Your THCC Board met this past month for our annual Mid-Year Retreat. It is a time for the Board to come together and assess our business plan, calendar, and budget amongst other things. It is a halfway checkpoint to see how we’ve done and what we want to accomplish for the remainder of the fiscal year. Our chapter’s funding comes entirely from you, our members. We receive a portion of your membership dues, and we make income charging for our events and education series. By far, it is our sponsors that generate the most revenue, and we are eternally grateful for our year-round sponsors. As a chapter, we hope to make money or break even on our events by charging just enough to cover expenses, but not too much so that it is a financial burden to attend. In a year like this, it has been hard to predict how many will come to an in-person event, how many will attend a virtual event, and what will members pay to do either of those. Honestly, we have lost money on some key events like our annual Texas Education Conference. We have decided as a Board, that we will not have a TEC in 2022, and will take some time for the TEC Committee to reimagine the conference for future years.

But what I want to tell you about our financial circumstances is that we are strong as a chapter. Thanks to this Board and past Boards, we have a very healthy savings invested in a managed account. These reserve funds can carry us for many years allowing our chapter to remain viable, even with the downward slide of membership. As chapter President I want to thank all of the past Board members for their conservative thinking and fiduciary duty to this chapter. You had the wisdom to set aside funds for a rainy day.

We also discussed the state of membership. Over the last two years, we have lost members as people lost their jobs or moved outside of the industry. Happily, we have gained many new members, especially lately, but not enough to make up the gap of those we have lost. Our hope is that as our industry continues to make a comeback, that we see more and more new members. We have decided to name February as the Share the Love month at THCC. We have some fantastic membership deals this month, and it is a great time to renew or invite a friend/colleague to join. We will launch a Member Care initiative to check in with our members and see how you are doing. We will also spearhead an Austin and San Antonio sales blitz to visit suppliers and talk to them about joining our chapter. Right now, we have a survey launched that asks just a few questions on what you want to see, learn, do at THCC. Please take a few moments to fill this out so that we can provide programming you want. On February 22nd , MPI’s global membership satisfaction survey will come out. Please also fill out this survey as one of our key metric goals is tied to this survey. Metric goals allow our chapter to win incentives from MPI Global for things like free memberships that we can award.

I am excited to say that we are going to have an in-person Education and Networking events in March and in May. We are also planning a GMID watch party on April 7th so that we can participate in MPI’s global broadcast. We will have a live streamed segment where we can shout out to all of the other MPI chapters around the world. And, last but not least, our End of the Year Celebration will be on June 9th. If you’ve read this far, I will share a secret, you won't want to miss it! Save the Dates and registration details to come for all of these events. Personally, I am so excited to have four in-person events to look forward to. I hope to see you there!