkable feat, considering a maximum of only 40 points can be awarded each year. The yearly point maximum was even lower in years past.

Congratulations to the Region 5 winners of the Lifetime IPA Award.

2003 Association Officers, Directors Elected

Association officers and directors for 2003 were elected by the membership in October. Taking the helm in 2003 will be President George R. Koscho, CDP Elected Vice President / President-Elect was Sam C. Luke, CSP. The 2003 Secretary is Brian J. Reithel, Ph.D., CDP.

Association Directors were also elected in three of the association's Districts. The Eastern District re-elected Jerry Buckland. The Southern District re-elected William (Russ) Finney, CDP.

Our district, which is the Central District, elected Mark Gilfand, CDP of the Twin City (Bloomington Illinois) Chapter, to a two year term as Association Director. (I thank you for your confidence and support.) Mark has big shoes to fill as he replaces outgoing director Chris Leja, CDP, who is also the St. Louis Chapter Liaison.

Also representing the Central District in 2003 is Rick Piunti, CCP, of the Northeastern Wisconsin (Green Bay - Appleton) Chapter, who will be completing the second year of his two year term. The Central district is composed of Regions 5 and 9, which represent the chapters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Northern Kentucky, Illinois and the St. Louis metro area.

Past Association President and current Central Illinois (Peoria) Chapter Liaison, Bill Reaugh, CDP was elected as the 2003 President of the AITP Education Foundation.

Region 5 Elects Officers for 2003

The Region 5 Chapter Liaisons elected new officers for 2003. They are:

The region will benefit from many years of experience in their leadership team. Congratulations to the new officers.

Region Funding Approved for 2003 NCC

Region 5 will once again provide funding to help several student chapters attend the 2003 National Collegiate Conference (NCC). The 2003 NCC is nearby this year, being held at Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana) March 27-29, 2003.

Student chapters will be able to apply for this funding. A selection committee will review the applications and select the chapters. The committee will be looking at how many student members are attending NCC and entering competitions (a list of registrants and competition teams and a copy of the actual registration forms will be needed), planned NCC-related expenses, professional chapter involvement with the student chapter, other attempts of the chapter to gain funds to attend NCC, etc.

In January, 2003 Region President Ken Adams will send out detail information on how to apply for these funds.

Role of the Regions

During 2002, AITP's Region Presidents acted as a committee of the whole in the Region Presidents Council to solidify and document the role the regions should play in Association leadership. The Region Presidents Council developed the following ideas as the Role or Mission of AITP Regions:

Check the Nov. - Dec. issue of Information Executive

Be sure to read the Nov. - Dec. issue of Information Executive, which will be available in early December. It is jammed full of information and news from the Association Conference in San Antonio, the Region 3 student conference, and the Region 7 student conference. It contains an update on AITP's web portal, which is under development. The web portal prototype was demonstrated at the conference.

There is also an article detailing over 70 specific membership retention tips and techniques. This will be a great help to chapter leadership. Part 2 of the 'Extreme Programming' article is also in this issue of Information Executive.

Chapter Officer Lists Due

This is a reminder for both student chapter and professional chapters to send their 2003 officer/director lists to both Association Headquarters and the Region President. This will ensure that the proper people in your chapter receive vital Association and Region-related information.

The Chapter officers forms are available at the AITP web site - www.aitp.org in Microsoft Word and PDF formats. To access the forms, click on the 'Manuals/Forms' button on the left side of the home page.

Professional chapters should scroll down to 'Chapters' section. The form is 'Attachment C - AITP Chapter Officers' of the Chapter Operations Handbook.

Student chapters should scroll down to the 'Students' section. The form is 'Exhibit 5 - Student Chapter Officers' of the Student Chapter Operations Handbook.

AITP Needs Members' Email Addresses

In 2003, more information will be coming to AITP members through email. Email can be a very cost efficient and effective way to quickly communicate needed information to chapters and members. But keeping our communication costs down by using email will only work if AITP has valid email addresses for its members.

Chapter Leaders can help by comparing email addresses in chapter databases to the email addresses on the monthly roster listings from Headquarters and sending updates to AITP Headquarters. Changes can be sent to aitp_hq@aitp.org.

Members can make sure their proper email address is on file by emailing AITP headquarters at aitp_hq@aitp.org. Please put your name in the subject line of the message. Please be sure to let your local chapter leaders know of email address changes.

We would appreciate the help of all chapters in working with members and headquarters to resolve differences in email addresses. Chapter leaders can talk to the few members who don't have an email address on file. Your help in getting valid email addresses will ensure that all members will receive timely AITP-related information and will get more value out of their membership to this association.

Windy City Becomes Largest AITP Chapter

The Windy City (Chicago, Illinois) Chapter moved in front of Northeastern (Green Bay-Appleton) Wisconsin as the 'largest chapter in the universe'. Every month, it is a neck and neck battle between these two chapters to see which one becomes largest AITP chapter. As of October 31 2002, Windy City has 186 members to Northeastern Wisconsin's 168 members. Congratulations to the Windy City Chapter Membership Team!

A Word of Thanks

This is my last Region newsletter. Ken Adams will assume the Region President's role in 2003. I will be moving into my Association Director responsibilities. I just wanted to say thank you to the chapter leaders and members who have made this job so rewarding. I have to say that being Region President has been the toughest, yet most satisfying, assignment I've had in my 22+ years in this Association. I learned a lot about the association and met many great chapter leaders over the past two years.

Thank you for helping me in this position. I enjoyed the opportunity to serve the chapters and members of Region 5 and look forward to new opportunities to serve the association in my new position. 2003 will be a challenging year for AITP, Region 5, its chapters, and its members. But I know we will be able to meet those challenges head on and will grow and prosper because of them.

Copyright © 2005-2007 AITP Region 5. Contact the Webmaster.