This year is different... (January 2022 Chair's Column)
This year is different…
I love, love, LOVE the holiday season. I start listening to Christmas music in October (ask Rachel, my partner with the Bulloch County Development Authority – she’ll confirm). I try to talk my wife into putting up decorations on the first weekend in November. I mark the dates for the Grinch and Rudolph on television, and my kids are too old now to suggest that I’m doing it for them. I’m very sentimental about the holidays, and the season makes me very happy. On the other hand, I tend to get sad after the holidays pass. We move from a time of joy, peace, and goodwill for a return to our normal lives and to some degree lose the holiday spirit.
But not this year! I’ve resolved to focus more on the opportunities that 2022 will provide. With the honor of being your GEDA Chair this year, I’m in a great position to recognize how our Association will provide many of those opportunities to our members. At our annual Board Retreat in Rome this past October, your Officers, Directors, and Committee/SIG Chairs worked hard to identify programs of work to engage you in areas that affect our profession and help you be more successful. We have so many great women and men enrolled in this cause. With their leadership and your support, it will be a great year for GEDA!
While we look excitedly on the promise that 2022 brings, I remain a sentimental person at heart. The holiday season brings a time for reflection on warm memories of the past. I’m so grateful for Pat Merritt and her leadership for so many years with GEDA, particularly for the record-setting amount of activity of last year’s Nominating Committee! I’m happy for Chris Pumphrey, one of the most insightful people I know, who has been a great leader of our organization but gets to move away from the Executive Committee to follow Pat with the Nominating Committee. I’m so appreciative of Andrea Shruijer, our immediate Past Chair, for her outstanding work for GEDA during the crazy year of the pandemic, and for her continued advice and friendship to all of us. And, I’m thankful to all of you – the GEDA membership – for the work you do every day to make a positive difference for your communities, your clients, and your fellow citizens.
There are so many things to excite us about GEDA 2022 – our monthly Luncheons/events led by Dorie Bacon, Spring Workshop from Cal Wray and his committee in Jekyll Island, Annual Conference in Savannah with Trip Tollison and his team – and we’ll consider those in greater detail soon. As for now, let’s revel in the possibilities that a New Year brings. I’ll see you on our Legislative Leaders Virtual Call on January 25th, and I look forward to the year ahead of us.