Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays to all Rockhurst Executive Fellows Alumni and family.
This is our first e-mail communication since the election of the new Rockhurst Executive Fellows Alumni Board of Directors in August. Wow, how time flies.

My name is Dan LoIacono. As many of you may know, I am the new President of the association. Other board members include Don Jalbert, Steve Redmond, and Jami Henry.
Our deepest thanks goes out to Brad Sumner for his wonderful leadership as President in 2004-Thanks Brad!

We have solicited a good deal of feedback from our alumni regarding what they want and don't want from their alumni association. We have boiled it down as cleanly as possible into a few specific strategies for 2005/2006. Basically, we are hearing that most of us are very busy (big surprise). With the high demand on our time (family, business, community, church), it is challenging for us to squeeze more meetings or events into our schedules.

We hear this loud and clear. In fact we share the same challenges. One thing that I think is also clear however in talking to many of the alumni, is that we selected the Rockhurst Executive Fellows MBA program in part because of the relationships we expected to build through the program. These relationships are very important and as an Alumni Association one of our primary goals this year will be to re-establish a platform for us to maintain contact with each other. We intend to build a communication platform using Internet-based tools for those who may not have time to attend some of the scheduled social, networking or educational events sponsored by the alumni association.

Some of the initiatives we intend to kick off this year include:

Regularly Distributed Newsletter: This will help keep the benefits and opportunities associated with Rockhurst Executive Fellows Alumni Association fresh on our minds, and help us stay connected.

Refresh the Executive Fellows Website: This site should be a place for our members to connect with one another and stay informed on university activities or current events. We should be able to use this site to easily find alumni contact information on a personal and professional level. If I am looking for a website developer, my preference is to use a Rockhurst EF Alumni. Currently we do not have a way of easily referencing this valuable information.

Build our "paying dues" Alumni Membership: The perception of limited value coupled with no active membership dues collection system have contributed to a low level of alumni actually paying annual dues. The annual dues for the association is nominal at +/- $55.00. This helps us have the money to implement projects that will enable us make the association a valuable resource to stay in touch with fellow alumni. Lets work on this.

Together we can make the Executive Fellows Alumni Association an organization that allows us to leverage the talents of our graduates/members.

"Call to Action" How can you help?

Update Personal Profile- By clicking on the "Update Profile" link in this newsletter you will be re-directed to a web-based template that will allow you to update your contact information. It is important to us to have accurate contact information for all of our alumni to help keep us all connected. The process is simple and only takes about 2 minutes. Thanks for taking the time!

Website Developers- We will need to engage a website developer that can bring our site to a "best-in-class" level at an economical price. Sponsorship recognition is a perk of the project.

Featured Article Writers- You are invited to contribute an article for the newsletter for distribution. Each newsletter will have a featured article that should be written by an alum. This is a great opportunity to inform the members about a selected topic while providing exposure for your goods or services.

Annual Dues Payment- The annual dues ($55.00) helps us keep the alumni association moving ahead. In the past there has been some confusion regarding how to make payment. We will sending out a request for dues payment at the beginning of the year. This will have clear instructions regarding how to make your annual payment. Thanks for your continued support!

I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season!