Update by the Executive Director
Tim Merriman
July 2008


Advisory Group
We held our second Corporate Advisory Council meeting on June22. The idea for Online Legacy came from the first meeting and follow up discussions. That website has been obtained and is being tested at this time for debut in early August. Other ideas from this activity are still under discussion.

Audit, Budget, and Cash Flow
The in-office portion of the audit is completed and auditors are working on the final audit and 990. We hope to have them in early August.

Awards
Clemson University has notified me that I will receive the Willam C. Everhart Award in October.

Bank Service Changes
We are beginning to test on-line credit card services through Wells Fargo. These place the funds into our accounts immediately. Under our previous procedures, credit card numbers come to us on email through a secure server and Beth must hand enter them. We are using this new approach with the Association Store and hope to eventually use it with all credit card transactions for workshop registrations, memberships, etc.

Business Plan 2008
Membership is up $6,000 over last year when deferred member income is added to earned member revenue. Ad sales are lagging when compared to last year. Certification is doing very well and showing strong growth for the year. Sales of commercial booths for the National Workshop in Portland are at 75 spaces, about double the registrants for this date last year. This will be a much larger trade show with more than 100 booths.

Greening of NAI
Our Membership Department is working on ways to reduce mailings without reducing services to save on paper used and mailing costs, which rise more quickly than many other expenses.

Hot Button
This continues to be the best way for NAI leaders to let us know of service failures.

International Conference
The International Conference in Sokcho, Korea, has shown a surplus above expenses of about $15000. All bills related to the event have been paid.

Membership
Membership is at 5084 at this moment and is likely to go above our all time high of 5151 in the next few months. Revenue has also grown about $6,000 over last year at the same time.

Sales
Store and InterpPress sales for the year are lagging. Most of the sales come in the fourth quarter so a good National Workshop will improve performance in this area.

Staff Changes
Trisha Koppert will be hired as Membership and Shipping Clerk on September 1. She has worked for us as a student worker and just completed an internship in our accounting department.

Training and Speaking
In June I co-taught the CIP course and CIHT training course in Wales and Bristol, England, respectively. We also met with Association for Heritage Interpretation Board members while there and had useful discussions about cooperating in various ways on training and certification. I also co-taught the CIT course in Ft. Collins and CIP course in Cleveland.

Travel Plans
My upcoming travel may be viewed here.