A Busy First Year: New Rockland Chapter Helps CPAs Get Involved with the Society

By David Evangelista

Here’s a riddle someone should have asked me almost a year ago: What consists of approximately 500 e-mails, roughly six conference calls, about five long evening meetings and countless hours spent on the telephone, creating and mailing flyers, reviewing Excel spreadsheets, etc.? The answer is obvious now that I’ve been selected as the first president of the new Rockland Chapter of the New York State Society of CPAs. As overwhelming as all that sounds, however, it has been a very rewarding experience for all of us involved.

The officers and committee chairs have been there every step of the way, and the support of the Rockland members has been phenomenal. The CPA profession, the national governing body and even the NYSSCPA and Foundation for Accounting Education are evolving and looking at how we all function, making this an exciting and important time to start new chapters and increase involvement among practitioners. For many years there has been a void in Rockland County, with only a handful of practitioners actively involved in the Society. That void has filled rapidly over the last several months.

When the chapter process started last winter with an initial steering committee meeting on a cold, snowy night in February, the thought of only that small group of “active” CPAs crossed my mind. How pleasantly surprised the NYSSCPA representatives and I were that night when about 20 people braved the winter road conditions and joined us at the meeting. We expanded from there to almost 30 participants at our first organizational meeting in June and held the first ever Rockland Chapter officers’ elections. Since then President-Elect Steven M. Kaplan, Treasurer Phyllis Graybow and Secretary Frank Peter Marino have contributed greatly of their time and effort to get the chapter up and running.

And running we are. In September, more than 30 CPAs attended our social kickoff event, and the numbers are growing from there. A very successful All-Day Tax Conference with Samuel A. Dyckman and the Camico Ethics CPE Presentation/NYSSCPA Visitation event in October continued our growing trend of involvement. So it was not at all surprising, but very rewarding, to find more than 130 professionals, including about 80 CPAs, attending our first ever Professionals Evening on Nov. 28. We were fortunate to hear Rockland County executive Scott Vanderhoef update us on Rockland issues. A representative from U.S. Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman’s (D-N.Y.) office also kept us abreast of national issues, including pending tax legislation and economic recovery acts. The latter issue(s) prevented Gilman from personally attending as the Congressional schedule went a little long this year.

So where are we going from here? The Young CPAs by now have concluded their holiday event, and hopefully collected a bundle of toys for Rockland children. Representatives from the Internal Revenue Service and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance will join us for a CPE evening session in early January, just in time to update practitioners on filing issues and forms changes. In May we plan to have our first (what a surprise; everything we do this year is a first) Annual Dinner and Golf Outing, for which we hope to have a large turnout.

We are currently forming a Nominating Committee that we hope will meet by the end of January so we can get next year off to a great start. The committee chairs and officers continue to correspond with each other regularly (an additional 23 chapter e-mails have come in during the time it took to write this article), and we continue to reach out to our membership to get them involved. The only thing we ask in return is that if you live or work in Rockland County, consider participating in the Rockland Chapter. We are here and working for you. All you need to do is log onto www.nysscpa.org, click on Membership in the Information Centers box on the right-hand side of the page and follow the steps to change your chapter affiliation in your member profile.

So come grow with us. It’s an exciting and sometimes trying time to be a CPA, but there is strength in numbers, not to mention a great exchange of information. Become involved. You might learn just how well your e-mail system really works, and you’ll definitely be rewarded by what you give to the profession and what the profession can give to you.