Join us for a full-day conference (July 25 at the South San Francisco Conference Center or July 26 at the Four Points Sheraton LAX) focused on various areas of leadership development, followed by four, two-hour chapter-based workshops Aug. 7 and 21, Sept. 18 and Oct. 18.

Program topics include leadership in the new normal, leading from a place of natural strength, how to think like a leader, establishing an ethical culture … and more.

Register today by going online and selecting your chapter.

The seminar is presented by The Income and Other Taxes Committee, State and Local Tax Committee, the Corporate and Pass-Through Entities Committee and the Tax Procedures and Litigation Committee of the Taxation Section of the State Bar of California.

Date: Friday, June 28
Time: 8:30 a.m.–5 p.m.
Locations: Program held concurrently at Whittier Law School (Costa Mesa); University of San Diego, School of Law; and Golden Gate University, School of Law (San Francisco)

Register online:
Costa Mesa
San Francisco
San Diego

A patient was at her doctor’s office after undergoing a complete physical exam. The doctor said, “I have some very grave news for you. You only have six months to live.”

The patient asked, “Oh doctor, what should I do?”

“Marry an accountant,” replied the doctor.

“Will that make me live longer?” asked the patient.

“No,” said the doctor, “but it will seem longer.”

Hopefully your families are not already sick of you after tax season. But in case they are, or you are just looking for something to do, our annual golf tournament is coming up! The tournament is scheduled for Aug. 5 at the Stockton Golf & Country Club. You may or may not know, but this tournament is the primary fundraiser supporting our chapter’s scholarship fund.

What is the chapter’s scholarship fund you ask? Every year our chapter awards scholarships to local accounting students. These scholarships are given to the well deserving students at the Annual Student Faculty Night in November.

Since the tournament is our primary scholarship fund-raiser, it’s very important that we’re able to make enough money to continue awarding the scholarships. Due to lower profits at the golf tournament, and lower than normal earnings over the last few years, our scholarship fund has taken a beating. Unfortunately we have only been able to give out about $6,000, instead of the $10,000 we had awarded in the past.

But enough of the sob story. This year we’re trying to turn the tournament around. We have a great committee, including some CPAs, bankers and payroll and retirement specialists working to make this event a success. The committee will only be successful if we all turn out to golf and invite a few friends to join us. Please invite attorneys, bankers, CPAs, clients—anyone you think would enjoy a day of golfing and hanging out with other local professionals.

This year the committee is also planning a putting contest before the golf tournament to help you get your practice in. And, in addition to the usual ability to purchase mulligans for your team, there will be another way you can buy your way to a better score with a secret stroke saver.

For the first time in the tournament’s history there will be a special rate for those non-golfers to attend our social hour and take advantage of the opportunity to hang out with local professionals and enjoy heavy appetizers and drinks after the tournament.

If you, or a client, have any items to donate for the tournament raffle, contact program associate Karen Howard or me and we will make sure the sponsor gets the appropriate recognition.

I also wanted to highlight the Annual Member’s Business Meeting in June, which will be held in Monterey. Rich Simitian is set to become CalCPA chair for the 2013-14 year. After attending the council meetings last year, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to attend again this year. These events are great opportunities to meet other CPAs who are doing the same things we do every day. I have also found that these gatherings are a great way to hear about what other CalCPA chapters are doing. We can always learn a few things and implement them in our chapter to help make it better.

If anyone wants to attend one of our local board meetings, please contact program associate Karen Howard or me. My goal for this year is to make sure that we’re providing the benefits that our members want. As president, I want to make our chapter relevant to all our local members. If you find that the board is an exciting and fun group, we would love it if you would consider joining us! We are always looking for new board members as well as committee chairs and co-chairs.

The award recognizes contributions to accounting education from demonstrated excellence in teaching and/or endeavors in research over a sustained period of time through:

• Excellence in teaching and mentoring, as evidenced by receiving various awards or citations;

• Educational innovation, including developing curriculum, case studies and new programs;

• Published articles in professorial or academic journals and/or written textbooks for use in accounting classes;

• Significant involvement in professional and/or academic societies and related activities.

Nominations are due by May 6. You may submit nominations online.

By the time you read this, the 2013 filing season will have drawn to a close. We can reflect on all of the early mornings and late nights we worked to prepare the many tax returns, and how we endured the back-to-back client appointments. And who can forget the painstaking wait for the final K-1 to get things wrapped up. For the many tax season warriors out there, a vacation or a chance to catch up with family—and a return to a normal work schedule—are signs that we have made it through another year. Congratulations to all! I hope tax season 2013 was a rewarding and successful one for you.

