Archive for the ‘President's Message’ CategoryBest Wishes for Busy SeasonJanuary 29th, 2010
Happy New Year and New DecadeJanuary 4th, 2010
Looking Forward to 2010 …December 1st, 2009
December in our chapter means Tax Night! This year we are pleased to have Noelle Allen provide highlights in an hour-long presentation Dec. 15 at McNamara’s Steak House in Dublin. Please join us. We will host a new-member orientation before the dinner for all of you who would like to find out more about our chapter and CalCPA.
ThanksgivingNovember 5th, 2009
By Joelyn K Carr-Fingerle, CPA
CalCPA has long been a part of my professional life, and as a member, I have met many wonderful people, had fun at many events and learned a lot both in and out of the professional classroom. One of those types of events is our chapter’s check-the-box CPE event Dec. 7. At this program, Tom Daley and Gary McBride will present their federal and California tax update. We can all check the box to add $40 to the registration fee, which goes directly to our chapter’s scholarship fund. Your contribution is a simple way to thank our profession for providing a great way to make a living and is a small way to give a boost to those just starting on the road to being an accountant. Please join me in checking the box and attending the class. Last year this small action taken by many members funded one of the scholarships we later awarded. Let’s see if we can make it two scholarships this year. The facility can hold us all, so there is plenty of room for everyone. Recent events have renewed my resolve to count my blessings and challenges every day. The time I take to do so really helps me to appreciate and organize the day. Thank you all for allowing me to be your chapter president this year. And thank you for coming to our events, calling me with your thoughts and caring about our chapter. Thank you all for reading my monthly musings. Please let me know what you think.
On Deck: Sports Night!October 8th, 2009
October gives us a little break for a deep breath now that the individual tax filing season is (almost) over. Kids are back in school. Football has started. Hockey has started. Basketball is even gearing up, and it is closer to World Series time for baseball. That means it is Sports Night at our next chapter meeting. Last year we had a sports broadcaster talk about the state of professional sports in the Bay Area. This year chapter members Brad Holsworth and Scott Haislet have honed in on baseball, and we are in for a treat. They have arranged for Paul Zuvella, a retired major league player and a minor league coach, to address our chapter. He will give us his insights about professional baseball and what his life was like as an infielder with the Braves, Yankees, Indians and Royals. You may have caught Paul on Comcast Sports, where he has been an analyst for some of the A’s games. Paul also will give us his take on the World Series, which starts the day after our meeting. What teams will we be watching? And why? What did it take to win and get there? What skills? Lucky breaks? Calculated risks? Paul will fill us in on the details. Meanwhile, our chapter committees have been busy, and we have a full schedule of meetings and educational opportunities available for you. Check the website for opportunities of interest, whether they are regional or related to tax, A&A, or technology. Hope to see you very soon! The Scholarship Committee is accepting applications for scholarships ranging from $2,000 to $4,000. Please encourage any students to apply. The deadline is Oct. 31. Last year we had 45 applications to select from, and while it was not easy to select the final recipients, it was a most rewarding task, and we always want to encourage deserving students to apply. Scholarship applications are available online. Early application is encouraged. Thanks for taking the time to read this Bulletin, and please feel free to send feedback at any time. I enjoy hearing your thoughts, suggestions and opinions and will do my best to respond to you.
