Letter from the President
 Happy Spring, EBMA Members! At this time of year in Tennessee, we get snippets of spring interspersed with reminders that winter isn’t ready to release its icy grip just yet. I don’t know about you, but this spring feels even more welcome than usual. It’s hard to believe that it’s now only 8 months away from the next annual conference!
Speaking of the next annual conference, I’m thrilled to announce that we’re going to Puerto Rico! Our meeting will be held at the Wyndham Grand Rio Mar Puerto Rico Golf & Beach Resort on January 7 – 10, 2020. (Did I really just write 2020?!?) For those of you checking your calendars, you read that right – we’re changing things up to a Tu – F schedule instead of a M – Th schedule. Whatever you’re doing now, stop for a minute, check out the live webcam from the resort and daydream a little bit. In case you’re wondering, Maureen and I did visit Puerto Rico and we stayed at the resort. While the country still shows remnants and reminders of the hurricane, they’re back on their feet and this resort is even nicer than it was when we were there years ago. It was important to us to vet the location to ensure that it was indeed restored after the hurricane. While there we felt safe, surrounded by beauty, and the hotel is thrilled to have our business!
Thank you to all the wholesalers who voted for our newest board members. I hope you’ll help me welcome Mike Beechin from Children’s Plus, Cheryl Dickemper from Houghton Mifflin, Marin Foster from B&T, Jim Marshall from Rosen Publishing, and continuing for a second term, Susan Marston from Junior Library Guild! The rest of the board and I can’t wait to work with them at the spring board meeting coming up in May.
It’s also very exciting to note that this year’s meeting co-chairs will be Nancy Stetzinger, Jim Marshall, and Margaret Coffee. This trio has such a wealth of knowledge and experience and I can’t wait to hear about their plans and ideas!
As you look at your travel plans for the early part of next year, there are a few important things to consider. We were able to negotiate a fantastic room rate of $199/night at the Wyndham, with no resort fee. We also got some great pricing on menus, and even managed to get complimentary WiFi in the meeting space. In case any of you want to come early or stay late for some fun and sun, we got the negotiated room rate from January 1 – January 15, 2020.
We’ll be looking at the results of the survey about our meeting in Austin when the board gathers in May (many thanks to those who took the time to complete the survey!). Meanwhile if you have more ideas to make this conference more valuable, please don’t hesitate to share them. We’ve tried some new things recently and are open to other ways to maximize the benefit you get from the organization and the annual meeting and we’d love to hear from you!
We’ll have summer, fall and winter before most of us meet again. I hope 2019 finds you, your families, and your careers/businesses thriving, and I can’t wait to see you in 2020!
Joyce Skokut
President, EBMA
Director, Collection Development, Ingram Library Services, LLC
jskokut@ingramcontent.com
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