Elections

By Laura L. Ross, CPA

It’s true what people say about things improving with age. CalCPA elections are coming up, and that has me reminiscing as I ponder how far I would like to go in our association’s leadership.

I think back to my high school student body elections held every semester. Being something of a shy math whiz, I ran for treasurer seven times. I lost seven times. If I remember correctly, six of those losses were to cheerleaders. The student body apparently perceived them as being much better with checkbooks. I didn’t have to run and face rejection again in the eighth semester because, when I was a senior, the student body president appointed me to a position. I was finally able to participate as I had wanted.

Of course, I was frustrated by that cheerleader thing, but little did I know that I was going to become the mother of a varsity cheerleader who doubled as student council vice president and homecoming queen. I would have thought genetics would keep that from happening, but I was way off base on that one.

I lived through these events as I jockeyed for the mom positions for my daughter’s activities. And I discovered that the desire to participate for most people doesn’t last past that high school yearbook photo op. I easily became the Girl Scout cookie mom, the PTA president and cheer mom. Cheer mom was the one who got to ride on the bus with the cheerleaders to all the games. I finally reached “cool status,” even if it was 20 years too late!

If any of you fall into that category where you always wanted to get involved, but didn’t see yourself as the person who could pull it off, let me assure you that there are numerous organizations just waiting to welcome you into leadership roles. CalCPA is, of course, my favorite right now, and as I get closer to the end of my term as chapter president I am looking forward to continuing to find roles within the organization.

Chapter president is a one-year term and there’s no running for re-election, so this process means we are bringing new members onto our chapter board every year. You’ll be reading this in February so it will be too late for the 2012–13 chapter positions, but there is plenty of time to start thinking about 2013-14 and to take action if you want to get involved. If you need some ideas as to how to get involved, contact me or one of the other board members, and we’ll be happy to give you some direction on how to get started.