ABC Night and ScholarshipsAugust 28th, 2009
The ABC Committee is also considering adding a second networking event in the spring. Would you come? What are your thoughts? Tom Bret and committee members Scott Haislet and Rob Anderson would like to hear your thoughts on expanding ABC Night to include a date in early May, perhaps in the Oakland area. CalCPA Chair Andrea Cope was at our July meeting and challenged us to each contribute $100 for 100 years of CalCPA to scholarships. We have a good program to identify the students, we just need the money to award them. Please give generously! Soco will gladly accept your checks or you can contribute through the CalCPA website. ABC Night provides much of the scholarship funding for the chapter and given the increases in tuition this year, scholarships are more necessary than ever. Last year the Accounting Education/Scholarship/Student Outreach Committee had its most applications ever and we awarded seven substantial scholarships to students from UC Berkeley, CSU, East Bay and St Mary’s College. We expect the same response this year. It is not easy to select the best students since there are so many deserving students. There are written applications and then interviews with the most promising students. Our committee and its chair, Joe Mori, are also working on a mentoring program for students. Please let Joe know if you are interested in mentoring and being a resource for these students. The students are eager to learn and eager to help. You will meet this year’s scholarship recipients at our January meeting. Another program affecting all of us is our legislative effort. CalCPA has four bills of interest this year, covered in detail in the August issue of California CPA. Please put Wednesday Jan. 20, on your calendar to join us in Sacramento for CPA Day in the Capitol. You will be briefed on the issues facing us in Sacramento, and appointments will be set up for groups of constituents to meet with their legislators to discuss those issues, and you will get to see government in action. It is always an educational day for new and not so new members. Of course learning how laws are made is sometimes a little frustrating, but no more so than understanding the tax code-and we already deal with that in some form or another almost daily, even when not in the tax department. Our Grassroots Committee is new this year and chair Tom Parry is looking forward to our participation. We encourage all members to come. The Legislature responds to numbers of constituents and the more of us that show up, the more they will listen to us. And if you are worried about speaking to them, the group visit usually has an informal spokesperson that does most of the talking, so if you want to absorb the atmosphere rather than talk, you can. Please put the date on your calendar now.
Be Well, Do Good Work and Keep in TouchJuly 31st, 2009
Summer is a good time to relax and appreciate life. The pace is often a little slower. The sun is out and there are more opportunities to enjoy time with family and friends. Our chapter also has many committee activities and meetings that allow you to meet with your friends and colleagues, as well as learn something. I hope to connect with you at one of those events. Summer also is a good time to develop your exercise habit so it becomes ingrained by the time winter rolls around and we are less inspired to get outdoors for some exercise. My workout helps me keep the week in balance. It increases my energy and stamina. I encourage you to find some activity you enjoy and stick to it! For me, it’s just too easy to push exercise aside when something comes up. So I make an appointment with myself to ensure I see my commitment through. You might try that strategy too. As for keeping in touch, that is important on so many levels. We need to stay in touch with our clients, our friends and our families. There are friends we only contact once a year, with annual holiday cards, but I challenge you to send a mid-year note. You may be pleasantly surprised at the response you receive. It might be the beginning of a friendly correspondence. Try it! Our chapter also would like you to keep in touch. We are putting together a book—available after busy season—that will cover 60 years of our chapter’s history. We welcome your input. Why did you join the chapter? What have you gotten from chapter membership? Why do you attend meetings? If you don’t attend, what could we do to entice you to come? What could the chapter do for you in the future? How could we better serve you? Would you be willing to share some of your experiences with our chapter? Please contribute so we can let others know more about our unique chapter and all the fun we have. Of course, we especially want to include all the things we have accomplished, such as supporting victims of the Oakland firestorm; establishing our Low-Cost Education Day, the Divorce Mini-Conference and the Estate Planning Symposium; and awarding many scholarships to deserving students in the East Bay colleges and recognizing many excellent examples of leadership given to the community and to CalCPA over the years. In addition, our chapter has attended baseball games, had dances and mystery dinner theatre presentations, gone ice-skating and listened to some great speakers deliver outstanding presentations. Please feel free to contact me directly or to leave a comment below this blog entry with your thoughts and memories. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Please send me feedback anytime. I enjoy hearing your thoughts, suggestions and opinions and will do my best to respond to you promptly.
