Greetings again. You know the old saying; “Time flies when you’re having fun?” Well, it turns out that it moves surprisingly quickly when you’re hunkered down in a pandemic, too. Thinking back on it, our chapter’s board had just completed our Strategic Planning Meeting in February  -- we had all these grandiose plans for how we were going to organize ourselves and unleash all these great projects on the world in 2020…and a number of our members then went on Paul Daymond’s annual Washington DC tour. While there, I remember spending time in the situation room at FEMA and watching the first COVID-19 numbers pop up on the board in front of us. We returned to Birmingham in early March, and well, basically that’s where everything that we once thought was normal and ordinary ceased to be. And now – suddenly -- we are rounding the final turn and heading into the homestretch of 2020. It’s been extraordinary in every sense of the word. I think I can safely say that when 2020 is behind us, few if any will look back on it fondly.

But that’s where we stand for now. Largely still. Continuing to exercise the greatest amount of caution, trying to keep everyone safe and healthy. But as for what lies ahead…we simply don’t know for certain, but we have to plan as though a return to “normal” will eventually occur. With that in mind, this is the season that the chapter begins to prepare for the coming year. Very soon, we expect to meet with the Birmingham Field Office’s executive staff and negotiate a Memorandum of Agreement to guide our efforts in 2021, and we have undertaken the nominating process for a slate of officers to begin their terms in January, 2021. We’ve begun to lay the groundwork for our (Zoom) Annual Meeting, which should be held in early December (details to follow).

We have been hamstrung by the inability to host public gatherings and events this year, and it hurts us in an important way: we haven’t been able to interact with the membership in the way we like, and we have thus been unable to discuss the opportunities for active members to step into open board seats. So I would like to take this opportunity to invite members in good standing who would like to become more active to consider joining our board of directors. We will have several seats open due to departures from the board based on term limits, and we will need to fill those seats with active and enthusiastic members. If you would be interested in taking a more active role in the chapter, please contact me directly at: president@fbicaaa-bham.org to discuss the idea in depth. I’d love to hear from you.

Be well,

Paul H. Franklin, President                                                                                        FBI Birmingham CAAA