News For Region 4 Members

I want to inform our members that there are several upcoming events during the month of May. The National Board of Directors are conducting the Annual Planning Meeting on May 10th and 11th. This year, the meeting will be held at the US Postal Service Training Facility in Norman, Oklahoma. Any member can attend the planning session on Friday and we encourage your participation. The planning session is designed to review the association's present programs and to develop new initiatives to be implemented for the Year 2004. Most of the activities and programs introduced this year were developed from last year's planning session and this year's planning session will define the programs for next year. If you cannot attend the meeting, anyone who wants to provide input can contact me directly and I will bring up your issue in the planning meeting. Our new Executive Director, Michael Ireland, has sent out a survey requesting feedback from the general membership on how to improve the association. We will review the survey results which will provide direction on what issues need to be addressed in the planning meeting. It's not too late to get your input, so please feel free to contact me at (510) 668-7321 or send e-mail to ralph.renne@exar.com.

I also want to inform our members that we have scheduled our Biannual Regional meeting for the following weekend on Saturday, May 17th. Chapter 15 is hosting the meeting which will be held at the California Maritime Academy-CSUM in Vallejo. The purpose of our Regional meeting is to assemble all the Chapter representatives in Region 4 to exchange information and to collaborate on how to improve the association locally. We also conduct a workshop for the Officers on the basics of how to manage an AFE chapter. I have arranged to have our AFE President Gerald Hagen and our AFE Executive Director Michael Ireland come out and participate in our meeting. They will provide an in-depth presentation on the direction of the association from the national level. The members of Chapter 15 have been working with me in coordinating the event. This year, we will include some other activities such as a BBQ lunch on the waterfront and a tour of the newly constructed lab facilities at CMA. This meeting is also open to the general membership, however, anyone who is interested in participating must RSVP directly to me by May 3rd. We hope this will be an opportunity to get more members interested in serving on one of our local AFE Chapter Board of Directors. I encourage your participation.

From AFE Vice President Region 4 Director,

Ralph Renne
Education Chair