2EndeavorJune 30th, 2009
Both definitions can apply to us as CPAs. We try daily to do our best for our clients, our firms and our families. We have high standards and try to set a great example for others. Being a CPA is an honorable profession. We often have difficult situations presented to us that we must solve or work our way through. And we assist our clients to endeavor to make the best choices as well. When I was in school I never knew how much my psychology minor would come in handy as I work through the “financial psychology” part of the 1040 interviews each tax season! We all have those situations where we are the sounding board/listening post for clients as they assess their financial and family dynamic situations. We endeavor to help them as best we can—both individuals and businesses. At our July chapter meeting, we will honor the endeavors of our chapter’s past presidents and 40-year members. Before dinner we will host a new-member orientation so that all the new members embarking on their accounting careers can learn more about the endeavors of our chapter and some of our members. The new-member orientation is targeted to members who have joined since last December, when we held the last orientation, but everyone is welcome. If you are a new member and don’t receive a call or e-mail, please register online (so we have the proper head count). All are welcome! At our July meeting we also will celebrate our chapter’s 60th birthday with chapter stories and birthday cake at dinner, so if you want to find out a little more about our local organization, please attend! You can register online. If you have a story for us, please respond to this blog or to me and Valerie Haynes Perry will get back to you. She is compiling the stories for us and will gladly accept all information that is offered. At July’s meeting, CalCPA Chair Andrea Cope will join us for her official chapter visit. She will update us on CalCPA, talk about the organization’s first 100 years and look toward the next 100 years. CalCPA is celebrating its 100 years of endeavors on behalf of the CPA profession in California. 2Endeavor? It’s the name of the band that played at the installation dinner this year (see photos), with our chapter treasurer, AJ Major, as drummer. 2Endeavor is a wonderful rock ’n’ roll band. If you missed them, please do try to catch up with them at another event. What a great name and inspiration to us all! Let us all endeavor to do our very best, always. Hope to see many of you at our chapter events, and I’d love to hear how your endeavors are being planned and progressing!
Now Is the TimeMay 26th, 2009
When we decide that, it usually means that we decide to become more active in areas that give us greater personal pleasure, like getting together with friends and family for dinner or sports, going to church more frequently for the homily and friendships, taking up a new interest that has always intrigued us or traveling somewhere that calls to us. Mostly it often means taking more time for fun and laughter, rather than for so much serious business. Well, CalCPA can help. CPAs are used to serious business. All clients take their money seriously, especially when it seems to be melting away, as has been the case for a while now. No one ever wants to pay more taxes that they have to. Ours is also a constantly changing profession, so we must read and remain updated about a lot of technical information. Because the technical side of our business can get a little dry and boring, many of us look for ways to make it more fun. I suggest that including some of the chapter events in your life is a great way to keep up with those technical changes, learn about some of those serious topics and have some fun and activities at the same time. The chapter is starting its new fiscal year, and we are planning a full schedule of technical meetings related to accounting and auditing issues, including a major change to SSARS, tax issues, tech (computer) topics and QuickBooks, as well as hosting a full day of low-cost education. We will present scholarship awards to those just coming into the profession (to take our places so we can eventually retire) and hold meetings for those who are new to the profession and eager to learn and figure out in what area they want to specialize, since we all have to specialize to some degree. There will be a golf tournament, and for the last few years, we have hosted an evening of ice skating, so athletics are part of our offerings as well. We have social events where we thank our leaders, recognize our past presidents and celebrate the end of the traditional busy season. Spouses are often at those events. My husband is an engineer, not an accountant, and he looks forward to a number of the chapter meetings, because he has formed friendships with others who attend as well. This year marks our 60th year as a CalCPA chapter. We have a strong tradition of working with our members to provide all that we need for our professional lives, but we try to not take ourselves too seriously and to have fun while thinking, learning and playing. Please join us. The more the merrier. I have not been involved at the chapter level for that long, but I have been a CalCPA member for more than 30 years. I have found our chapter to be welcoming, helpful, thoughtful and genuine. It is nice to know whom I can call with a question—which is one of the benefits of active membership. The committees are ramping up activities, and this Bulletin will soon be filled with upcoming events. Please do attend and let us know your interests. We are here for you, the members, with the goal of helping you have a better time as a successful CPA. This year CalCPA celebrates its 100th birthday and is kicking off the festivities with the Annual Meeting and Gala in San Francisco June 18–19. We are lucky that this event is being held in our neighboring city, and I hope that many of you will be able to attend some or all of the activities. If you cannot attend, please plan to join us for our chapter’s Past Presidents Night July 21, when we will hear a little about our journey as a profession during these last 100 years and what we have to look forward to in the future.
