Greetings Fellow FCCMA Members,
I hope everyone has enjoyed the holidays and is ready to celebrate a new year! 2018 has been a great year for our organization and 2019 will be another great year for FCCMA. After being sworn in as President in June I must tell you the time has flown by. I had no idea I would be so busy and that our organization would be doing so many great things. After the annual conference our committees went right to work on so many important issues impacting our organization. Bylaw changes, investment policy changes, form of government challenges, conference and winter institute planning and even some ethics investigations. Our committees are the lifeline of our organization and also the engine, if you aren’t serving on a committee allow me to encourage you if you have the time. The biggest benefit I’ve received from FCCMA are the people I’ve met and so many of those people have been through my committee and board involvement.
The last three months have seen many challenges for our members. The Panhandle was devastated by Hurricane Michael. So many of us sent people, supplies and support. It was quite inspiring, but having had to clean up after a number of hurricanes myself I would encourage everyone not to forget our members and the Cities impacted by this horrific storm. The support is overwhelming at first, but then begins to dwindle. Let’s not forget the communities who are still suffering with the recovery. November saw record numbers of voters come out and many elections were decided by razor thin margins. A number of managers throughout the state lost jobs shortly after these elections. Let’s not forget them either. Be sure we pay attention and do everything we can to help our MIT’s.
The Winter Institute is right around the corner. Secretary/Treasurer Micah Maxwell has been working hard with his committee to bring us a tremendous experience. The Senior Executive Institute from the University of Virginia is taking it’s show on the road for us. A day and a half of what it means to build a high performance organization is what they have in store for us. This is an opportunity not to be missed! Also, you will soon begin receiving information about next year’s annual conference. It’s hard to believe, but it’s almost that time again. President-Elect Shannon Lewis is heading up the conference planning committee and they are seriously intending to blow us away with the best annual conference yet.
Finally, our Executive Director Casey Cook, District V Director Jorge Gonzalez and I are working with the ICMA SE region vice-presidents and state presidents to try to secure better representation on the ICMA Board of Directors for the State of Florida. We are working on establishing a coalition of SE Region States to request changes in how ICMA Region Board seats are selected. We feel our organization deserves a permanent seat on the board and we are working to gain the support of our other region member states. This is actually fun! Again, Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year.
