Region 1 Meeting

Thursday, February 17, 2005

M & T Bank, 1 Fountain Plaza

Submitted by Leigh M. Fiorenzo, Region 1 Secretary

 

Attendance:     

AMS                                                    Shane Rauh, Steve Wynne

Bank One                                             Michael Woody

Buffalo State College                            Warren Hoffman, Stephanie Kindzia

Canisius College                                   Mary Koehneke, Lea Nicholson, Michele A. Rizzo

Citibank                                               Debi Mansour, Laura Worley

Citizens Bank                                       Jean Fura

Daemen College                                   Jeffrey Pagano, Julie Taima

Ed America                                          Holly Zaglaniczny

EdFund                                                Dan Dreves

Fifth Third Bank                                   Marc Woolf

Hilbert College                         Beverly Chudy, Julie Lanski

Houghton College                                 Marianne Loper, Troy Martin, Beth Pocock

HSBC                                                  Sherrie Sheppard

Jamestown Business College                 Diane Sturzenbecker

Keybank                                              Kathleen O’Connell

Medaille College                                   Rachel Barker, Phyllis Hart, Jeanne Mossios

M & T Bank                                        Leigh M. Fiorenzo, Brian Levy, Jim Vallee

NCCC                                                 Kim Buerger, Kathy Michalski, Robin Ray

Nellie Mae                                           Abbey Linsner

Nelnet                                                  Carrie Newman

Next Student, Inc.                                Ingrid Capron

Niagara University                                Martie Howell

NYSHESC                                          Bonnie Evans

St. Bonaventure                                    Mary Jo Brockel

TG                                                       Steve Flores, Brenda Smith

Trocaire College                                   Terry Adamczyk, Allison Germano, Janet McGrath

UB                                                       Joseph Alongi, Lisa Cino, Brent McEnroe, Kellie Kostek, Yvonne Nagel, Kevin Ryan, Amanda Wirth

Villa Maria College                               SM Diane Miller

Wachovia                                             Karen Blankenburg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Treasurer’s Report (Rachel Barker)

*Previous Balance $2877.77

      *Debits:

$112                Auxiliary Services (September Meeting)

$250                Harry’s Harbour Front Deposit for Holiday Party

$25                  Barnes & Noble (Holiday Gift)

$2                    Check Image Return Fee

$5.37               Holiday Cards

$2096.96         Harry’s Harbour Front Final Payment for Holiday Party

$100                Deposit to Classics V Support Staff Workshop

 

     

      *Credits:

                  $1390              Contributions for Holiday Party

                  $540                Contributions for Holiday Party

                  $765                Revenue Check

 

     

      *Current Balance:

                  $2981.44

 

NYSFAAA Membership (Carrie Newman for Katrina Delgrosso)

      *Printed out database and passed it around for member’s review

      *Please let Carrie know if you are having issues with the list serv

      *Carrie will be working directly with Katrina to make any demographic changes

      *Please go on-line if you have a current membership to update your demographics

      *Carrie doesn’t have an actual updated headcount at this point

 

Committee Updates

CAAN (Kevin Ryan/Sherrie Sheppard)

*Kevin and Jennifer Garey will be taking over the Committee

*Thank you to all the volunteers who answered the e-mails during the first

week of January:

 Mary Jo Brockel, Bonnie Evans, Jennifer Garey, Martie Howell, Mary Koehneke,

*The first 2 days the e-mail service was unavailable due to technical errors

*This service is being evaluated through exec counsel and whether it is worth offering in the future

 

Support Staff Workshop (Abbey Linsner)

*Workshop is Friday, February 18 at Classics V and there are 46 people registered *There is a great representation of most schools in the Region 1 area

*The Committee has done a great job and the members include:

 

Sarah Izzo, Co-chair

Abbey Linsner, Co-chair

Rachel Barker

Karen Blankenburg

Stephanie Kindzia

Andy Leardini

Janet McGrath

Darcie Stephens

Sandy Stevenson

Amanda Wirth

 

*The Agenda topics are:  Federal Update, FERPA, Safety in the Workplace, Identity Theft, Workplace Etiquette and Fun/Games

*This year’s workshop is featuring a sports theme in which attendees are encouraged to wear their favorite sports team attire

     

Early Awareness (Kim Buerger)

*The committee primary focus is to get information to parents and students early *Committee:

Nancy Pawlak - chair

Members:

Kim Buerger-NCCC, Laura Burns-Wells, Anne DelPlato-Nelnet, LaSonya Griggs-St Rose, Brian Ghanoo-Fordham, Ann Higgins HESC, Susan Nesbitt-Perez – CICU, Irwin Silver-Devry, Suzanne Tang-Pace

 

*Working on old brochure/book mark and the theme is “Sooner Than you Think”  *These items were last revised in 1999

*Working through PTA to get information out to the community and distribute at the state fair

*They have 3 projects planned

*If you have any ideas please contact Kim at Kbuerger@niagaracc.suny.edu

 

Government Relations  (Jim Vallee)      

*The Government Relations Committee, at the time of the Region 1 meeting, consisted of:

 

Beth Post (Union College) and Jim Vallee, Co-chairs

Susan Nesbitt-Perez (CICU)

Bill Cavin (HSBC)

Joel Castiglione (Hudson Valley CC)

Wayne Harewood (Kingsborough CC)

 

A few more folks have joined the committee since our meeting:

 

Martie Howell (Niagara University)

Shane Rauh (AMS)

Robin Ray (Niagara CCC)

Christine Sears (Bryant and Stratton, Syracuse)

 

 

       *The Committee is accepting new members if you are interested in participating

                   *The Committee alerts NYSFAAA members of state and national news

       *They get their news from NASFAA and pass it on to NYSFAAA

       *They organized recent exec counsel lobby held in Albany

       *Formulate response letters for Judi Mullon (president)

       *Expect things to be going on for reauthorization

 

            Exec Counsel (Kevin Ryan)

            Please see attached minutes sent to me from Kevin Ryan:

NYSFAAA EXEC COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES

FEBRUARY 6 – 8, 2005

ALBANY, NY

 

 

TREASURER’S REPORT – Samantha Veeder

Sam will be sending letters by 3/15/05 to statewide chairs to help chairs plan for next year’s budget (only CAAN committee went over budget last year); she’ll want response back from chairs by 4/15/05

She’s mailing a letter to vendors in mid May, asking what they’d like to sponsor from sponsored items list.  This is the first year that general sponsorship items can be combined with conference sponsorship;  she’ll work with conference committee to determine how much needs to be raised.  Sam passed out Sponsorship Category list and raised idea of eliminating the NYSFAAA Directory from the list and replacing it with sponsorship of ads in the Web letter (EASFAA gets a lot of revenue from their Web letter sponsorship).

Sam is missing quarterly reports for period ending 12/30/04  from Regions 1,2,5,6,7, and 8 and the regional treasurers have been notified

Sam has list of unpaid Conference 2004 attendees; discussion followed.

MOTION:  ANY STATEWIDE COMMITTEE/CHAIR THAT’S TRIED UNSUCCESSFULLY TO COLLECT OVERDUE FEE/BILL WILL TURN THE UNPAID ACCOUNT OVER TO THE TREASURER AND THEN IF NECESSARY, TO THE ATTORNEYS FOR COLLECTION AND THE MEMBER/APPLICANT WOULD BE BLOCKED FROM ATAC SERVICES AS WELL AS BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ATTORNEY FEES.  VEEDER/BARLAAM; MOTION ACCEPTED

Sam brought up issue of one particular region which has been delinquent with providing treasury reports/records.  Sam has discussed with the Exec Council rep. from the region.  Discussion followed. 

MOTION:  REGIONS WITH DELINQUENT TREASURY RECORD REPORTS WILL NOT RECEIVE THEIR REVENUE SHARING.  VEEDER/WARREN; MOTION ACCEPTED

 

MEMBERSHIP REPORT – Joan Warren

Currently 1120 members

She emailed all former members around the New Year and invited them to re-enroll and did get a few replies and people who did re-enroll

Developed new web form to let regions take attendance at regional meetings that Membership V.P. can use to reach out to non-members

Since the Dec.2004 EC meeting, non-paids have been purged and access has been cut off

Joan is proposing that anyone who pays dues after March 30th would have their dues go to the next year’s membership

She’s still cleaning up bad data (some lenders were noted as school s, some public schools listed as private, etc)

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOMENT REPORT – Karen Price-Scott

Had successful FERPA workshop at Manhattanville; attendance was lower than expected; trainer was excellent and evaluations indicated the workshop was necessary and should be repeated but due to low attendance, Karen is not sure we should proceed with other sites.  Discussion followed with Joan and Maria who both attended agreeing that it was great and thought perhaps the time of the year affected turnout.  Judy suggested scheduling 3 more sites and Gail suggested scheduling 1 more downstate site at the Tri-Regional.  There would be 1 in Albany, 1 in Rochester and 1 in Manhattan.  Karen will monitor responses as she schedules these.