Looking Forward to Our 60th YearMay 1st, 2009
We will start the new year with our officers’ installation, which will be held Wednesday, May 27, at Tilden Park and offer an evening of food, fun and rock ’n’ roll dancing in a lovely setting. This will be the perfect time to bring a date, spouse or significant other so they can meet some of the people you work and associate with. It is not a dressy evening, but it should be relaxing and enjoyable. I hope to see many of you there. We will have time to say thanks to Michele and her team, and to welcome this year’s leadership team. Let’s give them all a rousing send-off! The chapter’s technical committees, discussion groups and special interest groups are always looking for more members to attend their meetings, many of which offer CPE. Please take a moment to review the list and sign up for an interest group or two that captures your interest. Signing up will put you on the notice list for meetings and does not mean that you are on the planning/working committee—unless you want to be. I know this is a concern for many people, since we all have limited time (especially now as I write this at the end of March!). One of our new committees this year is a Grassroots Legislative Team. A few issues face the profession in Sacramento this year, including mandatory peer review, licensing issues with the 150-hour pathway as the only pathway to licensure and California license reciprocity with other states. We have visited all of our local legislative representatives, but we can always use more people to show up and demonstrate that we care. We also will need to visit each legislator more than once on each issue. Please let us know if you are interested in helping, since this affects all of us and our ability to practice as CPAs in public and private practice, industry and education. Often the timeframe for securing and holding a meeting with a local legislative office is short, which can make it tough for many people to attend. Therefore, having a pool of members to call upon is most helpful. Our chapter will celebrate CalCPA’s centennial during our Past President’s Night July 21, at which time we also will celebrate our chapter’s 60th birthday. Please plan to join us! More information will be forthcoming. I’m looking forward to this next year as your chapter president, and I’m honored that you voted to approve and elect our leadership team for next year. I hope to see you at the installation where we will have a chance to eat, drink, dance and be merry! There will be plenty of opportunity to mix and mingle with our chapter officers, committee chairs and members, so please join us as we start our 60th year as a CalCPA chapter. We all want to serve all our members and would like to get to know you better. This should be a great way to start. An easy way for you to plan to join us for all of our regular events is to purchase a Chapter Activity Passport (CAP) Card. It covers eight events, the seven dinner meetings in May, July, September, October, December, January and April, plus the chapter’s low-cost education event. The CAP Card costs $285, is fully transferable if you can’t attend and allows you the option to bring a guest to any of the above events for half the regular price. The card pays for itself quickly. For example, the low-cost education event includes eight hours of CPE, and the total cost of the card is less than the cost of any eight-hour Education Foundation class. It is a bargain even without the dinner meetings. If you attend everything, your cost is a little more than $35 for each event, and the regular price for any event isn’t less than that, so what a bargain! Once you sign up, you will just need to notify Soco to make your reservation for each event so she has the right count. But you’ll have no checks to write—it couldn’t be easier! Hope to see you soon!
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For those of you who missed it, our Jan. 28 event was wonderful. We learned what we might expect from the legislature this next year from Assembly member Mary Hayashi (Hayward), who chairs the Business & Professions Committee that oversees the California Board of Accountancy. Remember, peer review is now mandatory for those of us in public practice if we prepare any financial statements. Please note that the CBA has also changed the regulations on ethics courses.
