Focus...

As mentioned in my previous blog, CPE is off and running! We’re using 15 cities around Georgia this year and offering over 400 courses. A couple of interesting CPE thoughts has caught my attention so far.

We have a class this week in our GSCPA facility that has 60 CPAs registered. Have a guess what topic would bring out 60 CPAs? Tax update? Audit related update? No…it is a course on the Economic Stimulus package passed by congress! The times we’re living in are interesting indeed.

Second item: we recently held two Peer Reviewer training classes. The first was the introduction to becoming a Peer Reviewer and the second was an update for those that do Peer Reviews. Not large numbers for either offering. The trend that has emerged is that the national pool of CPAs that do Peer Reviews is not growing; younger CPAs are not entering into this realm and those CPAs that currently do Peer Reviews are often doing fewer each year. This does not bode well for the Peer Review program over the next 5 years. Where will we be 5 years from now with this program? Will it become necessary to significantly modify Peer Reviews because of this dynamic? This could be a very serious change within the profession in the relatively short term; this won’t be the only change due to the Baby Boomer generation reaching retirement age. This is a dynamic that all of us must be aware of and it will be interesting and challenging to deal with and it emerges at a time in history that is calling for more regulation of the profession. Again, interesting times!

Well, as the summer goes into high gear work is picking up the pace and my golf game is slowing down. Such is the life of an Executive Director! No one pays me for golf, so I’ll keep my eye on work!

Heading to the Annual Convention on Saturday, so no blogging next week! Unless I can figure out how to engage my trusty Blackberry from the convention.
Hope you are having a great summer!

GJ
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Focus...

We’re getting set here for the Annual convention in Amelia Island, beginning June 28th. Great spot and great location. I do wish more of us were going but that’s the “way of the world” these days. We’ve been very concerned with how this present economy will affect the GSCPA in the area of membership renewals as well as CPE seminars and conferences. We spent much time on the budget this year to anticipate a tough economy scenario. However, some good news is finding its way to us. Both dues and CPE registrations are coming in pretty well so far. It is early in the fiscal year, but so far so good. I do think it is a fair assessment that clients and companies have never needed CPAs more, but have never found it more difficult to pay the bill. Ironic I suppose. We hope you still need the Georgia Society of CPAs and we are here for you!

Speaking of the Annual Convention, AICPA President Barry Melancon is speaking on Tuesday, June 30th. Barry does a great job and is always interesting! He speaks to many of the societies in the summer and travels most of his time during June and July (and the rest of the year as well). I truly wish everyone had the opportunity to hear Barry in person; he’s become a polished speaker and has nearly lost his Louisiana accent! Although he does not like to hear that.

We’ll have our Annual Business Meeting during the Annual Convention and the “changing of the guard” will take place. Stewart Carlin will conclude his year as President and Bob Prator will take the reins as the first GSCPA Chairman. My own title will become CEO of the GSCPA. The jobs are the same, just the titles change, as part of our bylaw amendments. The last day to vote is June 26th and you can access the online voting via our website, if you have not voted already. Karl Rove (former Deputy Chief of Staff for George W. Bush) was once quoted as saying when he dies he wants to be buried in Texas so he doesn’t lose his vote. However, one can only vote once on the bylaws! If you have taken the time to do so, Thank You!

Hope you are having a great summer and I hope I might see you at the Annual Convention!
GJ
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Focus...

It is an interesting time of year around the GSCPA office. Our Spring Council meeting in Chattanooga a couple of weeks ago was the culmination of many months of work in the area of governance, bylaw changes, and budgeting in a tough economy. Those things finished, we’re now in the process of tying up loose ends and final projects to finish up this fiscal year and doing things to get the new fiscal year off and running. Stewart Carlin is still President! But we we’re working more with In-coming President Bob Prator to get his year off and running. It is a proverbial, “shifting of gears” here in the office.

We’re also beginning to see more and more members in the office as the new CPE year kicks off and many of our staff are busy processing both dues and CPE registrations; both clear signs that a new year is beginning. The processing of dues and CPE registrations generates a sigh of relief, as we are, like everyone else, concerned about the effects this economy might have on us. We’ve worked hard with our board of directors to bring in a scaled down budget and responsible budget that delivers all of our member services and still saves money.

