President’s Letter
January 17, 2017

Happy 2017 and I hope the New Year has started well for all of you.

We kicked off our Skål year with our first dinner meeting at the new Boca Raton Hyatt Place. If you did not have the opportunity to join us you should really check out this property. It has only been open a couple of weeks and is not what you would normally expect from a typical Hyatt Place. The property is beautiful and very well laid out. We enjoyed a great meeting and a terrific dinner.

During the meeting the proposed slate of officers and board members for your 2017 Board of Directors was presented and a list is included below. The membership will vote on the incoming Board at our next meeting on February 21st at the Marriott West Palm Beach, so I hope to see you all there. We will also be voting on the 2016 Venue of the Year award at the February meeting. You will receive the ballot this week that you can select your choice and return it by email or vote at the meeting. We had the opportunity to welcome and pin our newest member Lynda Reich from Master Travel. Lynda, nice to have you with us.

We will be working on speakers for some of our future meetings so if there is a topic or individual that you would think you fellow Skalleagues would be interested in hearing about please let us know. We will start the speaker program at the February dinner meeting with Jorge Pesquera presenting a Travel & Tourism Industry Update from Discover the Palm Beaches.

We are also looking into ways to attract more young Skål members and would enjoy your input and suggestions on how we can better do this and work to strengthen our Club membership moving forward.

On a Skål USA note, Holly Powers, from the Boston Club is now the Skal USA President, she mentioned in a recent letter to Club Presidents that their focus will be in growing membership and to improve communication. She also reiterated that we will no longer have a Regional Vice President sending updates but the new Director of PR and Communication, Steve Richer who will be sending monthly updates that will provide consistent information to all clubs in a timely manner.

As you probably all noticed your 2017 membership renewal notices have gone out and if you would like Carlos to use the CC we have on file to process your renewal please let him know via email and he will take care of it.

Best wishes to our members celebrating birthdays this month:

2017 PROPOSED OFFICERS & BOARD MEMBERS

Thank you all for your continued interest and participation in the Club and I look forward to seeing you all next month in West Palm Beach at the Marriott. Remember to log onto our Club's website http://www.skal-ftlauderdale-palmbeaches.org to get more information on our club, event pictures and the upcoming Skål Monthly Reception and Dinner Meetings.

Until then, safe journeys and may all your travels be an adventure.

Skål,

With Hospitality,

Ian
Ian Black
President
Skål International Ft. Lauderdale & Palm Beaches