College Board co-sponsored some tax workshops; an advanced workshop has taken place and now one for beginners is being planned; Karen is working with Scott Lewis of the College Board.  Lucy Manzo, downstate rep. for College Board wanted NYSFAAA to contribute $1500 per workshop.  Karen thought that was too costly and had emailed Judi about it.  The cost was to sponsor lunch.  It was agreed this was too costly since College Board could not give definitive answer on how many attendees there’d be. 

Scheduled  tax workshops sponsored exclusively by NYSFAAA (with Jim Briggs as trainer) and these are: 2/24 in NYC at Fordham, 3/1 in Albany and 3/4 in Garden City.

Karen will continue to work with Scott Lewis of College Board on possibly co-sponsoring the Syracuse area tax workshop (Nancy indicated she heard it was set for March 5th at Lemoyne)

Judi advised Karen that something needs to go on website soon

 

CONFERENCE 2004 FINAL REPORT – Scott Atkinson

Scott provided a hardcopy, condensed report that summarized his committees findings/recommendations.  He also provided a full report in disc format and a photo summary on disc.  Short discussion followed on the difficulty in finding hotels large enough to host the annual conference

CONFERENCE 2005 UPDATE – Gail Drapala

Lender Night In to be held at overflow hotel

There will be a Novice Reunion with a fee on Monday

Scheduled Scholarship golf tourney as well as yoga and self-defense workshops for people arriving early for Novice

Roberto Clemente, Jr. to be on site to raise scholarship funds

CONFERENCE 2006 UPDATE – Sue Aldrich

The theme is “Mirroring Excellence” (take off on Mirror Lake)

One main speaker has been contracted (Ethan Zohn of Survivor fame)

 

SCHOOL COUNSELOR WORKSHOP REPORT – Pat Johnson

Approximately 1040 counselors participated at 13 sites

Evaluations indicated workshops well received

Earlier planning meeting held in March (vs. June) worked well

Discussion followed on mailings that go to counselors and suggestions were ma de to Pat that she will take back to committee for planning

Point made that regions need to designate their School Counselor Chairs by March

EARLY AWARENESS COMMITTEE REPORT – Nancy Pawlak

Committee  wants to focus on elementary and middle schools; they want to work through PTA organizations and have found a website to use to contact PTA’s statewide.

Have 3 projects planned

PAST-PRESIDENT’S REPORT – Anne Barton

Discussion on Nominations and Elections occurred after review of Past-President’s Report.  We can only have 1 electronic election happening at a time with ATAC so we’re going to have to schedule appropriately.

This is year that all regions need to elect/re-elect Exec Council representatives (new representatives take office Oct.2005) so regions need to time/schedule elections based on that

Earl Tretheway, as Communications Chair, is the person that regions need to contact to set election schedule; Earl suggested that Council set a schedule up

Election cost per region is $275; it’s up to the region whether it wants to also elect/re-elect other regional officers at same time; there is still an option for regions to conduct elections via paper

PRESIDENT’S REPORT – Judi Miladin

Met again with John D’Agati of Sen. Lavalle’s office; one of budget’s TAP proposals involves increasing academic standards in early semesters.  They discussed that as a means for tightening up TAP funding and seemed to agree that was a move in right direction

Website issues are still ongoing; getting ready for elections and event regi strations

Set up conference calling capabilities for committees, with vendor.   Let Judi know if you need access to conference calling capability.  Nancy used it with Early Awareness Comm. and it worked well.  The bill would go directly to treasurer, along with an itemization of who used it.  A meeting can be taped for an additional charge.  This can be used within regions.

Has had a few more inquiries on whether we wanted to do College Goal Sunday; our concern is that it comes so close to SUNY Financial Aid Day.  Earl suggested that if we’re going to rehaul/re-evaluate CAAN, that perhaps we can consider this venture.  The College Goal Sunday issue will be referred to the CAAN Committee

Brent McEnroe (of U. Buffalo) was winner of Easfaa scholarship.  Judi has completed paperwork for that

New federal legislative proposals; there are a lot of federal proposals that need to be discussed and Judi is wondering if we need to rethink the necessity of having an April meeting.  Sam notes there are some financial issues also (such as development).  It was agreed that we will have an April meeting on April 7-8 th in the Albany/Saratoga area.

