Welcome to a new year! I sincerely hope that all of you have had a great holiday season and that this New Year brings good health and prosperity to all. LOABA has many great things in store this New Year. Here is a brief recap of last month’s activities.
Lake Vegas Casino night was held at Spotlight Theatre on December 2ndto an enthusiastic crowd of 135 attendees. Everyone in attendance had a fun time and more than $3,000 was raised for the Fran Faxon Scholarship Fund. There is already considerable interest and excitement building for the next Casino Night event in 2012. Many thanks to Brett Mauldin, Christina Shook, Cindy Starling, Pam Haskins and Wendy Myers for all of their efforts in organizing this event.
Of equal importance, I would like to thank all of those individuals and businesses that stepped up and donated for our annual Holiday Charitable Giving Campaign led by Cindy Starling. We originally started with plans to adopt two families, but through the generosity of our members we were able to adopt more than forty children in twenty-two families. This program has seen a significant increase in need over recent years due to the economy and it is truly inspiring that our members, who themselves have suffered in this economy, are so generous and willing to help others in need. Words are not enough to say what this means to these children and families.
The next public event scheduled is none other than THE BIG EVENT, to be held on March 17 at Lake Oconee Village. We are anticipating a larger participation than last year and will begin selling booths at the January Membership Meeting. Please do not wait as we expect sales to go rapidly. Booths may be purchased for $275 if you are a member of LOABA and $375 for non-members. We have already sold several sponsorships and have four Gold and one Silver sponsorships left for purchase. There are many exciting things planned for this year’s Big Event aside from the great participation from displayers. It will be a fun-filled day for all and a great opportunity for our members to network with the community.
As an association, one of our goals this year is to strengthen the recognition of our association and the benefits of membership to those in the lake community. Another key goal is to increase participation from all of our members in both meeting attendance and event participation. We are reformatting the monthly membership meetings to provide more value and information to our members. Our January meeting will be the first with a new format.
The January meeting will be held January 10 at SpotLight Theatres and will be hosted by LOABA and SpotLight Theatres. The focus of this meeting will be to highlight the many benefits of membership in our association, on a local as well as state and national level. There will be discussions on the various member rebate/benefit programs available, which if you utilize some of the programs, you can more than cover the annual LOABA dues. At this meeting, we are encouraging all of our members to invite any potential member for free as a guest of LOABA.
Another benefit of membership is continuing education programs. Our first program, organized by Mr. Fran Faxon, Education Chairman, will be on January 26. The class will be on structural information and will be taught by representatives from Weyerhauser Corporation. It will be a four-hour class and will count toward continuing education requirements. As a reminder, those with contractor licenses will be required to submit their continuing education requirements by mid-year.
Thank you for your continued interest and support of the Lake Oconee Area Builders Association. We are looking forward to a great year in 2012 and one that will bring positive change to our industry. Please remember to attend the January meeting and bring a potential member as your guest. I look forward to seeing you there.