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The Annual ‘Recharging of Batteries’ For the Association Professional
It is that wonderful time of the year when it is nice outside, you have finished all the warm weather maintenance chores and taken a vacation, but it’s still summer according to the calendar. There are two or three weeks left to take in a baseball game, visit a water park or grill a few steaks and hotdogs.
It is also time for the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) Annual Meeting and Exposition. This year the meeting is being held August 14-17, 2004 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Many of you will be attending, perhaps some for the first time.
Attending the ASAE annual meeting has several benefits, but one of the most important to me is recharging of my ‘association professional. batteries for the next year. Every day many of us toil in a field that is not understood by our friends and family. Our members and Board do not always appreciate our efforts, and volunteers can sometimes let us down.
But when we attend the ASAE meeting, it’s all about, and for, associations and their staffs for three days. Everyone understands our challenges and sympathizes with our successes and failures.
Make the most of your ASAE experience. Talk to the person sitting next to you at lunch or dinner, especially if you don’t know them. It’s a good way to expand your professional network. Go to seminars that offer new ideas with speakers you have never heard before. It’s a good way to expand your mental network.
Share a cab, a cup of coffee or a conversation with another attendee. As the saying goes, you’re among friends. I always leave the ASAE meeting with a sense that there are a lot of great people doing important work for associations, and I am one of them!
Well, I would write more, but it still August and the afternoon is just too nice.
See you in September!
Jane A. Svinicki, CAE
Executive Vice President
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