President’s
Message:
It is indeed an honor and privilege to be able to serve this organization as your President again this year. Many of us have been around for awhile to see many changes take place within the program as well as the growth versus reduction of the program over the last ten years. As these changes continue to challenge us, we must not lose sight of the vision that Deputy Director Charles Dunn of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation had in the late 1980’s.
This past conference’s theme, “Touching Hearts-Changing Lives”, needs to become our new inspiration to move the DARE program forward. Some of us have experienced changes in the program since beginning teaching the program in earlier years. Those changes have ranged from changes in the curriculum to the attendance at the conferences. Past years attendance at the conference has reached approximately 300. The attendance at the last conference, just recently, dropped drastically to only 65. One of our top goals for 2006 should be to come together as a team to work to establish membership at the highest amount thus far.
As President, I want to thank all of the members that worked behind the scenes for this past conference to make it so successful. I would also like to thank all of those that participated in selling tickets for the cruise raffle to help make it such a success for the association. I challenge the board, the executive committee, and the conference committees to work diligently to hold one of the most exciting, educational, and energizing conferences in 2007. We hope that your attendance will be reflected to a level similar to those conferences of earlier years.
The board realizes that most of you are limited with your time and cannot attend monthly meetings; however, you may be interested in serving on a conference committee. Doing so would not require you to attend each month’s meeting but instead working directly with a board member and a sub-committee for different areas. Those areas include: entertainment, workshops, decorations, fundraising, regional representative, and slide show presentations. In addition, there may be other tasks that would require minimal time and commitment at the conference. If you are interested in serving in any of these areas, we cordially invite you to join the board as we start to prepare the task of organizing the 2007 Conference. If interested, please contact any member of the board.
We,
as the board of directors, hope that your DARE program will experience re-juvenation
and growth this coming year as we continue to touch and change the lives of
thousands of children in North Carolina. May God bless you in your endeavors!
Sincerely,
Tommy Griffin
President
