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Review the qualifications and download nomination forms online. The nomination deadline for all awards is March 30.

Date: Friday, Aug. 3

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.

If you are interested in volunteering, contact program manager Minnie Sage and include your firm, email, postal address and phone number. Members are also encouraged to donate online.

If you would like to volunteer, contact Laura Rumpf.

Also, Whistlestop Active Aging Center is seeking volunteers to help older adults and low-income families with their federal and state income tax returns. Training and software is provided, and volunteers commit to one day per week.

Training begins Jan.7.

For more information, please go online or send an email.

Date: Friday, Feb. 10
Register online.

Date: Thursday, Jan. 5

Register online.

This needs to be a short column, as the holidays always seem to make the deadline windows smaller. My column due date coincided with the holiday luncheon for the chapter board, and my fellow board members suggested I relate the following story:

I found myself having to fly to New York three times over the last month. Each flight had its own unique attributes, but there was one flight that was especially memorable.

We boarded on time and had pushed away from the gate. The only thing that wasn’t routine was one passenger who seemed a bit unsettled. We hadn’t moved far from the gate when the plane stopped and a voice came on over the loudspeaker telling us we needed to return to the gate because the pre-flight inspection discovered a few loose screws on the plane that needed to be tightened.

The voice then went on to explain that these weren’t important screws, but we really couldn’t leave without tightening them. It would take at least 30 minutes, followed by some paperwork, so we’d be sitting for a while. I was in a window seat and next to me was a couple. As we looked at each other, we just burst out laughing. I mean, whatever happened to just apologizing for a minor delay beyond their control? There was already one agitated person on the plane, and there were probably a few others who didn’t need to hear that screws on the plane were loose. That was too much information for a large portion of the population. I was just hoping that voice didn’t belong to the pilot, as I thought this was a really good example of someone not using good judgment.

Well, it was the pilot. We got several more updates on the paperwork process. We were told we could turn on our electronic devices while the work was going on. My Blackberry buzzed with a message from a travel application telling me we were being delayed for an additional 20 minutes. I showed this to the couple next to me, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a man being sent up on a lift to the wing. He was up there for a while, and appeared to be screwing something in on the wing. In the meantime, a flight attendant was telling the couple next to me that the unimportant screws being tightened were in the tail section. So maybe they were just taking the opportunity to get some extra maintenance time on the wing since we were grounded for a bit? Timing seemed a bit unnatural, but I really didn’t want to challenge the flight attendant’s information. Just better to sit back at this point and assume that they knew what they were doing. After all, they were working on official paperwork that would again clear us for takeoff.

I thought I could take this story off in several directions, such as teaching your staff to only provide requested info during an audit or how important it is to review a document one more time before you send it off to a client, but you all probably get the idea.

Enjoy these last few days before tax season hits again and I hope you all had great holidays.