First I would like to thank Mike Vasile for arranging the March dinner meeting at the Maple Tree Inn. All reports I have heard said it was a great time. We hope to do more meeting of this kind soon.

It is Sunday afternoon April 2, 2006 and I am realizing that it is exactly five years since we all gathered at the Hyatt and The Rochester Riverside Convention Center for 2001 A Culinary Odyssey. I am reminded of how things have changed in that time and how thing are very much the same. A lot of our members are in new jobs since then. Mike, Sam and Trish have started business of their own. Greg, Richard and Kevin have all left the Convention Center. John has been promoted and Vern who was the new guy that week has settled in.  Van has taken an entirely different career path and now is a great spokesperson for our chapter. We have welcomed some wonderful new members; we have said farewell to others. Some who had gone have returned. In planning the conference Mike Don and I spent a lot of time with our regional VP Ed Leonard. He has since gone on to be national President and is now chair of the Board. Noel Cullen, then National President has since gone on to his greater reward.

And yet there is a lot that is the same as it was then. We have not grown in numbers. We still have too many of the same faces on the chapter board. That is not to say ill of those who do serve but more new blood would bring more new ideas. There are still members of our chapter who see what is wrong and say "why is that not better" without ever saying "how can I help to make it better" We still have our critics who say we are a meaningless clique that is only interested in bickering among ourselves. We accomplished great things in the spring of 2001. We are capable of great things now.

Those who have been attending meeting the last year and a half have received multiple hours of continuing education hours on a whole range of issues. We have again found a central location for our meetings. The board has strived to accomplish the business of running the chapter confined to board meetings. This allows the general meeting to be shorter, food focused and more a social event. We have just completed the first of our "road trip" meetings. Still less than twenty-percent of our members were in attendance. Van, our V-P and program chair has promised more such outings. With our association with the Rochester VFW we have a chance to host some great dinners. At this anniversary I guess I am looking for direction. I am three-quarters of the way through my term as chapter president. I have believed what has been done was what you, the members, wanted you chapter to be doing. I had hoped that together we could again achieve the "high" we felt standing in the atrium of the convention center eating great desserts, listing to Thus Spake Zarathustra and having the fireworks blaze over head. I want to hear from you as to what you want the chapter to do. I hate to sound like the man who said "I must see where my people are going so that I might lead them" but without your input I fly blind. As any of my predecessors will tell you these monthly messages take time. I happily gave the conference a large part of two years and as president and web-master I have given this chapter several hours a month. This I also do with joy. I ask for a few minutes of your time in return. Please send an e-mail, snail mail or give me a call and tell me how together we can have well attended meetings as part of an ever increasing chapter. If we don't start soon "2010 The Odyssey Continues" will never get started. J  Is it the day of the week? The time we start? Is two hours too long or too short?  Let me know.

See you soon.

Paul