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Message From the President
Queens Chapter Charts its Course
By Thomas Boyd, Queens Chapter President

At our first chapter meeting of the new year, we asked ourselves, What must we do to meet our members’ needs? Our expectations range from the obvious—providing technical meetings for members so they can meet their CPE requirements—to the less obvious—projecting our image to the public. We expect that some of you prefer the social aspect of the chapter, such as the opportunity to get together with your colleagues and exchange ideas or stories.

In charting our course for the future, we can look back at the past and see what worked and what did not. Our most successful events have been the technical meetings. We realize that our members appreciate them, so we will continue to offer them and expand on them.

On the other hand, some events, such as the young CPAs initiatives, have been unsuccessful. This was not due to lack of desire to succeed but rather because of our inability to commit the resources and efforts to assure success.

Using this experience, the chapter can plan what it can do and what it must do. The more that our members get involved, the more we will be able to do. We must commit our time and resources wisely so that we develop a sound foundation that will allow us to grow. In this light, we chart our course and establish our priorities for the current year.

We intend to increase our offering of technical meetings this year. Using the conference facilities at St. John’s University, we have already set up the following sessions:

We are also planning to offer the Ethics Conference again and add one on Small Business at the Adria Conference Center in Bayside. Look on our website for details by going to www.nysscpa.org, clicking on “Find Chapters” and then on “Queens.”

It is our hope that more of these events can be offered through the chapter’s committee structure. This year we have four active committees that members can join. These are the Federal Income Tax Committee, the Real Estate Committee, the Elder Care Committee and the Young CPAs Committee. If you would like to work on these committees or are interested in forming a new committee, contact me. You may be currently serving on a NYSSCPA committee and would like to duplicate this at the chapter level. This is your opportunity to get more involved and grow professionally.

Networking opportunities also seem to be a top priority of our members. The Queens Chapter has run joint meetings this past year with the Queens Bar Association and with the Queens Chamber of Commerce. We hope to continue these associations and include others, such as events with bankers. To facilitate this we will appoint a board member from the chapter to work on networking opportunities. Look for future announcements of such events.

Job placement or recruitment may be a top priority for some of our members, particularly young CPAs. So there will be a job recruitment fair for CPAs held in November at St. John’s University. There will be small to mid-size CPA firms, along with government agencies, accepting resumes from accounting students and others. This can therefore be a recruitment opportunity or job placement possibility for some of our members. Dr. Adrian Fitzsimons of the Department of Accounting and Taxation at SJU, a Queens Chapter Board member, is handling this event. When the date is set, we will post it.

The chapter will co-sponsor a Career Day for high school students at St. John’s University on Nov.1. You may have read about some past Career Days as they were reported in The Trusted Professional. They have been highly successful and well attended. Some of our members will also visit individual high schools to talk about careers in accounting.

I look forward to meeting you at our chapter events. Get to know us; get involved. You will be glad you did.

Thomas Boyd can be reached at 718-428-0956 or tmboyd38@hotmail.com.

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