Presidents Message:

December 22, 2005

Hello Everyone:

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you for a great 2005 and want to wish everyone a Happy Holiday and a very Prosperous 2006.

I would like to bring everyone up to date on the activities the chapter has been involved in and working on.

One of the largest highlights for the chapter was the “splash” we made at the ALA National Convention in San Francisco where the chapter was awarded the   “Platinum” Level of the Presidents Award of Excellence.  This is the highest level of achievement  possible.  The Chapter also received First Place in Vendor Relations and Programs, Second Place in Membership and an Honorable Mention for our Website.  We plan to enter the chapter in additional  awards categories this year in Montreal. 

The Chapter continued to grow and change throughout 2005.  The board was restructured and doubled in size to 11 board members.  This has allowed the Chapter to run extremely efficiently and to ensure that the mission of the chapter is carried out.  Chapter membership continued to grow, topping 190 members in 2005 thanks to the hard work of our VP of Membership, Kimberly Couture and her committee.  The chapter also remains fiscally strong and completed its first audit for FY 2004 thanks to the strong leadership of Barney Morrissey, the Chapter Treasurer.  Our Programs for the past year were excellent thanks to the Leadership of Deborah Lemmerman and her committee and capped off by an outstanding 2nd Annual All Day Educational Conference co-chaired by Marybeth Flynn and Kimberly Couture and their sub-committee.

Community Relations had another record-setting year in both in donation of funds and time.  The Chapter was able to raise and donate well over $30,000 and over 120 hours of volunteer time in 2005 to the Home for Little Wanders and the Finex House.  . The Boston Chapter was also one of the first to donate to the Hurricane Katrina fund on behalf of its members. Other chapters followed suit, resulting in donations topping $150,000 from all ALA Chapters. This was made possible through the strong leadership and passion of our VP of Community Relations, Janice Hayes, her committee,  members, member firms and Sponsors . 

The Chapter also had other milestones.  I'd like to thanksour VP of Web and Communications Ian Breslin, our Webmaster Nathan Burke, and Ian’s committee. The committee continued to work diligently to keep ALABoston.org up-to-date and a useful communications tool for chapter members.  Nathan also developed our new “Bridge” logo .  Also thanks to our VP Alternate, Dan McCormack CLM, we have established the Chapter's first CLM study group where 6 members are currently studying to take the CLM exam.  Finally all of the above activities are made possible through the generosity of our sponsors and the hard work of or VP of Vendor Relations, Joshua Stuckart and his committee.  We also had very successful sponsor events such as the annual golf tournament thanks to Paul Masuret and the annual summer social thanks to Liz Ounanian and Peggy Binder. 

Finally I would like to congratulate Paul Morton for being elected as Regional Director on the National Board of the ALA in 2005 and Karen Glowacki for being elected Regional Officer to Region One of the National ALA starting in May 2006.  I would also like to thank Karen for all the hard work and years she has dedicated to the chapter and for serving as Past President this year. 

We have a very exciting year coming up in 2006.  You can check out the upcoming programs and events  in the Calendar of Events section.   If you have any questions regarding our chapter please feel free to contact anyone on the board of directors and we will be glad to answer any questions or concerns.  Finally we would love to know if you would like to serve on a committee in 2006.  Please send an email to myself or Karen Glowacki and let us know what your interests are.  We are a strong chapter because of our member participation! 

Christopher O’Sullivan
President-Boston Chapter

Previous President's Messages:

October 2005
August 2005
April 2005
January 2005
July 2004
June 2004