President’s Letter – April, 2008

Greetings Fellow Skålleagues!

Our annual April Installation of Officers Dinner was held at the Hilton Palm Beach Airport Hotel in West Palm Beach. The black tie event celebrated our 31st anniversary as an active SKAL Club. Thanks to Fred Ghadimi the Hilton's Vice President / General Manager Hotel Operations and James Hansen the Hilton's Director of Sales & Marketing as well as one of our newest members, for making the evening such a memorable one. The festivities began with a cocktail reception in the Hilton's Ballroom where we enjoyed an open bar and continuous delicious hors d'oeuvres. The ballroom was decorated beautifully with SKAL banners from around the world and the dinner was both sumptuous and excellently served. Oklahoma member Jeff Penner, VP of Finance SIUSA and Executive Director of the Oklahoma City Hotel Association (our invited guest), began the dinner with our opening Akvavit toast. After dinner, James introduced the Hilton's chef and his staff to a round of applause from the members and guests. With 43 members and guests in attendance, the dinner was the largest so far this year. Opening remarks were made by Jeff Penner and myself.

I had the pleasure of formally inducting 5 new members and presenting them with their SKAL membership certificates. They included, James Hansen, Serena Hoermann of E-BoatCharters.com, Becky Reincke National Sales Manager with Pelican Bay Resort at Lucaya, Martin Baum with Inteletravel and our newest member Opal Gibson Director of Sales and Marketing at the Ft. Lauderdale Hilton Resort.

The club welcomed several guests to the dinner. Jan West joined us again from the Washington DC Skal Club, Bob Freidman's wife Marilyn, Bernie Falkow's wife Marilyn, Charlie Beiser's wife Nancy, Peter Berlin's wife Judy, Bernhard Kainer's wife Nancy, Scotty Cassidy's wife Marianne, Mike and JP Hartfield, Dick Stafford hosted Jorge Pesquera the new President of the Palm Beach County Convention & Visitors Bureau, Paul Cook's guest June Leonard, Wayne Lampert's guest Ric Bustamante and Fred Ghadimi's guest Marina Garcev.

For all of us who travel, either on business or for pleasure, we can usually find a SKAL Club at our destination with members willing to assist us in their hometowns. We should all take advantage of this benefit as well as the opportunities available for networking and conducting business to business between fellow Skalleagues.

At the conclusion of dinner Jeff Penner, newly elected SIUSA Vice President of Administration, performed the Installation of Officers ceremony. Your new officers and board members for 2008 are:

I wish to thank my fellow club members who have seen fit to honor me with my second term as President. It is a very interesting and challenging time for our club. As was pointed out by our immediate Past President, Dick Stafford, in his last Presidents Letter; "In December of 2005 the club had reached a low point with our membership down to 24 members. In 2004, we realized that our Club was not only losing members due to retirement and relocation but more importantly we were stymied in our efforts to recruit new members due to the changing business environment in the Palm Beach County area. As the travel and tourism industry changed with the increased use of the internet and the consolidation of the airline industry, a substantial number of potential new SKAL members were now located in the Ft. Lauderdale area where the airlines and cruise lines had regional offices.

It became apparent to us that we had to include Ft. Lauderdale in the name of the Club and commit to hosting a significant portion of our monthly meetings in that area to bring credibility to our efforts to attract new members. We were determined not to let the Club gradually decrease in membership to the point of being de-activated. The Club made the decision to be pro-active and aggressively pursue the name change. As you know, in February of 2006 we received approval to formally change the name of the Club from Skal International Palm Beaches to Skal International Ft. Lauderdale & Palm Beaches. Once the lengthy process to obtain approval for the name change was over, we have had tremendous success in building our membership and enabling all of our members to realize the benefits that membership in SKAL International has to offer."

Today we have more than doubled our club, and are 52 members strong. We look forward to welcoming more members as we introduce ourselves to the new executives who have located in Ft. Lauderdale and the Palm Beach County area.

It is with a great deal of pride that I thanked all those members of the Board who have served with me this past year, and have agreed to serve again, as well as our outgoing Vice President Peter Berlin who has added so much to making the job a little easier. I also thanked the membership as a whole who have supported some difficult situations we have had to overcome. I look forward to working with and serving you again this year.

The locations for our upcoming meetings are:

May 20th our meeting will be at the Muvico Boca Raton Theater in Bogart's Bar & Grille.
June 17th we will have an informal meeting at Bucca di Beppo restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale jointly with ASME.

We are examining the possibility of having an outing to Pelican Bay in the Bahamas during the upcoming summer. More information will be sent to you in the weeks ahead.

Remember that unless otherwise indicated all our meetings are on the 3rd Tuesday of each month except July and August when no meetings are scheduled.

SKAL International has challenged all members to help recruit new members and is offering 10 Nikon Digital Cameras to every member who introduces a new member from 1 March through 30 September. The 10 prize winners will be drawn at the International Congress.

Upcoming SKAL events are:

In May the NAASC conference will be held in Montego Bay Jamaica from May 11th - 15th, and in October the SKAL International Annual Conference will be in Taipei, Taiwan from the 12th - 17th. All are welcome and urged to attend.

Our June 7th Golf tournament has been cancelled. July 25-27 will be the Region IV Summer Golf Tournament hosted by the Orlando Club. October 12th -17th the SKAL International World Congress will be held in Taipei, Taiwan and all SKAL members are both invited and urged to attend. It is a great way to make new friends, business contacts and learn more about what SKAL is all about.

Don't forget to check the clubs website www.skal-ftlauderdale-palmbeaches.org for additional club news, the upcoming Call to Meeting and all of the great pictures from the April Dinner. Hope all of you are able to make the May meeting.

I wish everyone a great summer, and I look forward to seeing you all when I return in September.

SKAL!

Wayne Lampert
President