March 15th, 2010
- The rescheduled Advisor’s Success Kit (ASK) Webinar was held on February 25. We had good participation, and the presentation is archived for others to view.
- On February 26, staff met to prepare for the upcoming National Leadership and Skills Conference. Among the numbers reported: the Championships will have 96 contests adding 170 additional contestants and putting the projected total of contestants at 5,500 (twice the number of contestants at the recent Winter Olympics); will be in 33 hotels this year, up five from last year; and, TECHSPO is up $20,000 in booth sales over last year at this time.
- And, staff did a great job of running a webinar on inclusion and diversity for the national officers before they start heading out to spring conferences. The national officers not only liked it, they appreciated it.
Tags: ASK, Highlights, Inclusion and Diversity, NLSC, SkillsUSA Championships, TECHSPO, Web Conference
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March 1st, 2010
- Membership is still coming in at a good rate. As of last Friday, February 25, we were at 285,304 and processing vigorously. This number puts us at 1,093 members ahead of last year’s same day total. All of the snow here in the area recently has caused us to close the office for three days and created a paper jam. Staff has been working to catch up with the backlog.
- I surveyed the state association directors on extending the national membership deadline by one week to March 8 in light of bad weather and school closings all over the country. Every director who replied (and it was a majority) said it was fine by him or her as long as it didn’t affect state deadlines; so, we’re good to go.
- Gerald Tylka, the corporate member from Pennsylvania, has agreed to stand as a candidate from Region I to replace Holly Harriel on SkillsUSA’s Board of Directors. Background information has been sent to the board and they have been asked to approve the appointment until the June conference.
- Fred Smith – a nationally recognized expert – conducted two excellent inclusion and diversity workshops with the entire staff on February 17. He seemed as impressed by SkillsUSA and its staff as he impressed us. One of the points he really highlighted, once he know more about the work of SkillsUSA, was the importance of inclusion to corporations and how corporate underwriting often hinges on exactly the kinds of things SkillsUSA is doing in communities across the country. Thanks go to Jackie Parker of Newell Rubbermaid for making Fred Smith’s visit to us possible.
- During the past several weeks, we’ve been speaking with one association and two businesses about licensing opportunities for the Skill Connect Assessments, the Professional Development Program and/or the Career Skills Education Program. They all appear to be good partnership opportunities that have potential to drive revenue opportunities for the work of SkillsUSA.
- Finally, in light of both Vision 2020 and our current budget, I’m pleased to announce that we’ve received over $44,000 worth of software from Microsoft to update all kinds of things from our operating system to our server and much more. SkillsUSA’s cost? That was $1,800. Thanks go to staff for knowing who to ask and when to ask that resulted in saving SkillsUSA over $42,000 and moving us into the 21st century at the same time.
Tags: Board of Directors, Highlights, Inclusion and Diversity, Membership, Vision 2020
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