President’s Report

I so admire all the people involved in this organization from the worker bees to the elected officials. Everyone has a job to do and they do it with one goal in mind...to make each City/Town in the State of SD a better place to live. I like the way we all join together to help each other get through each day by giving direction, advice, and encouragement. Try to remember to thank your coworkers, elected officials, state workers, and citizens for their interest in trying to help every city/town achieve this goal.

Thanks to all who found the time to attend the conference and listen and learn from the excellent speakers, and to those who took part in the policy committees, I hope you learned as much as I always do. I encourage each of you to get involved in the policy process, as it is what makes our goal of satisfactory legislation for each Town/City a reality.

Through the coming year I hope to gain much useful knowledge from each and every one of you. You will be my teachers and I will try to be of service to you in any way I can. TEACH ME, ENLIGHTEN ME, it is a tough job, but someone has to do it!

I am looking forward to the district meetings I will be attending and all the different Cities/Towns I will visit. Each district is made up of many different and unique ways of governing their respective Cities/Towns. I am anxious to learn what works for you and what does not. Speaking about district meetings (Yvonne felt I should warn you), I am not good at canned speeches, so what I plan on doing is calling on each City/Town in attendance to tell us a unique, interesting, or little known fact about their City/Town. I do not care what direction you take, just let us enjoy what makes each of you special. More about this in future reports.

As I said I want to absorb as much knowledge as I can, not that I am always good at retaining it! Thank you for the honor you have given me to serve this wonderful organization. I will try not to fail you too much as I stumble along the road with you in our world of trying to govern with respect and open mindedness in dealing with all the dilemmas that come our way.

Remember this month that COMMUNICATION is a big key on our key chain!

Respectfully, Meri Jo Anderson President