It’s Alive! It’s Alive!
The “New” SASFAA Web, That Is!
Erik Melis, Chair, Electronic Services Committee and
Chair, Web Development Subcommittee

The “new and improved” SASFAA web site, www.sasfaa.org, has gone live!! It was redesigned by ATAC Corporation in conjunction with feedback and input from the SASFAA Board, the SASFAA Electronics Service Committee and the SASFAA Web Development Subcommittee. ATAC now hosts all the regional aid associations and several state associations as well.

What does all this mean for SASFAA members? With the new SASFAA web site (which you are hopefully looking at now or, if not, will be soon), some of enhancements/improvements you will notice are:

• A sharper, more uniform overall appearance and should be very easy to navigate.
• “Members only” areas through which active/paid members can update membership database information, search the membership directory, and vote online during future elections.
• All active paid members will be automatically subscribed to the new SASFAA listserv and SASFAA listserv subscriptions that can be managed through the web.
• Vendors/sponsors’ ability to make sponsorship selections online and place rotating banner ads on the web. We’ve already received 9 Banner ads this year that are visible on many of the web pages in the new site.
• For each SASFAA conference, there will be a conference mini-site, which will provide the latest and greatest information about the upcoming conference(s). Information about the 2004 SASFAA Conference in Birmingham, Alabama is already available on the site.
• A newly formatted SASFAA newsletter online and monthly newsletter updates will be added in Adobe PDF format.
• Each state has a dedicated area on the site to provide relevant information about the state associations that make up SASFAA.

• Each committee will have a dedicated area on the web where meeting minutes, committee members, and committee calendar events can be posted/viewed.

We are very excited to continue to work with ATAC to improve and enhance the web site and look forward to presenting more exciting changes to the SASFAA membership in the near future. Watch the listserv and web site for more good things to come!

Site Selection Report
Ron Gambill, Chair

Site selection visits for the 2007 SASFAA Annual Meeting will be conducted prior to the February Board Meeting. Based on the conference requirements, sites in Nashville and Memphis will be visited. Nashville has two potential sites, the Opryland Hotel and the Renaissance/Convention Center with the new Hilton as overflow. In Memphis, the potential site is the Peabody Hotel with a Holiday Inn Select across the street as overflow. Preliminary proposals will be obtained and a recommendation made for the Executive Board’s consideration.

The Grove Park Inn has been contracted for the SASFAA Management Institute in December 2004. The dates are December 10-12.

The Site Selection Subcommittee will be reviewing the guidelines/checklist for the New Aid Officers Workshop.

After discussions with other regions and NASFAA, the concept of using Professional Conference Planners to secure future meeting locations and handle contract negotiations was not recommended by the Site Selection Committee at this time.