Other planning that is happening is for the Annual Convention in Amelia Island this year at the end of June. This is the last year of this meeting as a stand-alone meeting, as we are combining the spring council meeting and the annual convention in 2010 (to be held in Hilton Head). There will no be major differences in how the combined meeting unfolds, and the transition to this format should be fairly seamless. Still other activity this time of year is the Section Leadership Teams are beginning to meet here in the office and Chapters are kicking off their new year as well.

So, 2008-09 was a busy year that saw many changes for the GSCPA and 2009-10 promises also to be a year of new things and a year of accomplishments all as well.

Happy New year to you!

GJ
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Focus..

As you may have noticed, we are making efforts in new areas: Social networking. Blogging, space for comments/feedback on articles, a unique site for our GSCPA Leadership Council members, and instant polling is among our newest efforts. All of this is to leverage technology into creating communication, community and involvement in the GSCPA.

Our newest effort is a Georgia Society of CPAs Facebook page! We presently have a Facebook page for our Leadership Academy Alumni, but we’re expanding to create a society wide Facebook page and we’re hoping to have literally thousands of members! All GSCPA members can join, post status updates, make comments, ask questions, and seek friends they may have lost contact with. Of course there will be numerous other uses that will come forth and those are just a few examples. It should be quite an adventure to open the page and see all of the comments awaiting entrance.

Back in the early 1990’s I attended an AIPCA meeting in Seattle and the meeting featured a live video presentation by Bill Gates on new trends in technology. In those days, one had to call someone to find out if they had email and if so, did they ever check it. Sort of defeated the purpose of emailing someone. Bill Gates said at the time that in order for people to accept technology in their work and personal lives they needed to start with emailing and through that they would become aware of the joy and convenience of technology in their lives. People did begin emailing, and the rest is history. Facebook and other social media platforms is at a similar stage as emailing was in the late 1980’s to early 1990’s. One just has to try it: a leap of faith of sorts to see how it fits into living in this age. Here is a good opportunity to “just try it.” If you have a Facebook account just hit the button on the website or in “The voice” our online newsletter. If you don’t currently have a Facebook account, it only takes a moment to sign up. Try it! You might like it.

I have a personal Facebook page and very much enjoy connecting with present friends and friends from the past. Through Facebook we are connected daily. If you like people, if you like friends, if you like being part of a community, if you like FACES, join the Georgia Society of CPAs Facebook page. See you there..look for my face.

GJ
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Focus...

So..this is a blog? I feel pretty special writing one, even if I did volunteer for the duty (certainly, the staff was going to ASK me, I just beat them to it).

At this point I’m calling this blog “Focus” because that’s what it is; it’s about what I Focus on and about the time I spend as Executive Director of the Georgia Society of CPAs, which may seem easy when viewed externally, but believe me, it is interesting (and sometimes it is hard being me!). There is so much involved with my position, such as: organizational expert, CEO style management, ringmaster of many, many personalities, an internal world, and external world, national meetings with personalities and egos “aplenty,” state politics and lobbying, and much, much more. Not many people know the full responsibilities of the Executive Director and that’s one of the goals I have with this blog: to let those that are interested learn more about my specific job and the role I play in the CPA profession in Georgia and nationally. The other goal is simply to be me and have readers get to know me and how I approach work and life. I had a President once say, “before I was President of the society I didn’t really know what Gary did, and after I was President I didn’t know how he managed to do all that he does.” That’s about the size of it; I’m an enigma to many folks. We’ll get that straightened out soon enough I hope!

If you follow along, we’ll travel through the upcoming year and through the issues, experiences, personalities, frustrations and accomplishments and you may even hear a little about my golf game (feel free to skip over that part if you want to; It’s pretty sad anyway).

I hope you will follow along with our Incoming President Bob Prator as well. He’ll also be blogging through the year. He’s calling it “Just My Thoughts” and it will be interesting!

GJ
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