A Message from Our President

President Joel S. Smith, CMA, CPA
2007-2008 Season

Our Mission:

"To provide our membership with the education, network and tools to help them achieve their career goals and aspirations."

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!!

After much planning, we are happy to be in the process of rolling out our 2008-2009 Excel Programs. We are expanding our programs this year to include two certification programs as well as an expanded Saturday program in Oakland.

Our first certification program, The Excel Specialist, will be held at the training center at Sephora, Inc., at 525 Market Street. Our Excel Expert Series will be held there as well.

We plan to start the Specialist series on October 15, 2008. The Excel Expert Series will start in January. We plan to run each of these programs the last two weeks of each month. The idea is to run them as close together as possible so that you can get the most benefit from the program. At the same time, we want to be respectful of month-end closing obligations.

Each of these series will consist of 8 chapters and a test preparation series. The cost for these programs will be the purchase of the book and a tuition fee of $50.00 for IMA members and $150.00 for non IMA members. The book will be $40.00 for the Specialist book, and $45.00 for the Expert.

Be sure to look for the schedule in the events section of this newsletter. Please contact Stephen Tin at stephen.tin@gmail.com to register for one or both of these series.

For those non members who wish to participate, you are more than welcome. I would like to point out that with the cost of membership being $195.00 per year, you will more than make up this cost if you join both our Specialist and Expert sessions, not to mention the other benefits of membership. Please feel free to inquire if you wish to know more about membership and its benefits.

We are happy to announce that at long last, we have found a place that will host our Excel Certification Testing Center. The IMA’s newest partner, Ajilon Financial Staffing has agreed to allow us to use their office as an Excel Certification Testing Center. A few details still need to be worked out about how these tests will be administered. However, there will be a certification center in San Francisco.

Our CMA program is operating nicely, and only getting better as time passes. We are holding sessions on Thursday nights at Golden Gate University, and our new partner, Ajilon Financial Staffing will be allowing us to use one of their rooms on Tuesday evenings. If you are interested in taking the CMA test and would like to know more about our study programs, please contact Harry Massouda at harry@resourceanddesign.com, or by phone at 415-777-0202, ext. 249.

Now that the Excel programs seem to be coming together, there will be a more concerted effort to see that the Ethics Course gets under way. As I mentioned in the last newsletter, all of the pieces are in place, now all I have to do is set up a time and make the announcements. Please be on the lookout for these as I plan to make this a top priority.

As always, I look forward to seeing you at our functions this year.

This is your organization. You pay money to be a part of it.

This is your chapter. Make it work for you.

Joel S. Smith
President

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