PPANE visits Hallmark

President Elect Tom Hurlbut and myself presented 195 Certificates of Accomplishment, along with 195 PPANE convention passes to Hallmark Institute of Photography graduates. George Rosa, III, president of the school was incredibly welcoming to us. As George introduced us, his praise of PPANE, stepping up and taking a first step to acknowledge these graduates was commendable. He talked of the importance of the Association and urged students to take advantage of PPANE's generous offer. We were able to share with the students what the associations have done for us, what they can do for themselves and the importance of being member.

We are also very excited to provide almost 90 packets to the New England School of Photography. They graciously agreed to mail their students our convention pass, congratulations letter from our President and applications for the student program.

The student program is accepting applications. The volunteers will help set up, help with the committees and help make sure all the members know where all the events are at the new convention location in Nashua, New Hampshire. The students' expenses will be paid for three days and nights through the sponsorships.

8 room slots are available, if anyone wants to apply just download the form from the student page at www.ppane.com and mail to Tom Hurlbut.
Tom Hurlbut
Tomhurlbut1@juno.com
860-487-3800


Look who we ran into at Hallmark! A member of our PPANE family, Rich Barnes. He is the portrait director there and to the students a ROCK STAR!! Thanx Barnesy for making us feel at home!

Executive Director of NEIPP

The PPANE board is excited to announce the new Executive Director of NEIPP .... Arthur Rainville. Join us in congratulating Arthur in this new adventure with us. Welcome aboard Arthur, we are all excited to work with you.

PPA Headquaters!

Up up and away!! Here is the view as we landed in Atlanta, GA. The PPANE EC committee has taken on the tasks of the PPANE ED, we felt it important to attend the ED meeting at PPA Headquarters.

This is the official hotel for PPA, just walking distance from the International Tower.




Nancy Green also decided to attend to help in her growth as a EC member and to bring information back to MA.



First night dinner was right around the corner from the hotel with the company ED's from affiliates all around the country. Everyone was VERY gracious to us and made us feel right at home.



We MUST be getting close. I can't even begin to guess how many times I have wrote this address before.





OH OH OH, this is the second part of the PPA address, we must be HOT at this point!







Going with the PPA theme of orange for volunteers, we all packed our orange shirts to wear.








Yep this MUST be the place!













No doubt about it! Here is Marrisa Pitts our official welcome to PPA!!












Marrisa is one of those people you ALWAYS know will be able to help you out and point you in the right direction. We almost didn't recognize her without her orange shirt on!











Nancy and ME with Marissa!

















Mark Haskell was there as the Maine ED. Ask him about what it is like to get to get into the PPA headquarters on a Sunday. He has a funny story to share!!











Here are some of the dedicated staff of PPA. They gave up their Sunday to spend it with us sharing some of the keys that have made PPA so successful the last few years.








Look close...PPANE is honored in the boardroom with recognition of our 100th convention. Do you notice only one more affiliate listed longer then US!!





The PPANE board can not thank David Trust enough for the last few years of sharing the leadership training information with us. We as a board are stronger and our association is moving forward again.






Time to head home! Here we are in the subway back to the airport. What an incredible amount of information Nancy and I have to share with New England. Thank you PPA for hosting such an learning experience for leadership and thank you to all the EDs that welcomed Nancy and I!!

Last stop on the Tour De New England

OK, here it is! The last stop on my New England tour! I now have the bragging rites of 6 states, 6 conventions, NO snow storms AND no speeding tickets!! I'm not sure how many other PPANE presidents can say that. I am happy to be on that list, then on the list that had all the snow storms.

A special thanx to all the photographers that supplied me with the images for the blog ...Crystal Nadeau, Tim Cameron, Bob Akers, John Malboeuf and Art Swenson

NHPPA -66 cases!!

For a bunch of friends we certainly had 7 different opinions. This is what makes print judging so fair, is that you add us all together and come up with an average. I was in the print room at 8:30 AM and we finished up at 10:30 PM. LONG day, but lots of fun!

As a judge you know going to NH you will see lots and lots of prints. As usual their print cases were up to 66! Way to go NHPPA!! Most cases in NE!!

Do you think we the judges had to many challenges? Ask the print comittee! Did we talked to much? Or get up and looked at every print? In the end we certainly gave the audience something to listen to.

What a ride!



NHPPA All the Fun we had!

NHPPA 50th Banquet

Look at that smile!! Do I look HAPPY? Can you tell it's my last speech for awhile?? NHPPA can be a tough group to do anything serious with, but keeping it short and having them promise to check out all the great speakers for PPANE 2009 at www.PPANE.com

was a big help!
The PPANE Presidents scholarship winners are..
Jeff Lackey- winner
Clair Lemire -1st runner up
Rick English-2nd runner up

I know why NHPPA gets done what they do, look at all these hard working volunteers! WOW, what a great group of dedicated board members. GREAT JOB!!

Another AWESOME National Award presented in New England! What an HONOR to be present as Steve Bedall received the NHPPA National Award. So deserved! Congrats Steve!!!

Judges Choice for NHPPA

Here I am with Heather Smith from Atlanta, GA. She was presenting PPA Certification - A Crash Course at the NHPPA convention. I just fell in love with one of her images. Heather missed her own state judging to be in NH and thought she would enter her prints here to have the learning experience and to hear some of them judged. I had picked my print at the end of our judging day and needed to sign the ribbon. On the way down the elevator the next morning I had my Judges Choice ribbon with me and noticed Heather's name tag, thinking "I think that is the maker of my pick". And sure enough it was! Heather had some other pet images in the show that were very nice as well. Keep up the AWESOME images Heather!!

My NHPPA Peeps

I was happy to get a photograph of my NH PPANE peeps! These guys have worked so hard for PPANE this year. Candace as taken more on then any board member out there as VP of Finance, Gene has brought more idea's, more suggestions and the willingness to follow through. He is doing a tip top job on the by laws to boot. Then I have Lorraine who no matter what I ask she is always willing to help. Thank you guys a BUNCH for working so hard for PPANE, it is volunteers like the three of you that makes PPANE what it is!!

NHPPA 2009 Award winning images!