Just cannot believe that 2011 went by so fast. We are at half point on our journey on the stairway to success and before we know it, our term will be finished and we will be handing it over to a new team. During the past six months we accomplished a lot of our goals. Many thanks to "The Council 11 Team" who have been busy helping our local associations with their membership drives, publicizing events, keeping members abreast of upcoming events and updating the website by making it more user friendly so members have accessible resources. Thank you all for your team spirit.

One of the most important qualities of our members is giving, and YES that is exactly what happened on the local front. During the winter season, many chapter members participated in adopting families, making charitable donations, caroling, feeding the homeless and under privileged, taking care of the elderly and many other activities. For more details on the individual community relations, please take time to read the newsletters from sister associations.

Now that the Holiday Season is past, we will continue our journey with more determination to accomplish the remaining of our challenging goals.

As you know our BUZZ word is "GROWTH" and yes indeed we are making every effort to GROW our membership. I am pleased to inform you that The California Council of IAIP had its first International Membership Drive in London on December 20th. We have now established a liaison in London who will help us recruit members from London. We will be posting pictures and more details about this on the Region VIII website shortly.

Our very own Mari Haliday, ARM, CPIW, Southern CA membership Liaison represented IAIP in London while on her travels during her long vacation, Mari will also be representing us in a similar meeting in Kenya in early February.

We are still working on finalizing our plans for a California Membership Drive. It is taking us longer than anticipated as we are trying to get a venue that will be central to all and low in costs. In the meantime, I ask you all too please continue recruiting and spreading the benefits of being an IAIP member.

I want to take this opportunity in wishing you all a very Happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. May all your dreams be fulfilled and may IAIP continue growing. Remember to keep buzzing...."GROWTH" while on your journey on the stairway to success.

In Fellowship,
Mitula Patel