Thursday, May 14, 2020

May BOD recap and summer golf event

The Board of Director's met yesterday via Zoom to discuss chapter business.  I am proud of the board for being creative despite the current restrictions brought on by Covid-19.  It is obvious to me that we all want to represent our industry, CIGCSA, and our colleagues the best that we can during this difficult time. We continue to monitor the situation as it evolves and will make adjustments to the summer schedule as needed.

In the meeting, we developed a few new initiatives.  First, we will be highlighting our PRP members over our social media accounts and this blog.  Our plan is to start with our Platinum members and provide an overview of both their company and personal bios. We appreciate their partnership, especially during these hard times. Thanks to those Platinum PRP members that have provided information to Bryan.  We will send more email request to our Gold and Silver PRPs in the next couple weeks.

Secondly, we continue to have doubts about being able to gather in a group and hold our traditional meetings.  In a best case scenario, it could be August or September before large groups gather.  With that, we have develop a plan to offer golf opportunities for our members. We will be creating a new tournament for our members based on geography.  We envision 4 geographic regions: Springfield, Champaign, Peoria, and Bloomington.  Members of any classification will be grouped into one of  these regions and play two-some matches ultimately resulting in a regional champion. The 4 regional champions will play a final 4 event towards the end of the summer on a scheduled day at a single course.  Our thought is for these regional and final 4 matches to be carried out over several months.  Bryan will organize the pairings based on interest and develop a tournament bracket.  Each region will have a tournament coordinator from the Board.  It will be up to the two members scheduled to play a match to setup a time day, and course that works best for them. Our hope is to have the association pay the golf courses for the rounds.  We certainly don't want to impose during a difficult financial time for golf courses, nor put the responsibility on our members to pay their way.  Bryan will work with the golf courses directly or reimburse members for the cost of the golf.

We have a few more details to work through, but wanted to share this plan. Email Bryan if you have interest in participating. The regional coordinators will also be asking members in their area if they would like to participate.  Finally, we are sensitive to the unique circumstances of each member and the hardships they may be facing in providing membership dues during a time of reduced revenues.  With that, we will view eligibility into this tournament based on 2019 and 2020 membership classifications. In other words, if you were a member in 2019, but haven't been able to renew yet for 2020, we still welcome you to participate.
 

Thanks for reading,
  Travis Williams, Board President CIGCSA