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SIM Portland Thanksgiving - 11/28/2021

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Dear Chapter Members I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for being part of such a wonderful IT community, and to also thank all those in volunteer positions in the Chapter for their dedication and gift of their time. There are many Chapter programs and activities. From the Board of Directors, to those involved with the different committees, from the Golf Tournament, to STEM outreach, and to the Book Club. And we are growing them as well, with the CIO Enclaves and Member SIGs (Special Interest Groups) being launched and planned. Thanksgiving is a great tradition. It is not a holiday that I grew up with in England, but when I settled in the Pacific Northwest, it is one that I happily embraced. Whilst there is a huge commercialization of the holiday, the idea for taking time to give thanks for what we have is an important act. This is even more true in times of disruption and change, and COVID-19 certainly created that! So I hope you were able to spend time with family, frien
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SIM Portland Member Profiles - 7/31/2020

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Dear Chapter members, Well I am still trying to update by President's blogs. I had lots planned but not enough time set aside to get things done. Since we are out on the Summer break for our chapter between June and September, I wanted to take some time to loop back on some recent changes at the National level of SIM. I am going to dedicate my July blog to encourage you to check and update your SIM profile as we become more active as an online community. You may have remembered reading about SIM website changes that occurred back in March. You may have also missed it with all the COVID-19 pandemic changes going on at the time. I say “update” but it was more like a downgrade or roll back. SIM National had moved to Salesforce for the CRM backend a couple of years back. Unfortunately customizing Safesforce to be a club membership and event management system proved to be too complex. So on May 6th, we switched back to YourMembership (Community Brands), the management system that SIM h
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SIM Portland Program Year Ends - 6/30/2020

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Dear Chapter members,  Apologies for my late June blog, things have been busy…which is good. Unfortunately, the planned attempt to re-open the State and the economy have shown the virus‘ insidious nature. Masks have gone from being voluntary, to being required in public, indoor spaces . The careful emergence from our cocoons seem for some to have turned into a defiant return to the way it was, allowing the virus to take hold once again. Portland and Oregon seem to be fairing a lot better than other States and cities across the U.S. but the emergence of hotspots and continued outbreaks across the country does not bode well for a continued opening up of the economy and holding larger events such as our monthly Chapter dinner speaker evenings. Watch this space for more information on our September Chapter meeting. Portland CIO Community Roundtable We had our final virtual Chapter meeting of the 2019-2020 program year on June 10th. A very successful partnership with Premier Connects br
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SIM Portland Reinvention - 5/30/2020

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Dear Chapter members,  Virtual Board meeting The COVID-19 response continues to evolve. We are starting to see Phase 1 reopening in many Oregon counties, though it looks like Multnomah County will be the last to do so. We are still a long way away from in person SIM Chapter events. Hopefully if we reach Phase 2 and there is no relapse, we will be be able to safely hold in person events with the start of next year's programs in September. I have begun to see a re-opening of my waist line, or my "Quarantine Pounds" as I like to call them. So I am desperately waiting for more tennis and squash to be available. I also started a new job as CIO for the Oregon State Police. I am very excited about this, and inspired by the mission of the agency as well as the talented team of IT professionals that I am now leading. The new Board has now met in April and May. We have been wrestling with adjusting this year's events and are looking to plan for next year. The Board
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Welcome to a New Year at SIM Portland - 4/20/2020

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Richard's Home Office Dear Chapter members, I find myself writing my first Presidential update in a very interesting time. Like all of you, I have been following the "Stay Home, Save Lives" mandate and am holed up at home with my family. My daughter is home [early] from university in Paris (that’s a whole other story) and our family is together again under very unusual circumstances. I “commute” to work every day now by fighting the traffic in the corridor to my “cubicle” in the living room. I now work and meet at my seat in front of the computer which is making movement and exercise a challenge. Online meetings via Zoom and Teams are much improved, though I had to upgrade my bare bones internet service to handle the increased bandwidth demands of a quarantined family. For those of you who have not seen it, here is a very funny video on modern web conferencing , which I think needs to be included with the online meeting guidelines at every organization! SIM P
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