A Message from the President

August, 26 2011 Letter from President, Greg Lewis     Hello, PPSNYS members! I hope you're all having a great summer, both professionally and personally! With vacations, weddings, graduations, and last month's successful Workshop keeping us busy, the summer has really flown by! As many of you know, PPSNYS is coordinating a statewide photo shoot, Project 9.11, which seeks to capture images from all over New York a decade after the tragic event of 9/11, demonstrating New York's unity and resilience. I know there are many talented and creative photographers in our association who can contribute to this meaningful project. We currently have 50 PPSNYS members already registered; and we would love to have more involved. The deadline has been extended to Wednesday, September 7th, please register today to secure your participation. In coming months, I will be traveling across the state to meet with section officers and delegates, to discuss job descriptions and the association's goals. I am currently working on updating the Policy and Procedure Manual, and look forward to sharing those updates on my visits, as well as discussing strategies to help PPSNYS grow and enhance service to members. It is my intent to meet with leaders from every section during my tenure. If you've been spreading the news about the value of being a PPSNYS member, here's yet another reason to do so. In an effort to recruit new members, the PPSNYS Executive Council approved a membership incentive program which will allow current members to save money on their own membership renewal. "How much," you ask? The new member rebate program offers a sponsor 50% off his or her state dues for the recruitment of one active member, 75% off for two active members, and 100% off for three active members in the same fiscal year. By helping sign up new members, you're not only benefitting the new member and our association, also you're saving yourself money when the new member renews after their first year. (Your discount goes into effect when the 'Aspiring' member renews at the end of their initial year of membership, and becomes an 'Active' member.) Please be sure to check the PPSNYS website frequently for other news about our society and its members, such as our 'members only' discount program. Don't miss out, as some of the discount offers are about to expire! New vendors are constantly offering discounts to PPSNYS members and I encourage you to consider bookmarking the webpage for easy reference. Another useful feature under discussion is a "buy-sell-trade" web page. Stay tuned for more details. As a society, we've also been trying to come up with an effective way to easily identify and schedule speakers for our monthly meetings -- both on a local and statewide basis. Creating a 'speaker's bureau' will fill that need, but we need input from you to make it work. If you or someone you know has developed an informative presentation on a photography topic, please email the information to us at headquarters@ppsnys.com. Once we have assembled a list of speakers, we'll post it online as a useful resource for all of our Sections. We will also be compiling our fall newsletter over the next few weeks, and would love to feature articles written by our members. If you enjoy writing and would like to share some of your ideas and techniques with fellow-members, please submit your article (+- 500 words), via email, to headquarters before Monday, September 26th. On a sad note, we have lost two long-time members of PPSNYS in the Southern Tier Section, earlier this summer. In June, we lost Stephen Maciak; and in July, Shirley Green. PPSNYS extends our sincere condolences to both families. One final item: Whether you're a PPA member, or not, there is an excellent promotional video on YouTube that will give you some persuasive selling points to use in the marketing of your business. If you are a PPA member, you can even post the video on your website. The video highlights the benefits of hiring a professional photographer, and will remind you of important points to focus on when talking to prospective clients. Check out the 'PPA --See the Difference' video. I hope to see many of you register and submit photos for Project 9.11, because I know this will be a project we will all be proud of! As a bonus, you may also be named the winner of the Project 9.11 photo contest to be presented at Photo North East, March 24-27, 2012. In the meantime, I encourage you to take advantage of the many educational and networking events PPSNYS offers to help you sharpen your skills and further your career. Enjoy the rest of your summer; and please don't hesitate to contact us with your questions, ideas and feedback! Cordially Yours,   Greg Lewis, CPP PPSNYS President