Pro Photo West Fall 2019

provide consistent and representative judging that members might find as they progress to PPA District
Judging and International Photographic Competition. This is a huge member benefit and we hope to
continue down that road. Along with two brand new Image Competition Monitors.
We have welcomed a new affiliated to PPC, the Professional Photographers of Santa Clara Valley. We
are also hoping to welcome another PPA affiliate to the PPC family next year that is also located in
Northern California! So we are starting to grow the association again!
We fixed a board position, the secretary, to be a one year term vs. two year term. So that it makes
sense as the entry position onto the Board of Directors. This way the person occupying the secretary
position can learn who all the affiliates and affiliate leadership is early on and be super prepared once
they have the privilege of leading this association.
We’ve welcomed a new West Coast School Director, David LaNeve and will miss the generous
contributions from Marcy Dugan. David has some great plans in store for 2020 and the future and I
hope that all of you reading this wherever you are located can attend one day! It’s that great of an
experience and the photographic education is world class!
We’ve had a couple of Days of Education (the name will be changing) to provide those in attendance
great learning opportunities, and this year we made an investment to have one of the speakers, Bryan
Welsh, provide some Board of Directors training for all of our affiliates’ Board of Directors that were in
attendance at the Sacramento meeting last month. We are brain-storming other ideas that we can do
to help bring value to our affiliates as well.
Finally, we have implemented using Zoom Communications as a Board of Directors to routinely meet
and plan for the Association. Communication is the key to running a successful association and since
we started meeting through zoom calls a little over 14 months ago we have been able to plan and
overcome many of the challenges that we’ve had to face. Plus it’s great to see all my colleagues
smiling faces!!!
I’ll close this last message by saying THANK YOU!!! Those are two words often overlooked, but I mean
it will all of my heart. I thank each and every one of you for being a member, or a past member, or
thinking about becoming a member. There are lots of opinions on how things should run, but at the
end of the day it’s all of you who count! I want to thank those who stepped up when I needed them
most to fill vacancies - Marcy Dugan for stepping in to be our Chairperson of the Board and Tim Meyer
who has been a utility person as a 2nd VP, Secretary, and all around great advisor. Also, little did I
know that I would have an opportunity to serve with one of my long time photography hero’s and get to
call him friend now, and that I can say blows my mind. Thank you to Robin Swanson, for just being
Robin and knowing all the things a treasurer needs to know - being a CPA helps too! Thank you Jim
Trapp for your friendship. Finally Thank you to Diane Costello, you’ve become a great friend and you
are a doer to no end. I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone so eager to take on any challenge and
get results as Diane! She’s a fantastic artist and she’s going to be great at leading this association in
2020! So with that I hand the “baton” of to Diane and wish her well as she becomes the next President
in this amazing association! I have no doubt that she’s going to have a great team with the addition of
Larry Skibiski and Michelle Pennings coming on to the Board in 2020!
CHEERS!!!
www.ppconline.com Fall 2019 11