Dear ABANA Affiliates,

It's promising to be an exciting year for our members. Your Board met in Memphis at the Metal Museum in November. Former board member Elizabeth Brim joined the board as Bob Fredell left us for a well-deserved rest. Thanks Bob for all your work in improving ABANA's Affiliate programs and overseeing the new Affiliates Resource Manual, along with all your other insights contributed to board actions!

After three long days, the business and budgets of ABANA were hammered into shape. Please visit the ABANA website www.abana.org and click on Business to view the Minutes of the 2003 ABANA Board Meeting and the 2004 Budget. New officer selections are listed on the ABANA Board List and committee assignments are listed in our Divisions List, all included in the Business section of the site.

THIS IS YOUR ORGANIZATION!! Its success depends on the interest of volunteers. I am astonished at the unselfish amount of work put into the organization by your board. I would appreciate your giving them a "Thanks, well done!" when you meet a board member in your travels. BUT it is YOU who makes the difference! Volunteer to work on an area of interest. A quick look at the ABANA Division Chart will show which committee chair to contact. ABANA is just like your shop: "Effort in---- Results out!"

I am hoping everyone is a volunteer at the 2004 ABANA Conference in Richmond, Kentucky, July 7- 11. Chairman Dave Koenig has put a tremendous effort into organizing and documenting this conference and would be the first to tell you that it is the volunteers who make it a success! Contact Dave Koenig, davekoenig@abana.org, if you have an area of expertise or time to share. As we get closer, additional ways to help will be apparent. It may be just lending a hand when asked, introducing someone new to the organization or, like me, just being a "fetch it". But opportunities abound.

All ABANA members should have received a 2004 Conference Information/ Registration brochure with their copy of Hammer's Blow, Volume 11, #4, Fall, 2003. If you somehow missed yours or are new to the membership/ attending your first conference, please contact the ABANA Conference office for your copy. Just email conference coordinator/ registrar Michele Devine, conference@abana.org and request a copy or call (706) 310-0323. More on opportunities to volunteer to make this a banner year for ABANA as the year progresses, until then.....

Don Kemper
20100 NW 61st Avenue
Ridgefield, WA 98642
(360) 887-3903
dkemper@abana.org