The Northstar News - June 2004

Recap of June 17^th Monthy Meeting

The meeting began at 8am with chapter President Sharlene Smith CPP at the podium.  Sharlene mentioned that, like last month, she had a hard time coming up with a memorable, topical quote related to the upcoming Disaster Recovery presentation.  So instead she decided to recite a couple of general-interest topics that she found amusing:

“I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain” - Lily Tomlin

“And now the sequence of events, in no particular order” - Dan Rather

General business announcements followed.  Sharlene noted that next month is the annual Business meeting, and there is no fee to attend that session.  During that meeting there will be a report of the years’ activities from each officer, and recipients of our chapter Scholarship Award program will be announced.  We will elect officers for our open board positions—Vice President (a 1-year term transitioning into the President position for a year and then the board Advisor position in the 3^rd year) and Conference/Education Chair.  Sharlene encouraged attendees who may have an interest to consider running for these positions.  She also noted that the board was looking for a new Chapter Promotions committee chairperson to work with Patrick White in his Communications director role.  The new committee position would head up our future National Payroll Week activities, as well as our Chapter of the Year application and Chapter Pictorial.

Sharlene turned the meeting over to Vice-President Karen Klein CPP, who announced the chapter community outreach activity for this summer.  She and Robin Murphy CPP both plan to participate in the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation walk!  This 3-day, 60-mile walk through the Twin Cities will take place Sept 10^th -12^th to raise money to find a cure for breast cancer.  Any contributions made by members will be matched by the chapter.  Donation forms should be available at the July meeting, and additional information will be posted to our web site in July as well.  Click here to learn more!       

Karen also gave attendees an update on our upcoming annual Fall Conference.  She noted that a keynote speaker has been secured, but she was not revealing their identity at this point.  She reminded everyone that the conference date is October 7^th and to be sure and mark our calendars.  She also thanked all the volunteers who have already signed up to help, and noted that the conference committee is still looking for additional volunteers in a number of planning areas (send an email to the chapter if you’re interested).

Next, Communications Director Patrick White CPP spoke of our chapter’s primary National Payroll Week promotional effort.  The chapter is planning to volunteer to answer phones for a 2 ½ hour period at the MDA Telethon on the morning of Labor Day.  He noted that plans to hang our banner and provide chapter T-shirts would give our organization a lot of visibility, while simultaneously fulfilling another community outreach effort.  Patrick stated that 11 volunteers have offered to help, out of a total of 20 needed to commit to the effort.  He mentioned that another sign-up sheet had been posted on the wall, and he encouraged more volunteers to come forward to help for what will ultimately be a rather short holiday time commitment for a very good cause.

Patrick also noted that the chapter’s email address had changed.  He explained that the change was necessary as the old address was attracting an inordinate amount of spam that was being forwarded to his work email address.  The new address is not published anywhere on the chapter web site (to avoid attracting email address ‘harvesters’), however if a member or site visitor simply clicks on the “Contact Us” link on the homepage, their mail client should open with the address automatically populating the To: field of the message.

Program Chair Barb Muellerleile CPP then took to the podium to introduce our topic presenter, Marsha Smith CPP.  Marsha, our former chapter President, is currently the Disaster Recovery Consultant for Land O’ Lakes Inc.  Marsha started her talk by noting that her prior payroll background really helped give her the experience needed to carry out her current position.  She then asked the audience how many of their organizations have a formal disaster recovery plan, and many hands shot up.  She then asked of those with such a plan rehearse it every year, and fewer hands remained up.  Finally she asked of these attendees “Are you prepared, if a disaster were to happen today?”  Only five hands remained raised, in a group of about a hundred people.  Marsha noted that this was typical—our 5% readiness rate mirrors that of our country as a whole today.  She went on do give a very lively presentation on a topic she acknowledged wasn’t fun, yet very necessary for businesses to address, especially given this uncertain and ever-changing world we live in.  Click here to view the full Powerpoint version of her presentation (opens a new window).

Marsha received a well-deserved round of applause from the group at the end of her talk, as Barb reminded everyone to fill out their meeting evaluation forms, and the meeting was adjourned at about 9:30am.