NASFAA in NYC over July 4th; Judi has been talking to Howard Enton, the Conference Chair.  He’d like our support for Community Service project (funding books for schools of underprivileged children in NYC); Howard approached Judi about NYSFAAA making a donation.

MOTION:  TO MAKE A $1000 DONATION TO THE NASFAA COMMUNITY SERVICE BOOK FUND.  BARLAAM/DRAPALA; MOTION APPROVED.

Kevin suggested that we may want to consider having a similar community service initiative as part of our annual conference.  Judi advised that that idea should be taken back to future conference committees.  Clair is on the NASFAA Conference committee that’ s overseeing the community service book project

Judi would like to do some type of special NYSFAAA gift to NASFAA attendees; we thought that perhaps it could be collaborative effort with HESC.  Judi will investigate/research further with Mike Williams.

Joan and Karen indicated that the NASFAA Committee is in need of volunteers and people can volunteer through the website.  They’re hoping for several NY/NJ volunteers.

 

GOVERNMENT RELATIONS COMMITTEE UPDATE – Beth Post and Jim Vallee

Worked on NYSFAAA’s response to Governor’s budget; committee has reviewed the full budget proposal

Discussion took place on the budget proposals

 

SMITH BARNEY PRESENTATION – Rob Bell

It had been 2 years since last update

We went over report and discussed 2 investment accounts

More discussion to follow on moving more money into scholarship account

Kevin raised idea of increasing our scholarship amounts; consensus was that scholarship account is strong enough to handle that

NOVICE REPORT – Lisa Simpson

Everything is on the website

Looked at Manhattanville site again last week

Lisa proposed capping off attendance at 120, since it’s supposed to be a week of bonding and small group sessions

She’d like to keep the cost at $580, which includes $35 membership and that attendees must pay membership as part of attending

Joan is waiting on ATAC to provide a mockup of on-line Novice registration; April 1st is the target date to have Novice On-line Registration available

MOTION:  TO CAP NOVICE ATTENDANCE AT 120 REGISTRANTS.  ALDRICH/BARLAAM; MOTION ACCEPTED.

Dates are set for June 4 through 10th, 2005.

 

COMMUNICATIONS ISSUES DISCUSSION

Message is “use the website!”

Non applicants for membership can no longer even see list serves

Issue of limiting access to Web letter to only paid members was raised

MOTION:  TO LIMIT ACCESS TO THE WEB LETTER TO ONLY PAID MEMBERS.  WARREN/RYAN; MOTION APPROVED.  Judi will contact Paula at ATAC for implementation.

 Council agreed that job postings should go through Earl (as is currently done)

Issue was raised of making funds available to regions that want to use Ev ents Management module to run elections, and/or to schedule events.  We need to decide which events we’d cover and which events regions would be charged for.  Discussion followed.  It was noted that the cost for a regional election was $275 and cost to set up events management is $325 and each time events management is used, the cost is $125.  Benefits for using these functions were listed as saving of postage, being able to access list of registrants for events, ability to print nametags and registration coordination.  More discussion followed.

MOTION:   NYSFAAA WILL ABSORB ALL COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH UNLIMITED USE OF THE WEBSITE BY REGIONS FOR CURRENT YEAR AND FOR 05-06 YEAR; TO BE RE-EVALUATED IN BUDGET CYCLE FOR 06-07.  VEEDER/KARWOWSKI; MOTION APPROVED.

The idea of using the Conference 2005’s Cyber Café for NYSFAAA website training for members was raised and consensus was that it would be an excellent opportunity

 

OLD BUSINESS

Lifetime Membership issue raised by Joan Warren.  Linda Bridgewater has asked for clarification from Joan as to whether certain individuals have attained that classification

Judi researched the issue by asking different members and got different answers from members

Need to be sure that people understand there’s a difference between retiree designation and lifetime member designation and lifetime achievement award winners.  We think the 3 are being confused.  Discussion continued on giving the lifetime member designation only to lifetime achievement award winners.  Lifetime members would be charged no dues.  From past records, only Joe Sciame, Irv Bodofsky and George Chin are lifetime achievement award winners.

MOTION:  LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP DESIGNATION SHOULD BE OFFERED ONLY TO LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENTS.  RYAN/DRAPALA; MOTION APPROVED.

