Alabama State Report
Buddy Jackson, AASFAA President

AASFAA’s Fall 2005 Conference was definitely a success. It was held at the Holiday Inn Select, Huntsville, Alabama, October 12-14th, 2005. We had 195 members in attendance,
which is a good number since a number of Gulf Coast schools were not able to attend. In addition, AASFAA had thirty-seven vendors for this conference, which exceeded our previous
years numbers. The theme was S.P.A.C.E.(Setting, Priorities, And, Committing to, Excellence). AASFAA Vice President Ben Baker conducted the New Aid Officers Workshop on Wednesday morning and had 30+ new financial aid professionals in attendance. The conference was designed
to appeal to all levels of financial aid professionals from the New Officer Track, Mid-Level Track to Senior Track. In addition, we were very fortunate to have Ms. Deborah Tarpley, from the Denver region of the Department of Education, back with us this Fall. She presented our Federal Update on Thursday morning, a Senior Track session on Understanding Program Eligibility, Satisfactory Academic Progress and Professional Judgment. Ms. Tarpley held a Question and Answer general session on Friday morning.

Our Fall local arrangements chair, Andy Weaver, did an outstanding job providing an array of great entertainment while in Huntsville. On Wednesday night, we were bused to
the U.S. Space and Rocket Center for dinner, tour of the museum and the IMAX showing of the Space Station. On Thursday night, House of Representative member Alan C. Boothe provided us with a very entertaining speech. Representative Boothe then auctioned off five autographed footballs and one basketball from six of Alabama’s largest universities.

Also, we want to give special recognition to the Program committee, chaired by Joel Parris and President-Elect Jonna Moses Gibson, for a job well done.

Not only did the Fall Conference benefit those in attendance, but the members opened their hearts and wallets for our community project, the ADULLAM HOUSE, located in Wetumpka, Alabama. Thanks to the AASFAA family, we raised $1,300.00 for this great outreach program.

Our NASFAA Fall Training 2005 session is scheduled for November 18th, 2005 in Montgomery, Alabama at the RSA Union Building, room 192. This year, the topic is Administrative Capability: Campus-Wide Compliance.

AASFAA’s Spring 2006 Conference will be at the Perdido Beach Resort, Orange Beach, Alabama, April 12th-14th, 2006.

Florida State Report
Ruth Strum, FASFAA President

The fall season has been a busy one for FASFAA. We began the year by adopting an electronic payment system, PayPal. This has been a great addition for our treasurer, Leonard Gude, saving him many hours in time processing checks and credit cards. We especially realized PayPal’s value at the fall conference. We have just hired a bookkeeper who keeps up with the daily posting of accounts and writing checks. This goes a long way to help us become more efficient.

Anh Do, FASFAA Vice-President for Training, along with our six Region Reps, worked hard on a curriculum for our Fall workshops. We have just completed our fall workshops. Attendance was up and the evaluations regarding the curriculum was very positive.

Kathleen Donohue, FASFAA Chairman of Conferences, Roseann Amato, Fall Conference Chair, and the entire conference committee did an outstanding job planning and organizing the conference. The conference was held in the beautiful Orlando Omni Hotel at Championsgate. We were fortunate to have as our keynote speaker, Florida Senator Daniel Webster. His speech on leadership and service reinforced the theme for the year, FASFAA: It’s Culture of Service. We concluded our conference on Friday morning with Wintley Phipps. Mr Phipps was the highlight of the conference with his messages in song and speech. He was a fantastic ending to our conference! We would like to thank our lender/sponsors for their outstanding support. Although hurricane Wilma caused a great deal of destruction in southeast and southwest Florida, our attendance was over 400. A number of families decided to come a day late since they were without power and water. There was a great atmosphere of comaraderie for those who had been affected by the storm.

FASFAA will conduct its first College Goal Sunday on February 19, 2006. Bill Spiers is chairing the Florida Steering Committee. Marcia McConnell, FASFAA Leadership chair, is planning an experienced officer workshop March.1-3, 2006. John Ward, FASFAA Vo-Tech chair, is planning a workshop for his sector February 8-10, 2006. Emily Attridge, FASFAA Graduate and Professional chair, will hold a symposium on March 3,2006.

We at FASFAA would like to wish all of you a very Happy and Blessed Season!