Dear APTA Members:
Where to begin? Wall Street, the economy, a new interim President in South Africa, a soon to be new
Kathryn Monaco
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President for the United States?? When our next Newsletter comes out we will be under new leadership in this country and with new leadership comes change. As members of APTA, one thing we can be certain will not change is our strong network of individuals that offer support, advice, ideas or just an ear to listen. We are there for each other and this is what belonging to an organization like ours is all about. Together we will move forward, weather these latest developments, grow our businesses and chapter memberships, continue to educate the travel community and promote tourism to Africa. One thing is for sure - people are traveling to Africa!
"APTA Reaching Out" – our National Forum held in Colorado, 12-–14 September was a great success and thank you Rocky Mountain Chapter for an incredible job. In addition to a very full day meeting, we were fortunate to have a distinguished panel and discuss some hot topics in the industry, as well as a gala evening in a cave, under the stars thanks to their superb organization of the Forum (maybe they will explain how they managed the Owl to greet us and the moon to shine until we got back to the hotel and the rain began). Thank you to all our Presidents, Members and Panelist?s who attended the meeting, as well as our gracious sponsors – African Pride & Protea Hotels, Amabokoboko Sports, Fairfield Tours, Kiboko Adventures, Safarwise, Springbok Atlas and Ya'lla Tours who helped make the meeting possible. We covered a lot and made some real progress and I am proud to be a part of this process. We also welcomed Kate Daniel and Bryan Kinkade to our Executive Board. More details will be found in the "National Forum" section under "Events Calendar."
Big announcements: Membership initiative with a prize to the APTA Indaba Educational, Newsletter and Website updates, Trade Association partnerships, APTA presence at the IDE, Discover Africa and Focus Africa 2009 along with PR and publicity goals and projects. National will be providing our members with some exciting tools to assist your marketing efforts and gain exposure and recognition of the APTA brand and we truly hope you will make use of them. Not only are we reaching out to trade partners but we are reaching out to you, our members, and working with you to meet our common goals and continue to move forward within our organization. Check with your Presidents or Chapter representatives who attended the Forum for more details.
The silent auctioned raised $562.00 for our Hlau Hlau National Charity, and thank you to all the Chapters for donations.
It was apparent at the Forum that our web site is a wonderful tool and we need to utilize it to the fullest. This site is a great means of communication for all of us so please let's make it one of our New Year's resolutions to start checking it periodically, utilizing the Chapters' Calendars and keeping them up to date.
Keep well!
Best regards,
Kathryn
APTA Executive Board '08 National Forum
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Left to Right: David Glanz, Virginia Dionisio, Cheryle Schumacher-Velsor, Kate Daniel, Kathryn Monaco, Johann Van Zyl, Beth Lincoln, Paul Swart Not shown: Bryan Kinkade
Click on the photo for a larger view.
