A Letter From the APAP Board of Directors  

January 14, 2011

Dear Fellow APAP Members,

As we move from the conference back home to the realities of our busy day-to-day lives, we wanted to send a quick follow up to the conference and specifically to the “Future of APAP” forum in which many of you participated.  As members of the association, elected to serve on your behalf, we left the conference feeling both inspired and ready for action.

Our wonderful closing speaker, Azar Nafisi, opined that we do not have an economic crisis in our country today; rather, we have a crisis of vision for a changing future.  As we listened to you talk about your association (APAP) throughout the past few days together, we heard a similar theme.  Just as our individual organizations are reexamining our purpose, place in the community, and business models, so too must APAP reexamine these critical issues for our future.

To that end, we want you to know that the board will not be bringing a new dues proposal forward in the coming months.  Rather, we have committed to a process of seriously, creatively and energetically looking at the future of our association and strategizing new ways that we can work to serve our members and our field.  In the meantime, we will assist the staff in evaluating current fiscal realities to adjust our budget to keep it in line with revenue expectations for the short term.

Each of us joined the APAP Board of Directors because we believe in the value of our association in ensuring that the field of arts presenting remains vibrant and robust, even in the most difficult of times.  To that end, we commit to you our willingness to look critically and creatively at new ways that we can contribute to the needs of our diverse membership and our field.

We ask you to join us in this effort.  You will find each of our names and contact information below.  Please share your thoughts and visions with us, either individually or collectively.  The theme of our conference was Vision 2021.  We look forward with enthusiasm to the challenge of re-envisioning an APAP that is positioned to support the arts presenting field of the future - a field that is vital to the cultural and economic health of our world.

Thank you for your attendance, your feedback and your work in your home community.  We will continue the dialogue about our association’s future throughout the coming months, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
APAP Board of Directors

* Denotes Executive Committee Members