Focus...

Well, the rains have stopped, started again, stopped and getting ready to start again. There seems to be a pattern here. Hope everyone that was affected is now recovering and getting life back on track.

One week from today I will be joining our AICPA Council members and our Chairman Elect, Royce Duncan, in attending the annual state CPA society Chairman Elect conference followed by the AICPA Fall Council meeting. That’s a lot of meetings and makes for an interesting but long 5 days.

The Chairman Elect conference starts on Friday evening with a reception, goes all day Saturday (dinner that evening with all of the society Executive Directors-an interesting crowd-and meets until noon on Sunday. AICPA Fall Council begins mid afternoon on Sunday and goes through Tuesday. Sound fun? It is truly a working trip!
The President Elect conference is very interesting each year and involves President Elects in round table discussions each morning with their peers from other states; one morning will be states of similar size meeting together and the next, Chairman Elects will meet with neighboring states. This gives everyone the opportunity to discuss pertinent issues on the table as well as the process of transition into the role of state society Chairman. The remainder of the meeting is the full group meeting and interacting on issues updates and speakers on strategic management styles for non-profit organizations. This meeting begins the formal transition for us as GSCPA staff to work in earnest with the Chairman Elect to do appointments, set meeting schedules, discuss priorities for the upcoming year and other issues that are involved in the transition of Leadership.

It is an especially interesting year for me as Royce Duncan will be the last society Chairman that I will work with. He will be my 28th chairman in my career. I will be retiring on June 1, 2011. I started as Executive Director of the Arizona Society in 1983 and what a fantastic career it has been; always interesting and each year different from the last and different from the next. I will write more about this as the time becomes near, but I feel that this meeting will be a particularly sensitive one for me.

The AICPA Council meeting will focus on Federal legislation issues, especially in the proposed Financial Regulation area currently proposed as well as increasingly complicated international issues such as IFRS, non-USA residents sitting for the CPA exam, and other standard orientated issues. The CPA profession is certainly more and more bumping into international issues as the world continues to merge into one market.

My last two blogs have ended with hope that Georgia and Georgia Tech might both win their conferences. Each week has slimmed down that hope. At this point, I’m focusing on Georgia Tech still having a chance to win the ACC.

And there is always hope that Georgia will beat Florida...right?
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