 

 

 

School, Lender, and Guarantor News/Issues

*Medaille College is looking for a Director of Financial Aid, please contact Jeannie    Mosso

*On March 18 SUNYFAP is conducting training at GCC (brief presentation, round table on 4 topics)

*Carrie Newman has left UB and is now working for Nelnet

*Dr. Jim Ross is now the New President at NYSHESC and Corrine Biviano is the new Executive President

*Bonnie Evans is now manager of customer communication center but she will remain our Region representative

*A New Fifth Third Bank will be opening near Medaille College

*Laura Worley:  the web letter will be coming out on Friday and the next edition is in May.  Please e-mail Laura with any promotions, office updates or articles for the next edition.

*Summer Outing:  Start thinking about ideas and bring them to the our next meeting in April

*Kevin Ryan asked Jim Ross or Corrine Biviano if they would be interested in coming to a Region 1 meeting

 

HESC Update (Bonnie Evans)

 

*Please see attached notes submitted by Bonnie Evans:

 

 

HESC UPDATE

            February 2005

 

 

 

HESC Senior Management Changes

 

Gov. George E. Pataki recently announced he will nominate

Dr. James Ross to head HESC. Ross previously served as assistant to former HESC president Michael Wilton. He is also the former president of the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities

(CICU).

 

Corinne M. Biviano, the former executive deputy director of the state Consumer Protection Board (CPB), has also been appointed executive vice president of HESC. Biviano replaces Pierre Alric, who left the agency to work in the private sector. Before joining the CPB, she was the executive deputy director of the Governor’s Office for Small Cities.

 

Ross and Biviano will be meeting with NYSFAAA’s Executive Council during its February meeting in Albany, and they are looking forward to working with the New York State financial aid community during the new year.

 

HESC Customer Relations Changes

 

Bonnie Evans was recently promoted to the position of manager, Customer Communication Center, and Joanne Horn was promoted to the position of regional service manager in NYSFAAA Region IV.

 

New HESC Telephone Option for School Administrators

 

During these days of inclement weather, HESC would like to provide a reminder regarding our new telephone option and service, which provides up-to-date information regarding the status of scheduled NYSFAAA regional events. NYSFAAA regional coordinators/designated staff can contact HESC at (518) 474-2715 anytime after 6:00 a.m. (M-F), or via

e-mail at www.nysfaaaupdate@hesc.org if an event has to be cancelled because of inclement weather or other reasons. HESC will then post the information under a new phone option that can be obtained by calling HESC

at (1-888 697-4372) and selecting “Quick Touch Selection *8" under the "Financial Aid Professionals" menu.

 

05-06 TAP Process

 

HESC recently released a Financial Aid Services Bulletin, “Grants and Scholarships Processing Improvements for 2004-2005 and 2005-2006”, which describes HESC’s Anytime-TAP-on-the-Web process.

 

HESC now offers all students the opportunity to apply for TAP-on-the-Web and avoid the paper application process. Applicants who miss the Web link from the online FAFSA, or applied using a paper FAFSA, will now have an additional opportunity to apply online for TAP. In mid- January, HESC started sending e-mails to students who completed the FAFSA process for 2005-06.  The e-mail directs students to HESC’s Web site where they can obtain a PIN and complete the 05-06 Anytime-TAP-on-the-Web Application.

 

Students who do not have a valid e-mail address will receive a postcard directing them to the Web site. Many students have responded to the e-mail, obtained a PIN and completed the Anytime TAP-on the-Web.  This is in addition to more than 3,000 students who went directly to TAP-on-the Web from FAFSA-on-the Web.

 

Students will receive the e-mail or postcard and be able to complete the Anytime TAP-on-the Web if they:

have a valid EFC

reported they are NYS residents and reported at least one New York State college

 

During the first week of February, HESC started to process 2005-2006 TAP applications, with more than 16,000 electronic applications processed the first day.

 

 

 

Anticipated date of TAP Rosters, Remittance Advices, Accounting Documents and Student Status Listings for February 2005

 

February 3

2003-04 Remittance Advice/Accounting Documents

 

 
 

February 4

2004-05 Remittance Advice

2004-05 Student Status Listing

 

February 8

2005-06 Student Status Listing

 

February 11

2004-05 Remittance Advice/Accounting Documents

2004-05 Student Status Listing

 

February 16

2004-05 Roster

 

February 18

2004-05 Remittance Advice

2004-05 Student Status Listing

 

February 25

2004-05 Remittance Advice/Accounting Documents

2004-05 Student Status Listing

 

The 2004-05 Student Status Listing will be run on each Friday until July

2005.  Continuing until August 2005, a 2004-05 Remittance Advice will be

available each Friday.

