I lived in Paris for four years. One particular custom in France is that the country basically shuts down during the entire month of August to go on summer vacation. Yes, a full month of vacation. September would follow with the “rentre” (reentry or return). With this they meant the period where the entire population would go back to their non-vacation mode. With fully recharged batteries, students go back to school, new employees (many of them transferred public servants) start their new jobs and businesses get into a non-stop schedule of trade shows, planning meetings and an overall mad dash to reach year-end goals, as most companies there have fiscal years that coincide with the calendar year.
Even though this practice seemed a little bizarre to me at first, I now have a different perspective. Our schedules in North America are not that different. While most of us don’t have the benefit of a yearly August vacation shutdown, our school year begins in the fall, and when it comes to business we also get into a heavy trade show and business planning schedule. We all experience a mad dash before the year-end holidays, often starting with Thanksgiving.
Our work at CSIA reflects this as well. We have been working hard on planning the 2016 Executive Conference, as we aim to have the event website up and open for registration as soon as possible. This forces us to have a clearly outlined agenda in place. We have also entered the budget planning season which forces us to be clear about what we want to accomplish with funding available for 2016. This year we also have strategic planning for the next three-five years as part of our in-person board meeting Oct. 25-27 in Madison. Meanwhile, there is no shortage of trade shows, and I have been invited to attend several industry conferences to represent CSIA.
In summary, let me welcome you all to your “rentre” and offer my best wishes for your year-end activities.