Ajarn Mark Caldwell Blog

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Dinner with the Board

Opportunity is a funny thing... it comes along when you least expect it.  I believe it was Thomas Edison who said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”  Tonight was one of those nights.  Not that the opportunity looked like work, but certainly that it could have been easily overlooked.

Bill Graziano had contacted me a few weeks ago to let me know he would be in town for the PASS Board of Directors meeting (Bill was elected to the board at the Community Summit in Dallas).  So, we made plans to get together for dinner on the last night he would be here, which was tonight.  And that is when Opportunity knocked.

When I got over to the hotel to meet Bill, he was talking with several other members of the board and other staff who all decided to go out to dinner together.  Bill was willing to go off and do our own dinner, but he was interested in going with the rest of the group, and I thought it sounded like a good idea.  Well, it turned out to be a great idea!  There were about a dozen of us who went out to dinner together and we had a great time and good conversation.  It was interesting for me to hear the board members' viewpoints on a variety of topics, including the community summit.  And since I had been on the program committee last year, I was able to provide a different point of view on it.

Overall, we had a great dinner and it was nice to meet some of the board members in person.  Many of them had to leave right after dinner to go catch red-eye flights home.  Bill, Christoph (board member from Germany), Joe Webb, and I went back to the hotel lounge to keep talking.  That got into some interesting stories as each of us owns our own business and we shared experiences and lessons.  What a wonderful surprise opportunity the whole evening turned out to be.

It was great to meet each of you, and thank you for the work you all do to keep PASS running and for putting on the Community Summits here in the U.S. and the European Conference abroad.  They are fantastic resources.

Update:  Fixed spelling of Christoph's name.  Sorry, Christoph!