Hey Fellow Alumni! On behalf of the Board, I wanted to check in and let you all know that the CCAA is alive and kickin'! As Tater mentioned, we had our first CCAA Board meeting on Feb. 1-2 at Chanco. Chuck will be posting the minutes, so I won't go into too more than a quick recap as to what we did. We had a great weekend, and the board really connected as a group. This is a great asset when you have to work together! We have lots of wonderful people involved and they all have terrific ideas and a heap of motivation. I am confident that we will accomplish our goals.

Our main issue was simply the organization of our association. As any of you who have had experience with setting up a non-profit know, the initial job of obtaining this status is quite laborious. Fortunately, we were able to come up with a plan to help us move forward and it seems as though we are on the right track. We hope to have this finished in the next few months. Once this is done we should be able to start collecting dues and building on our membership. The advantage of having non-profit status will be that all of YOUR donations are tax-deductible.

A big chunk of the meeting was devoted to our bylaws. Yes, we voted on them once, without the aid of personal contact and group discussion. Since the initial vote we have had some great input from alumni and have, as a board, voted on and made simple revisions. These bylaws will once again be voted on by the members of CCAA as a whole sometime in the near future.

A few of the less pressing issues we addressed were the Alumni Sleepover this fall, the committees we need to establish (we'll be asking for volunteers later!), and the maintenance of our website. We were also able to brainstorm some fundraising ideas, which Chuck will explain later in further detail.

As Boomer mentioned, our meeting ended with a visit to Annual Council. We were more than happy to show our support for Chanco, and we were even able to make a few contacts with people willing to support our group.

I am so thankful that I once again have the chance to be a part of Chanco, and am really looking forward to working with the CCAA Board. We are all looking forward to our next meeting in April. Until then, check your emails and the website for information regarding the bylaws and fundraising, and continue to keep Chanco in your prayers.

Love and peace,

Ann