Greetings,

The summer just seems to have flown by and we are once again starting another ARMA year. Your BEC board was busy during the summer planning the programs for this year and we have quite a variety of topics throughout the year from basics to advanced. September kicks off with a visit from David Matthews who is the Deputy Chief Information Officer for the City of Seattle. I have had the pleasure of working with David for the past 6 years and he is tremendous supporter of records management and a great voice for us in IT circles. I hope you will be able to attend and hear about some of the interesting things that David and his group do.

The summer was full of ARMA events, starting in June with the GNW Regional Leadership Conference held in Richland. Kudos to the Columbia Basin Chapter for hosting a wonderful event. It was nice to see a good representation from the Bellevue/Eastside chapter present, 5 of us were able to attend. ARMA International brought in Chuck Stoner (who was a keynote speaker at the 2006 Annual Conference) to speak about leadership. With his entertaining speaking style and interesting anecdotes, the day was well spent. During this meeting we also had an opportunity to meet fellow region members and I had a chance to meet the Chapter Presidents for next year. Everyone is very energized for the upcoming GNW Regional Conference to be held in April in Portland. More information will be sent out over the next few months, so be sure to keep an eye out in future announcements.

In addition, in July we had our first tri-chapter picnic with members of the Puget Sound, Greater Seattle and Bellevue/Eastside chapters meeting in Steel Lake Park in Federal Way. It was a nice sunny day and an opportunity to get to talk to people outside of a seminar or workshop. This is definitely an event that we will plan on holding again, so be looking out for announcements later in the year.

Don’t forget the 2007 ARMA International Conference to be held in Baltimore October 7^th to 10^th. If you plan on attending, please let either me or GNW Region Manager Sue Lord know so that we can keep an eye out for you. There will be a region luncheon held on one of the days, there is usually an announcement board near the registration desk so look there for details.

I hope you all had a great summer and look forward to seeing you at a future BEC ARMA meeting.

Jennifer Winkler

President, Bellevue/Eastside Chapter of ARMA.