This ‘n’ That from the Council
Your Council has been busy. Council members hit the new year running with presentation to groups in Wisconsin and Iowa all in the past few weeks.
On January 9 Brad Guse, Senor VP with BMO Harris in Arpin, WI was joined by BMO Managing Director Sam Miller, Appleton WI at a special program, Supporting Farmers During Challenging Times held in Kiel, WI.
The program was sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Extension. An audience of well over 100 came from a four-county region to hear the presentations. The two discussed the critical need for helping farmers realize the importance of organizing their financial records and being completely open and honest in their relationship with their lender. Council Administrator Carroll Merry attended and managed the FFSC trade show display. He also gave the audience an overview of the Council and the resources it has to offer.
On January 23 Past Council President Paul Neiffer, a principle with CliftonLarsonAllen, Yakima, WA, in photo at right was joined by past Council Director Curt Covington, Executive Vice President at FarmerMac, Washington, DC, in photo below, at the Farm Futures Ag Financial Boot Camp program in Coralville, IA. Over 170 farmers defied winter storms to attend the one-day event. Neiffer and Covington did the
heavy lifting in terms of presentations at the gathering. Again, the need for good financial record keeping was stressed along with the need to maintain completely open lines of communications with lenders. Administrator Carroll Merry also talked about the evolution of the Council and the resources it offers.
2019 Annual Meeting
Council Vice President Keith Raynor, principle at TRP CPAs, Dunn, NC is wrapping up details on the program for the Annual Conference which will be held July 24 – 26 at the DoubleTree by Hilton, Raleigh Durham Airport at Research Triangle Park near Durham, NC.
Keith’s program will include an up close look at NC agriculture, how anti-animal agriculture groups are working to get rid of the pork industry, as well as a ‘deep dive’ into some accounting issues that are important to the Council….AND MORE! Details on the entire program will be coming out very soon, but in the meantime please mark your calendars and plan on attending.
Yes, many of us are snow-covered now and somehow getting along with very frigid temperatures, but Keith promises there will be no snow in sight when we are there in July and it should be too early for hurricane season.
New Membership Directory
The most current listing of Council Members is in the membership directory that accompanied the email version of this newsletter.. We dropped a few members last summer at renewal time and that was expected….but we have added many new names, so look through the Directory and see if any of our new colleagues are near you. If you don’t have a copy, let us know and we’ll send you one.
Send us a Photo of Yourself
We would very much like to have more member photos in the directory….if you have a recent color head and shoulders photo of yourself that you would like to share with other Council Members, please send it my way and we’ll add it to the next directory
Some Changes in the Directory
We have included the roster of our Corporate Partners in a listing at the back of the Directory as well as the names of our new Imeritus Lifetime members.
New Guidelines Out January 1
An updated version of the Financial Guidelines for Agriculture was sent to you on January 1. If you did not receive your pdf copy, please let me know and we’ll try to find out why.
Share your thoughts about the Council
One of the keys to attracting new, and even retaining current members, is the sharing of your thoughts regarding your experience/relationship with the Council…we are always looking for comments from members that can be used to promote membership. Have you met colleagues from across the country? Found participation in one of the committees to be rewarding personally and/or professionally? And if you have a complaint or other concern that should be shared with the leadership, we want those as well!!
Think Spring !!
Carroll Merry
Administrator, FFSC
cmerry@countryside-marketing.com
262-253-6902