As you begin to think about the rest the year—or life after tax season—I want to tell you about a few of the things we have coming up for this next year in the chapter. First off, I want to introduce our board members and officers for this coming year. The directors this year are: Garry Browning, Catherine Chan, Ken Couvillion, Marissa Dotinga, Preston Osbourn and Sanjeev Singh. The officers are: Sheril Imfeld (past president), Chad Van Houten (secretary/treasurer), Natalya Galindo (vice president) and me, your chapter president. I want to say a special thanks to Rich Cline, Chrissy Stiles, Chris Weed and Cynthia Guererro, who have spent the last few years on the serving on the board and are “retiring.” Moreover, we have many committee chairs that have volunteered for this next year, and we’re looking forward to meeting them at the planned events.

Next, I want to let everyone know about some the events that have been planned for 2013-14. In the coming year, each committee will be holding a two-hour CPE event at the Spring Creek Country Club in Ripon. These events will be held on the last Wednesday of each month from 3–5 p.m., with a cocktail hour afterwards. The cost of these events will be $25 each and will include one free drink ticket for the cocktail hour. I know everyone would love to have a cocktail during the class, but you have to stay for the whole class to earn your drink ticket!

In addition, we still plan on holding some of our usual events. Below is a partial list of the some of the events and reasonably priced CPE. Get them on your calendars early and help support our chapter. So I don’t bore you, I will only highlight a few of the events coming up, as well as some the bigger events:

•   May 16: Membership Appreciation Dinner and Officer Installation at The Waterloo Restaurant

•   May 29: A&A Committee, 2-hour CPE event at Spring Creek (drink ticket included)

•   Aug. 5: Golf Tournament at Stock Golf & Country Club. You don’t need to be a great golfer to attend. Just come support our chapter’s scholarship fund. More information to come.

•   Aug. 20: Eight-hour, local tax CPE in Modesto. I will try to make this class as low priced as the board will let me. More information to come.

•   Nov. 21: Student Faculty Night. The location is going to be somewhere new, but yet to be determined. I will let you know as the details develop.

•   Jan. 13: Eight-hour local fraud CPE. This class has been in our routine for the last three or four years (CPE and lunch for as low as we can get the cost). More information to come.

These are just a few of the events we have planned for this year, but I wanted to highlight some of the major events and point out the local events to limit your travel.

Also, as we have all just paid our dues for this year, I want to thank you for renewing and supporting our chapter. Our goal this year is to get as many people involved with our chapter as possible, and to help you find benefit for the dues you have paid. I know a lot of people see their CalCPA membership solely as a way to obtain lower priced CPE (which we offer and are trying to bring locally, as you can see by the events listed above), but CalCPA can provide a lot of untold benefits if we take the time to get involved. We’re trying to sweeten the bribe this year by not only giving you those precious CPE hours, but also by offering up a free drink.

I hope to see everyone at the Membership Appreciation Dinner May 16. The dinner that has been planned will be delicious.

On a final note, I just want to congratulate you again on surviving another tax season and I hope to see you at one of the upcoming events.

For a chance to be one of five lucky recipients, renew online today. For rules, go online.

Directors
2012-14: Garry J. Browning, Preston Osbourn, Marissa Dotinga
2013-15: Catherine Chan, Sanjeev Singh, Ken Couvillion

CalCPA Council: Eric Vander Veen, Natalya Galindo

Education Foundation Board of Trustees: Eileen Pastenieks

State Nominations Committee Representative: Mark Croce

Chapter Committee Chairs
ABC Night: Garry J. Browning, Preston Osbourn
Accounting Principles & Auditing Standards: Mark J. Croce
Bylaws: Sheril Imfled, Eric Vander Veen, Garry Browning
Campus Ambassador: Mary Bakus
Emerging Professionals: Chad Van Houten, Eric Sousa, Marissa Dotinga
Estate Planning: Richard D. Cline, Catherine Chan
Financial Literacy: Ken Couvillion, Ashley Casey
Golf Tournament: TBD
Government Relations: TBD
Litigation: Eileen M. Pastenieks
Management of an Accounting Practice: Eileen M. Pastenieks
Membership: Natalya Galindo
Nomination Committee: Mark Croce, Rich Cline, Chrissy Stiles
Nonprofit: Natalya Galindo, Jeff Stone
Personal Financial Planning: Christopher Weed
Taxation: Garry J. Browning
Technology: Garry Browning

Must join by April 30, 2013.

Visit our membership types webpage (scroll to bottom) to learn more.

For a chance to be one of five lucky recipients, renew online today.

For rules, go to www.calcpa.org/renewalrules.