Message from the President
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: 8/1/2022
We hope that you have been having an enjoyable summer and we are looking forward to a new program year!
It is time to renew your annual membership in the Estate Planning Council of Seattle. We continue to be one of the best values in the nation for an estate planning council with one of the lowest annual dues ($125/yr.). Membership gets you access to our 4 quarterly dinner meetings (hopefully all in person) and 6 virtual NAEPC national lunch webinars.
On behalf of the Executive Committee, I’d like to share with you a summary of the 2022-2023 year ahead with the following upcoming highlights:
September Quarterly Dinner Meeting: We are excited to welcome you on 9/21 to our 1st IN-PERSON dinner meeting since 2020! Please note that our 1st dinner meeting will be held at Bell Harbor International Conference Center and NOT at the Rainier Club.
Virtual NAEPC webinars: To continue to add value to your membership, we again will be hosting a series of 6 national lunch webinars. Our next webinar will be “Family Matters: How Business-Owning Families Can Work Together for a Unified Future” at noon on October 19.
67th Annual Estate Planning Seminar: This marquis event October 24-25 will be limited to the first 300 in-person seats at the Bell Harbor Conference center and an unlimited number of virtual ones.
Membership diversity: We will be reviewing our membership application processes and criteria and will be identifying ways to grow the diversity and representation in our membership.
Additional in-person events: We have budgeted for events this year for social, membership recruitment, and DEI. Join a committee and help shape these events!
Feedback welcome: We invite you to share feedback about the Council so we can add value to the membership. Please feel free to reach out directly to me or to another one of our board members to share your feedback or get more involved and join a committee.
On the topic of feedback, I would like to add that we will be sending out some short surveys to members to gauge how many people plan to attend each event in person or virtually and their preference for location(s). We have heard from many members that they would like to start to gather together again in person, but also that many are still uncomfortable or unable to do so. Based on this feedback the board felt we should look for venues that could allow us to offer hybrid dinner meetings with a virtual option for members and this wasn’t available through the Rainier Club where we have been having our meetings. In planning the return to our 1st quarterly dinner meeting we reached out to many alternative venues in downtown Seattle and most have cut staff significantly and didn’t return our calls. Bell Harbor was selected as the site for Annual Estate Planning Seminar so we decided to try our 1st Quarterly dinner meeting at the same venue and I hope everyone will try to make it to the dinner and give us your feedback. The location hasn’t been chosen yet for the remainder of our events this year.
I want to thank each of you for your continued membership, engagement, and support of the Estate Planning Council of Seattle. The Annual Estate Planning Seminar and your membership enables us to offer the above events and supports our outreach, website, and other estate planning resources for you and our community. Please renew your annual membership of $125 by September 21. As you renew, we invite you to update your profile on the Membership Directory.
Finally, I want to thank Jolene Cox for her service as President during a challenging time and look forward to working with her and the rest of the 2022-2023 Executive Committee as we attempt to gather together at more events this year!
Best wishes and see you in September!
Dan Halos
President, Executive Committee
Estate Planning Council of Seattle
