Jim Bellar, Chapter President, greeted members and guests and discussed several activities in the organization.

The ACP International Conference is in Boston on April 27-30 and members who want to go still have time to sign up.

The world of job and career transition is rapidly changing and for this reason, Jim said we need to build a strong local chapter and the need to expand and diversify membership to include all parts of the job and career transition community in the Middle Tennessee area.

Jim also discussed the website and asked attendees for comments and suggestions. He said we have fixed some of the early problems with registering for meetings.

Lori LeBleu discussed the summer ACP conference planned for July at Belmont University.  She said we currently need members to serve on a committee to plan the conference.

Jim said he will be sending out an email on Monday to all persons on the Yahoo list. If you want to stay on the list, you will need to respond by the last day of March.  He also discussed the community services project and asked how many people would participate if we chose one. Several in attendance raised their hands. He asked for suggestions for a project by writing them on the Meeting Survey form at the end of the meeting.

He announced that Project Paycheck is looking for volunteers to review resumes.

Attendees introduced themselves and made announcements. The organization has three new members: Calvin Hunt, NCAC; Mohammed Ibrahim, NCAC; and John McLallen, Middle TN Career Center.

Meg Milam, Programs and Finances, gave chapter treasury update � total in treasury account is $1107.04.

PROGRAM

�Changing Careers From Corporate to Non-Profit�

Speakers:

Lewis Lavine, Director � Center for Non-Profit Management

Erin Harvey, Communications Manager�Center for Non-Profit Management

Lewis discussed his positions before joining the CNM. They included being chairman of The Ingram Group, a government relations and public affairs consulting firm based in Nashville for several years. While doing this, he served on a number of nonprofit boards in Middle Tennessee. His passion for working with non-profits eventually led to his current position.

A graduate of Davidson College, he earned his master's degree in economics from Vanderbilt University. His career has included a number of government posts including executive director of the Tennessee State Planning Office and chief of staff to Gov. Lamar Alexander.

Lewis said he gets at least a call a week from persons who want to transition from the corporate world to non-profits. He said it is more important that they focus on doing what they love first and then deciding if it should be in the for-profit or non-profit arena.

He fielded several questions from the audience.

Erin discussed the very popular CNM Job Board. She said the board gets about 45,000 hits a month from non-profits all over the area. She said this function of the agency has grown dramatically in the past three years. Erin and Lewis received many compliments about the Job Board from the audience as many of them use it several times a week.

Jim presented Lewis and Erin with gift cards for giving this informative presentation and reminded the group that the next meeting will be on May 18 at 11:30 at the Small Business Incubation Center across from the downtown TSU campus. This meeting will focus on small business resources and will include The Small Business Resource Center, FranNet, the Small Business Incubation Center and one of their present users as presenters.

The meeting was adjourned.