 

Files will be available for retrieval the following morning. Payments will

be mailed or electronically transferred within three to five weeks of the

date of the associated Roster or Accounting Documents.

 

Reports will be available for printing and viewing at:

https://web.hesc.org/hescweb/main.  If you are authorized to access this

data, you will be required to logon with your HESC User ID and password.

For assistance in obtaining a User ID and password, contact HESC’s Help

Desk at 1-888-NYS-HESC (1-888-697-4372).

 

The Default Manager

 

HESC recently enhanced their default management programs by providing a new Web based default management tool, “The Default Manager” that enables school default management staff to identify, contact and track former student loan borrowers by specific cohort default rate year.

 

For information regarding this new default management initiative, contact HESC’s Advocate Unit at 1-888 215-0196, or via e-mail at . You can also go to and click on “”Lower your cohort default rate with HESC’s Default Manager”- listed in the “What’s New” section.

 

HESC Unveils New Web Site

 

HESC recently unveiled its new Web site. The site was enhanced based on feedback from schools, students and parents. As previously announced, HESC periodically changes the “look” of its public Web site. As a result of HESC Web text changes, lenders and HESC participating schools who need guidance on student loan wrap text should contact HESC’s Solutions Team, who will review the text for accuracy and completeness.

 

The Solutions Team can be reached by contacting HESC’s Customer Communication Center at 1-888-NYSHESC, (1-888-697-4372) and selecting “Quick Touch” selections 2, 2, 3, 1.

 

HESC Offering PLUS Credit Checks

 

HESC recently released its new PLUS Credit Check Process, a service that will be phased in over the next six months. A detailed bulletin describing the new process, “HESC Offering PLUS Credit Checks”, can be viewed by visiting the “College Administrators and Lenders” section on , and clicking on “Transaction Support”, “Bulletins and Announcements”, and “Loan Program Bulletins”.

 

 

 

 

Coming Soon - Empire EFT 

 

Contracts for the new “Empire EFT” process will be available shortly. The Empire EFT disbursement process is another option for receiving loans guaranteed by HESC and will give schools complete control of the timing of disbursements.

 

Each day a school will be able to determine which loans should be disbursed, tell HESC its choices and receive the funds the next day. For more information regarding this new disbursement option, contact HESC’s Solutions Team by calling 1-888-NYSHESC, (1-888-697-4372) and selecting “Quick Touch” selections 2, 2, 3, 1.

 

Reminder - Doc Trac Services

 

DocTrac is an exclusive service for school officials and provides a dedicated e-mail address and fax number for documents in need of special handling by HESC. Upon receipt of a special handling document, HESC will respond via e-mail, notifying the aid administrator of the receipt of the document along with a unique tracking number. Examples of documents requiring special handling: NYS Residency, income, and financial independence documentation.

 

School officials should forward special handling documents to: doctrac@hesc.org, fax number (518) 473-1414.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Presentation: Public Speaking

Steve Wyme, presenter and Shane Rauh, moderator (both from AMS)

(Sponsored by the Training Committee)

 

Summary:  The session provided ways to identify strengths and opportunities to become a successful public speaker.  Identified how to create a successful speech and how skilled speakers present with confidence.  Also, identified three steps to create a successful presentation.  The three-step solution was reviewed in detail, which included:  1) Be prepared, 2) Think “On Your Feet”, and 3) Learn When It’s Over.  Five public speaking “Don’ts” were also emphasized:  1) Don’t begin with “Hi, my name is”, 2) Don’t Make a false start, 3) Don’t over judge your audience’s facial expressions, 4) Don’t Go overboard, and 5) Don’t Pretend to know something you don’t.  No one can ever become a perfect public speaker but with practice you can develop your skills throughout your lifetime.

 

 

 

 

Next Meeting:  March 29

Tax Workshop with Jim Briggs

Houghton College, West Seneca Campus

810 Union Road

West Seneca, NY 14224

 

Please send your registration to Rachel Barker by March 1, 2005

 

 

The April meeting is scheduled for Thursday, April 14, 2005, at Buffalo State College (parking permits required – contact Leah Nicholson or Anne DelPlato to get a permit).  The presentation will be FISH!  Please mark your calendars.