Message from the President, October 2021

Even in a weird era like now, fall is a special time. GBA has a lot to look forward to in the coming season – more on that in a minute. Bowing to the reality we’re now in, the GBA Board decided in September to make all GBA events for the rest of 2021 virtual. It’s unfortunate because even though we have great virtual programs, we miss the networking element we all appreciate (and thought we were getting back to). So long as we’re in this virtual mode, our member meetings will be at 12:30 so please mark your calendars for the upcoming October 21 and November 18 meetings.

Our first virtual membership meeting was in September and we heard from Mark Phillips, President of Phillips Collection, a design and furnishings company in High Point. I’m pretty sure it was GBA’s first ever meeting featuring our speaker on a Segway giving a warehouse tour. I guess virtual meetings have their upside after all.

For our upcoming membership meeting (October 21), we’ll be happy to welcome a representative of another important Triad company, Todd Navin of Haeco. I don’t think he can give us a virtual plane tour but it should be a good one.

We have a less “businessey” group of speakers lined up for next year but I wanted to do a couple of programs featuring some local business leaders. One of my goals as President is to expose some of my colleagues in the business bar (like corporate and real estate lawyers) to the activities and benefits of the bar. The business lawyers are more likely to be in their offices sending emails than at the courthouse rubbing elbows (I guess you can do that if you have a mask on) with the rest of the bar. I (as a business lawyer) have gotten a lot out of the GBA and I hope my colleagues can do the same. I have been able to work with lawyers I probably would never run into in my practice and that’s been a real benefit to me. Anyway, I hope you like hearing from these types of speakers.

We meet some political leaders at our November 18 meeting but we’ll focus on that next month. At that meeting we’ll also elect our State Bar Councilors, so we hope to have another good turnout.

Our Habitat effort (thanks again Bill Cooke) is (mostly) on schedule. The fundraising effort was a success and, along with a grant from the Bar Foundation will be used to complete the next house. The construction is a bit delayed (due to you know what) but we’ll get there.

I am always encouraged by the efforts of our Young Lawyers Section and this year is no exception. It’s good to see them planning an agenda and keeping the young lawyers engaged.

So while the no-live-meetings thing for 2021 is a disappointment, we hope to back offline (live that is) in January. Meanwhile, we hope to take advantage of our technology to have some great virtual events.

Desmond Sheridan
GBA President, 2021-2022