Happy Unbirthday…

Just a few days after reading Neal Kupchin’s “Ten Key Ways to Show Meaningful Appreciation,” I was reminded how meaningful a simple “Happy Birthday” message can be (Neal’s #4). This year my colleague and friend Dori called to wish me a Happy Birthday. The best part is it happened twice this year for the second year in a row. Turns out her phone had both my real July 16th date and my October 15th unbirthday date. So, when she recently got a reminder on her phone, she called me again because, well, her phone said it so it must be true. We both laughed about it and it helped turn a stressful week into a fun one.

If you haven’t yet, please go through Neal’s 10 easy tips (#9 was a great tip by the way).

Together Toward Tomorrow – a conference update.

At the October CSMFO Board meeting, the Board approved the February 2021 annual conference budget, including conference attendee rates, sponsorship packages, keynote speakers, and options for a virtual conference. The next question everyone is asking is, what’s next? When will conference registration be open? Will it be a virtual or live conference? What is the cost? Do I need to book travel and hotel?

These are all outstanding questions and here is where we stand as of the day of this message.

• Virtual conference. With the current prohibitions for large gatherings, we are still uncertain as to whether we will be allowed to meet in person, we nevertheless feel it necessary to find a way to offer the stellar training our members have come to expect. We will be opening registration soon for a virtual conference option, and we’ll continue to monitor local health department orders regarding a possible hybrid option if an in-person component is feasible.
• Registration & hotel/travel. We will provide guidance soon about conference registration, including hotel and travel, as we continue to closely monitor the latest CDC, California, and Santa Clara County public health guidance.
• Save the dates (Feb 16-18). We expect our conference to shift to a Tuesday to Thursday format with no Friday sessions. Please reserve February 16th – February 18th on your calendars.
• Virtual conference fee. The Board approved a virtual conference rate of $200 for all member types (government/commercial), and a $250 non-member rate.

I want to give special thanks to our M&AMS professional staff Teri Anticevich, Marisa Anticevich, and Janet Salvetti who have helped us essentially build four versions of our 2021 conference. I also want to thank our CSMFO Executive Director Melissa Manchester, the entire CSMFO Program Committee, and each member of our Host Committee for their extraordinary efforts this year. But I want to give special thanks to our Host subcommittee team leaders Jennifer Wakeman, John Adams, Joan Michaels Aguilar, David Cain, and Wing-See Fox who each spearheaded research on our conference elements including exploring offering a virtual experience. And thanks to Terry Shea and Lily Ng who are leading the development of our play-together-safely-outside experiences.

Strategic Planning session

First, a thank you to all those volunteer leaders who participated in this year’s CSMFO virtual strategic planning session (Oct 4th through 6th). We had hoped moving to a virtual environment would increase attendance and participation and it sure did!

CSMFO leadership gathered virtually to discuss the 2021 conference elements and, more importantly, to consider the opportunities in the next years to live our vision to be the “preeminent resource for promoting excellence in government finance.” Some of the themes we covered were:

• Reviewing our existing CSMFO 2020 Strategic Action Plan;
• Reviewing leadership survey results (covering topics from COVID to CSMFO strengths and opportunities);
• Asking what is CSMFO doing that we might not need to do;
• Exploring how to increase the value of CSMFO membership;
• Strategizing on how CSMFO can continue to sustain its financial health and resilience; and
• Diving into what CSMFO needs in order to be successful over the next 5 years.

A clear stand-out moment of our time together was the one-hour breakout rooms led by our facilitators Melissa Manchester and Catherine Smith. They divided up the attendees into six smaller virtual breakout “rooms.” Each team had a prompt about what CSMFO is doing that we might not need to do, how to increase the value of a CSMFO membership, and how CSMFO can sustain itself financially while supporting our Vision and Mission.

While it is clear we met the goal of this exercise by developing a long list of ideas and implementable suggestions, the magic really came out of the ability for small teams to work closely together, support each other, and reconnect. Based on the feedback during and after the session, everyone loved the smaller group teams. It seemed to offer a safe space for everyone to feel heard and for ideas to really flow freely and develop into better recommendations.

CSMFO will review the results of these breakout sessions and other feedback in the next month to guide our updated action plan and development of objectives for the coming years.

For this month’s bonus edition, I will admit to stealing a good recipe and, leaving it alone (something Jack should have done with Halloween). I hope you enjoy this one. We sure do.

Jack Skellington’s Scary Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Icing Ingredients:

• 2 egg whites
• 3 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• Black food coloring paste

1. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and whisk until combined. Set aside.
2. Combine butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Add flour mixture in three parts.
3. Once dough comes together, cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
4. Preheat oven to 400°F.
5. On a floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4-inch thickness. Using a round cookie cutter or an overturned cup, cut dough into circles about 3 1/4 inches in diameter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
6. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely before icing.

For icing:

1. Place egg whites in bowl of an electric mixer; whisk until frothy. Add confectioners’ sugar a little at a time, until thick but still spreadable.
2. Place 1/3 of icing in a separate bowl. Add black food coloring paste to reserved icing and stir until color is uniform.
3. Decorate cooled cookies by covering with white icing and letting it dry (placing cookies in the refrigerator will speed up this process).
4. Place black icing in a pastry bag or a large zip-lock bag and cut off a tiny bit of the corner to create a “very” small hole. Use black icing to draw eyes, nostrils and stitched mouth on each cookie.