President’s Letter 2024

 
Thank you for the opportunity to serve you as the Fort Worth Chapter President for the 2024-2025 program year! I am blessed with a great Board that is hard at work to bring you the best service for the upcoming year and I praise God for them and the support they provide me – I would not be able to do this without them! Thank you, Rochelle Jones, for your excellent presidential leadership last year!   We look to build on our successes during the past year as continue to develop and grow for the future to better serve the needs of our members.
 
As with past years, we have an excellent group of sponsors for the 2024-2025 season.   You will see and hear the sponsors also referred to as our “Strategic Partners.” These sponsors are truly our Strategic Partners as our programs would not be possible without their support.  The time, effort, and funding they invest in our chapter are invaluable!  In recognition of their contribution and to give our sponsors a voice in our organization, we have created a Sponsor Advisory Board. Kudos to Shannon Greene for not only enlisting and collaborating with our sponsors as sponsor chair on the Board but also for serving as the Chair of the newly formed Sponsor Advisory Board.  As our true partners, please consider our sponsors’ services first when your business needs require them.
 
2024-2025 Plan:
Our Board has been working diligently throughout the summer to plan for this upcoming year. Here are certain highlights for the 2024-2025 year:
 

• We will hold our full schedule of events with some exciting new events to add to the format.
• Our roster of engaging dinner speakers is committed and ready to go.
• We will offer over sixteen in-person CPE hours.
• Beyond CPE, as an organization focused on member engagement, we are planning networking events over coffee in the morning, a few new meetings at lunch, a marquee event involving a locally renown chef curated evening of dinner and drinks, and much more!
• We will continue working with the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) to offer further industry related networking and continuing education opportunities – Thanks to Eric Holleman for doing all you do on the SIGs!!

 
Membership Recruitment and Retention
Michelline Malley is the person in charge of our membership efforts and has done a fantastic job in recruiting and retaining new members over the years.  This year, membership recruitment and retention are our top priorities!  We have rolled-out a new social media strategy to attract new members by increasing the chapter’s exposure to financial leaders using LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.  The program is already having success in identifying and engaging prospective members.
Michelline and I, as assisted by our Board of Directors, and our Sponsor Advisory Board, will be following up with prospects identified through our Social Media sites.  Of course, recruiting new members is just the beginning.  We must create value by engaging with our members – people want a meaningful experience.  This is an imperative and I look for your help as we make all our members, particularly new ones, feel “at home.”  Please be assured that your Board is committed to “upping its game” in providing quality speakers and holding compelling events for our folks to have that meaningful experience.
 
We also welcome any feedback you may have that would help us in reaching membership goals as well as providing the value desired by our membership as they consider their renewal decision each year.
 
On this member engagement front, Tina Castillo, who deftly leads the Chapter’s Social Events, is planning another great Holiday Event – this time at Live! by Loews – Arlington, Texas. Tina also leads the Chapter’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts whereby our programming for our February meetings has a DEI theme, among other things.
 
Members in Transition
We will continue to work with FENG to benefit our members in transition. If you are in transition, please make sure you reach out to us. Please share any opportunities you hear of that would be suitable for your peers with Clayton Stockdall ([email protected]), our Career Services Chair and with Britton Pavlic ([email protected]), who leads The FENG meetings.
 
Area Universities
We have the pleasure of having Dr. Marc Neri on our Board, who is also a professor at TCU. The highlights of our work with local universities include:

• Providing contributions to eligible students to help them achieve their education goals,
• Our speakers will select one of our area universities to contribute what we would have normally given to the Fort Worth library,
• We are considering inviting more students to our events and thinking through how we could make presentations in their schools, and
• We are engaging with professors at the universities about providing content for and serving as speakers during our CPE presentations.

 
Mentorship Program
One of our board members, who will remain anonymous at this point, and I are working to start a mentoring program this year.  We are beginning to engage other FEI Texas chapters that have mentorship programs, as well as FEI National, to help us make this endeavor a reality.  More to come!
 
Social Media
We have retained a social media consulting firm that is in the process of completely rebranding our presence on social media.  We have a new site on LinkedIn as well as on Instagram and Facebook.  Please stay tuned as we roll out and effectuate this rebranding strategy!
 
Here are the links to our new Social Media sites:
 
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/feifortworth
 
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/fei-fort-worth
 
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/feifortworth/
 
Thanks also to our board members and please allow me to emphasize their accomplishments again – because they work hard to deliver a great program each year. Not mentioned above but contributing greatly – Lee McFarlain (Professional Development), Mike McConathy (Treasurer), Phil Mangone (Website/Tech). None of what we accomplished last year – the successful execution of our dinners, CPE, events, factory tours and socials, not-to-mention our university outreach, diversity, equity, and inclusion program, and sponsor relations – would have been possible without their hard work. And let us remember that they are regular FEI members just like you and me who have volunteered to make our organization better. We need more volunteers as new areas of need emerge each year!  All you must do is reach out to me or any of the board members and we can tell you how you can help. We would love to have you.
 
Special thanks to Dessie Cunningham, who supports all the board and makes much of this possible and makes our events run far more smoothly.
 
Our commitment is to make it fun and educational. With your help, we will succeed, and I look forward to seeing you all at an upcoming meeting!