View this page "2010 RA - New Orleans"

[Stephen]

Minutes from our meeting at the RA have now been posted to the site.

Click on http://groups.google.com/group/nealit/web/2010-ra---new-orleans
- or copy & paste it into your browser's address bar if that doesn't
work.

[Linda Lucke]

Stephen,
Just thought I would bring you up to date on the RA.  Hope everything is okay with you and yours.

We did not have as successful an RA as last time, but we did sign up 25 members.  I expect 2 factors played into this, first, membership attendance in general was down almost 2000 people, from 10,000 to about 8000.  And then, librarian membership I suspect is down even more.  Had SO MANY people stop by and say, I was a librarian, but now I'm teaching 2nd (or 3rd, or something) grade.  The discussion we did have at our meetings was almost exclusive about the attrition of the field.  so all of that impacted membership.

Also, I had some real issues with the sticky pad notes I ordered - apparently the order got hung up in the system at the company (4Imprint) and didn't get produced.  I was having them shipped to my hotel, and so didn't know this until the RA started.  When I called, they said they would ship them that day, but they weren't received until half way through the RA.  The downside is, we didn't have them for the booth, but the up side is they didn't charge us for them, so we will have LOTS of sticky pads free for future RA's.  Still have to pay for the shipping, which I will deduct from what we collected at the RA, when I deposit the money. 

However, we partnered with my region in selling World's Finest Chocolate bars out of the booth, and that was very successful, so we will have made enough to cover the cost and show a modest profit from that as well.  I haven't got the final bill for the chocolate yet, so don't know exactly how much we will have earned, but i am expecting a couple hundred dollars, so with that and the new membership funds,and getting the sticky pads free, we will actually be in good financial shape, and have very few things we need to spend money on in the future.  I have lots of ribbons left, and we have a goodly supply of sticky pads and memo cubes.

We remain the officers, so you are still the Treasurer!

Let me know how things are going,

Linda Lucke

[Stephen W]

Thanks for the update.  I've thought about the RA many times!!!!  Well it sounds like you've made lemonade out of lemons for sure.  Thank you for being such a good steward of our money and for making all the money for the caucus!!  We travel to Philadelphia with our son next week for a second opinion and hopefully we will have a clearer picture of what we need to do next.

Thanks for your care and concern,

Stephen