Dear fellow FAA Members,
It seems like only yesterday when I had the honor and privilege or receiving the FAA gavel from
my friend John Dent and began my year serving as Chairman of the FAA. But a year has passed, and our time-honored tradition will continue later today when I have the honor of passing this gavel to our next Chairman, Dan Donovan.
I have been involved with the FAA for 25 years. There are many words that come to mind when I think of the hundreds of FAA members I’ve met, dozens of attractions I’ve visited, and thousands of hours invested in my professional development and networking opportunities provided by the FAA.
Words such as Family. Caring. Concern. Helper. Sharing. Professional. Our association culture is unique and is greater than the sum of all of us. It is the greatest asset we possess. One that has endured the test of time, the dynamic forces of our world, the fickle demands of our guests, the development of our staff and the lightning speed of technology. Our FAA culture is to be protected and celebrated. One recent attendee to our annual conference described it like this – an FAA meeting was less like a conference and more like a revival!
Like our FAA members – attractions, Associate members and DMOs, the past 12 months have continued the necessary evolution required to thrive and it is incumbent on us as leaders of Florida’s attractions industry not to simply embrace the change, but be leaders in it, and to be the catalyst that produces it.
As it relates to the FAA, this change has affected us all this year. In an efficient and effective Strategic Planning Session our Board of Directors spent two days wrestling with creating the next chapter in the FAA story. Our planning session ended with the development of five working groups each tasked with renewing and recharging aspects of our association.
Two FAA events were retired this year. Our winter Attraction Regional Forums and fall
Networking Nights required a fresh vision. Our new FAA event, Expedition FAA coming this fall will combine the best elements of these two events with hours of professional development combined with an evening networking event and back-of-the-house tour of an FAA member attraction.
The introduction of a fall and winter online webinar series delivered twelve unique education and development programs online directly to you and over 200 FAA members participated in this new, free program.
Our Annual Conference was refreshed with more educational content, more topics, more speakers, more networking time than any conference in our history.
Our Board continues its work to create more opportunities for Board members to engage with our FAA members, more occasions for our members to volunteer and serve on committees, better communication methods, a quarterly e-newsletter, a stronger advocacy effort and refreshing of our FAA brand and value proposition.
It has been a year of change and we’re just getting started.
I want to thank our 2023-2024 Board of Directors for their support and involvement in serving the FAA. (anyone else to thank). Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank our FAA Members who have made the commitment to join, participate and serve their fellow attraction professionals.
I think back to how our members and leaders of the past have served us. For 75 years, men and women in Florida’s attractions industry have selflessly served the collective. Each generation believes they are living in our industry’s “golden age.” We should approach each day with wisdom, courage, and responsibility on our shoulders, for today we stand on the shoulders of those before us who dreamed of an association of Florida attractions. Certainly, we have far surpassed their wildest dream. Today, we must continue that tradition so that in the year 2099, 75 years from now, that generation of attraction leaders may also say “we stand on the shoulders of giants.”
Respectfully submitted,
Cindy Stavely
Florida Attractions Association
Chairman of the Board
June 11, 2024
