Greetings all,

First off, I want to thank our current board for their service this year and welcome three new members to the 2023 Board. Thank you, Loida, for your many years of service, we will miss your words of wisdom as you roll off the board after this year.

Welcome Beth Ann Coleman of Fairfield Residential, Cindy Faulk of Chuze Fitness and Erica Kneeland of Alliant for joining the board as Directors at Large. I am so appreciative of Lan Nguyen for remaining the Treasurer, Julie Nester for taking on the Vice President role and Katie Johanski for stepping into the Secretary position. Jose Lugo has agreed to stay on as a Director at Large for another year. Duane Johnson and Tim Kolgen continue to contribute in their roles as Associate Advisors.

Your board will be meeting for a planning retreat the first weekend in January. If you have any thoughts on how we can better serve our membership, please reach out to any of our board members so that we can entertain your ideas at the retreat. One thing we struggle with is whether meetings should be in-person, virtual or a combination.

As you all know, our golf tournament this year was our most successful by far and we attribute it to hard work of our committee and volunteers; the generosity of our sponsors; and the best group of people on this planet attending the event. Mark your calendar for 8/4/23, which will be the 25th anniversary for this great golf classic. The golf tournament was such fun, and everyone commented on how much they enjoyed an in-person event we were compelled to start meeting in-person, launching in September.

Cyber insurance was the September topic; with a panel, including an underwriter (Casey Powers | Chubb), a broker (Marci Schullo | Alliant) and a client (Julie Nester | SD Co Schools JPA). The group was very interactive with questions and shared experiences. A networking social followed the presentation. A good time was had by all.

We had a small group for our October meeting, the presenter was very engaging, Jason Cables from Ankura. Jason spoke on business interruption accurate reporting. He made a complex topic interesting.

In November, we planned to have the event in-person but reverted back to a virtual meeting. By going virtual the number of attendees increased by more than double in a day. What is our membership telling us? Yes, we want to meet in-person, but not EVERY month! In any case, Josh Goldsmith from Siegel Moreno & Stettler revisited the See’s Candies decision and as usual, his presentation was fantastic.

The in-person Holiday Luncheon was enriched by a Trivia Contest, sponsored by Pettit Kohn. The event was held at Bali Hai. Trivia team, Risky Business, took home the prize! Raffle prizes were plentiful, thank you to all that brought these wonderful gifts.

What a whirl wind of a year. As we bring 2022 to a close, I look back on the year as certainly better than the previous two, and hopeful it is just a warmup for a fantastic year next year.

Respectfully,