Surviving Ivan

Louise and I had the once in a lifetime (I hope) experience of surviving a category 5 hurricane here in the Cayman Islands. Our three-bedroom condo was flooded with about five feet of sewage, debris and seawater while we were still inside. Winds outside reached over 200 miles per hour. I’m happy to report that both Louise and I are okay. We lost a lot of our things, but nothing of such value, that it couldn’t be replaced. Unfortunately, my box of Craftsmen files, which I had put on top of the fridge, ended up in the water when our fridge floated away! Who knew something as heavy as a fridge could float?

It’s been six weeks since the storm and we have finally found a place to live. Since the storm, I’ve been sleeping at a friend’s house and Louise had been staying at the hospital where she works. Our new place isn’t exactly what we hoped for but at least it’s livable. We have running water but no electricity or phone.

The storm and the subsequent devastation of the island caused some unusual circumstances for our association in that I was virtually unreachable for several weeks. When the phones came back online, they were unreliable, working one day and not the next. In my absence, our Vice-Chairman, John Leininger, took over temporarily as Chairman. I was in contact with John and the other execs from time to time and the association business continued uninterrupted. Thank you to John, Bill Orr, and Bill Leahy and to Kevin for taking up the slack while I was out of touch. Also, thank you to all who emailed or called with offers of assistance.

Despite my predicament, our rebirth efforts continued full force. The bylaws committee that was struck during convention has been working diligently through weekly conference calls and emails. Because our bylaws deal with many issues about how our association functions, this process will take some time. We hope to have a draft document ready by our February mid-year meeting in Vegas.

Our CEO Kevin in the meantime called a meeting of our vice-presidents who met in Minneapolis in mid-October. The purpose of the meeting was to brainstorm together and come up with a list of achievable goals for the near-term and a wish list for the long-term. After meeting for a straight 12 hours, our association officers left with a long to-do list. Our vice-presidents will be reporting to you, the members, on these goals and objectives in the near future.

Our Board of Directors have scheduled a conference call meeting for November 14 to discuss our long-term goals and to review progress in amalgamating our districts into regions. Many regions/districts have been having meetings and we hope to be able to report progress in this area soon. My hope is to be able to come up with a regional model that all regions will be able to follow. Most of our Directors are working to this end and are scheduling meetings among their regions, but we are still having problems with some Directors not communicating with us or with their members. If you haven’t heard from your
Regional Director recently, perhaps you need to initiate the call!

In what may well be the last meeting of its kind, the executives (CEO, Chairman, Vice Chairman, Secretary/Treasurer and Immediate Past Chairman) have scheduled a face-to-face meeting in Jacksonville for December 4-5. We plan to review the progress to-date of our rebirth, plan the mid-year meeting, review convention budgets and agendas, and review the association’s financial position.

As your Chairman, I’m proud to report to you that our rebirth process is in full swing. We have a large dedicated group of Craftsmen working on your behalf and I’m confident we will design a better and bigger association. In the meantime, our temporary new motto is. . . Adapt, Improvise and Overcome!

Best regards,
Norm Belanger
International Chairman
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