It's been exciting to hear and to see owners and staff smiling that money is flowing again; the industry is back!
The last 45 days have been pretty amazing and terrifying at the same time. Why was it terrifying? Well, my house was hit pretty hard with this new COVID variant. High fevers don't make for very much fun for 10 days. We all have recovered, however, and are feeling great again! Personally, for us, we know more people now with or just having had COVID than we did during the year with the country on lockdown.
So what was amazing? SPOA has had some amazing traction on many fronts. We are growing company memberships and business partners by the week. We are about to announce our new partnership on Student Data Privacy. We are also about to release the long-awaited school management software standards that will, effective July 22, have one export for all school software systems, which will drastically reduce the time and improve the effectiveness of exports moving forward. Our Women's Leadership Advisory Council will soon be hosting its second meeting and our new Industry Partner & Supplier Advisory Council has put together some incredible plans for our upcoming conference in June. It has truly been amazing to see the talent of these groups and what it will mean for our industry years from now. Last, we will be holding our third industry conversation with the leaders from the yearbook industry and school photography industry here in a few weeks. I could not be more excited about our future as an industry.
We will soon be embarking on our first in-person meeting with all of our board chairs and business partners since our inception. The conversations and possibilities of what will come of this will be felt across our industry for generations. More than 11 million students were photographed by the leaders attending this summit last fall. The leadership and the time they are all taking to help this industry is outright amazing. I personally want to thank APS Lab, Fotomerchant, ImageQuix/PhotoLyx, IdiomConnect, PhotoDay, Sony, and Studio Source Yearbooks for their support and participation in this summit. We are all set up for an incredible three days of meetings this December.
Last, I want to hear from you. Before we get to our leadership summit in Houston in less than nine weeks, I want to know what you feel is needed to keep our industry healthy for generations to come/ What can we do in lobbying to help you and your business? What standards do you believe need to be set to protect our traditions and careers? What can SPOA do to help you? I am a phone call or an email away. If you have ideas, I want to hear from you. davidc@schoolphotographersofamerica.com or 615-924-4780
Thank you and we hope you are having an incredible fall season thus far!
David Crandall
Executive Director
School Photographers of America
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