Our kickoff meeting in September will be at Masterson’s Restaurant on Third Street. As each of you know, technology continues to advance at an exponential rate and staying current is difficult. Bob Boyle from Strothman and Company will discuss some of these technology advances with us. The October meeting is open at this time. We might have some online CPE opportunities available to members.

The November meeting will be at Kye’s, which is right off of Exit 0 on I-65 north in Jeffersonville. Mike Lockard from UPS will be speaking on Supply Chain Management. Mike is a former Louisville IMA Chapter President, a Council Director and a great speaker. This will be a joint meeting with four other professional organizations.

In December, we’ll be back at Masterson’s for an update on Downtown development. In January, we’ll meet for the first time at the Zorn Avenue/River Road location of Kingfish Restaurants. The timely topic will be a tax update.

In February, we’ll have our first student night in several years. Students from local universities will be invited as our guests to meet our members. These students are the future of our profession and you may want to do some preliminary scouting for your organization. The topic will be "Trends in Accounting." If your company wants to sponsor a student, your help will be greatly appreciated. The cost is only $20. This meeting will also be at Kingfish.

In March, we’ll have a Saturday morning technology workshop led by Dennis Branson. It will be at the McCauley Nicolas Building in Jeffersonville. We will be using the IUS Graduate Center Computer Lab. We will also be having a joint luncheon meeting with the Institute of Internal Audit on Credit Card Fraud presented by someone from the Secret Service.

As many of you know, the IMA requires that you complete a two-hour ethics CPE requirement to maintain your CMA certificate. To respond to this need, in April we will have a two-hour breakfast seminar on an ethics-related topic at the U of L University Club. It should conclude by 10:00 am, which would not significantly affect your workday.

In May, we are planning a special event at Caesar’s in Southern Indiana. We’ll have dinner and a speaker who will address the accounting side of gaming. As a frequent visitor to Caesar’s, I will advise you to not bring more money than you care to lose. Of course, you will always be a winner as an IMA member.

All-in-all, this will be a great year. We realize that you can’t always make it to every meeting, but we hope that everyone will find the time to come to several of the meetings. In addition to offering a wide variety of topics, we give you a chance to network with other professionals. Have a great year; everyone on the board looks forward to seeing you at an upcoming meeting.

Betty Brown, 2006-2007 President