CSI Memphis Chapter President: Lisa Perkowski
Daltile I Architectural Sales Representative
It’s been an interesting 3 years, hasn’t it? 3 years ago on July 19, 2019 we had our first CSI Memphis Bowling Tournament. It was a big success and we decided to make it an annual event. Fast forward to July 2022, 3 years later, we were finally able to have our second tournament. In my opinion, it was just as much fun as the first. Three years ago, we had no idea what we were all about to experience and when the Pandemic finally hit us and shut our community down in March 2020, our chapter basically shut down as well. I’m very happy that we kick started our new fiscal year off with a fun event for us to get together and build on the camaraderie that the CSI Memphis Chapter is known for. Prior to the bowling tournament starting, we factored in an educational experience through the generous sponsorship of Ameristar, an Assa Abloy Company. Wayne Norman of Ameristar presented a CEU course on perimeter security systems. We got smart and had fun, all in the same afternoon! I urge you to visit our social media and website for pictures of the day, see the teams, the winners, the good time had by all and I urge you not to miss this event next year!
I’d like to spend a bit of time reminiscing about the last fiscal year, July 2021 through June 2022. That was the first year of my Presidency. I decided to say yes to the Presidency because I’m a do-er. My daily job consists of constant planning, setting up meetings, presenting to small groups and large crowds, being in front of people every day and I thought I could just carry that into the president’s role: easy, no brainer. Well, it takes a village to get your chapter back on its feet and I’m proud to say that I feel like we collectively did it! Our leadership team pulled together a meeting or event every month. We had generous sponsors, we met new people, we nurtured longstanding relationships, we maintained our membership level and we even got a couple of new members to join us. We had our best fundraising year of all time for the Dempsie B Morrison Scholarship Fund too and that is no small task. Thanks to all of our generous donors and to our Scholarship Chair, Julie Fleming who graciously handles this big task year to year. We brought back to life our CSI Student Chapter, thanks in great part to Safari Love and our University Liaison, Jenna Thompson. We will be getting the student chapter progressing forward this year and we are very excited for the students to join us! So I think we have some bragging rights and I’m going to just go ahead and say it…we had a pretty darn successful year!
Having said all of that, there is much work to do. We just completed our Transfer of Power meeting and we pulled out a lot of good stuff for this new year. We have some great things lined up for you all over the next year. We vow to be better communicators with our members, we vow to provide more chapter information on a monthly basis, we vow to provide good energy, education, support and most importantly, we vow to do all of this while having a great time! I love the Memphis design and construction community and I believe you all do too. So please consider getting out and joining us at our meetings and events that we have planned for you. We want your feedback on your needs as a member and I am more than happy to discuss with any of you any ideas you may have for how we can continue to grow and be successful.
Looking forward to seeing you over the course of the year….
Lisa Perkowski