Voting by Roslyn Chamber of Commerce members for six open Board of Directors positions ended last Sunday. Eight candidates were nominated and the following six were elected: Wayne Wink Jr., Lou Federico, Jerry Baldassaro, Paul Trause, Harun Hassouni and Mollie Grossberg.
They join existing board members, Lonnie Goldman (president), Michael Grossberg (treasurer), Chris Soto, Patrick Mack, Vito DiTrapani, Heather Lehrman, Joyce Muller, Barbara Kaplan, and Caroline Kosloff.
The new board is tentatively scheduled to meet on Wednesday, Feb. 26 to fill the positions of vice presidents of Events, Membership, Programming, and Secretary.
The board’s recommendation for the chamber’s 2014 officer positions will be presented to the chamber for ratification at the March 3 meeting at Pearl East, which is also the chamber’s Annual Induction Ceremony for newly elected board members. Presiding over the induction will be Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Judi Bosworth.
Members who haven’t RSVP’d and paid for the March 3 meeting are advised to do so. Chamber members pay a discounted price of $10;non-members and guests are $25. The chamber is subsidizing the cost of the member’s price.
In the meantime, the chamber held a well-attended meeting earlier this month, one that went beyond expectations of Lonnie Goldman, chamber president.
“We had a much larger than expected turnout, which was totally awesome, and what I thought was a really great meeting,” Goldman said.
At the meeting, the chamber welcomed two new members: Atelier, a new hair salon, located at 61 Mineola Ave. and Prophecy Clothing Inc., located at 2 Main St.
According to Goldman, membership voted to adopt the following spending proposal at the board’s recommendation:
• Renew the Nassau Council of Chambers of Commerce membership
• Sponsor again the Challenger’s Division of the Roslyn Little League
• Continue the support of Roslyn high school students by giving three $500 scholarships to graduating Seniors of Roslyn High School
Goldman added that the chamber is looking to confirm the April 2014 meeting at Besito Restaurant with the same price structure as Pearl East.
In addition, chamber members received an email from Sally Kay Kaufman, a business teacher at Roslyn High School, concerning a New York State position paper on “the importance of Career Technical Education” in New York schools.
“The position paper outlines recommendations that support the current and future workforce needs of today’s businesses while ensuring that all students in New York State graduate from high school and college [while being] career ready,” Kaufman said.
“Your support of the proposed recommendations will result in: Students’ mastery of academic skills, employability skills and technical skills, a curriculum reflective of industry standards, career-based, rigorous, higher order instruction, business participation in program development, High School Regents diplomas with an additional technical endorsement and career pathways curricula based on labor market and work-based opportunities,” Kaufman added.
“The NYS Commissioner of Education and the Board of Regents are in initial support of the position paper,” Kaufman concluded. “However, they noted that they have not heard the opinions of business professionals. In the end, your voice is the critical link needed to assist these deciding parties on the future of Career and Technical Education in our schools.”
Kaufman is asking that chamber members and others in the business community voice their support for the position paper, which is available at www.nysacte.org .
