As the saying goes, March comes "in like a lion, out like a lamb."
Here at Rocky Mountain ASTA, perhaps it is more appropriate, as we work to increase the value of your membership, to consider the reverse of that statement – that we come in like a lamb and out more like a lion. We continue to partner with Rocky Mountain Association For The Promotion of Tourism to Africa and invite you to take advantage of our mutual events. Similarly, we are putting together a slate of events that will consider your desires and what is valuable to you. To determine this, a survey will be coming to you soon to gauge your interests. We strongly encourage you to take a moment to complete this when it comes so that your desires can be taken into consideration. Your chapter is also looking for a Chapter Treasurer and other chapter positions. Despite these roles' lofty titles, these openings are… not…. significant time-consuming roles. Please contact me directly for more information on our available positions. As always, we want to serve you the best we can. However, we are limited in our ability to do this based on the volunteer help we can attain and the feedback you provide. To be a strong chapter, we require your assistance. We can only be as strong as what you are willing to help put into this through your feedback and support. We appreciate your membership in ASTA and look forward to hearing from you. Respectfully yours, Rob Hale | Chapter President
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February, The Month of Love!
And here at your chapter board level, we sure love you! Our members! Without you, there would be no chapter. While this month’s newsletter may be arriving a bit delayed, our passion for growing our chapter into the best it can be for you remains firm. Yet a chapter can only be as strong as the help it can attain to lead it. It is ultimately up to you, our members, to determine the quality of the chapter you desire to create for yourself. To this end, ASTA election season is now beginning, and ballots will come to you soon (from ASTA National) to select your next slate of ASTA National board members. Those selected will be seated at the upcoming ASTA Global Convention at the beginning of May. More information on this election will come to you in March. Locally, we are actively needing and seeking a new Chapter Treasurer who can assist us with our chapter’s financial records. Should you be interested or know someone who may be a fit, please have them contact me directly at RobH@TravelnRelax.com for more information. This position does NOT require you to be living on the Front Range. Anyone in our Chapter region is eligible. We appreciate your help in this search. March will be here soon. So I will keep this month’s message short. But know that we are striving to create the best chapter for you based on the level of help we can attain to support our efforts to serve you. We appreciate your support of ASTA and our Rocky Mountain ASTA Chapter! Thank you for being a member! Respectfully yours, Rob Hale Happy New Year!
We've Arrived! 2023 is now here and hopefully your year is off to a prosperous and successful start! This has been an odd winter so far with Christmas snow still lingering and periods of intense cold and fog dotting our days and nights. Peculiarities for a Colorado Front Range winter. However, such weather bodes well for the ski resorts in our states and the tourism business winter can bring. As with everyones new year, your chapter also is looking forward to new starts and fresh beginnings! Our kickoff event will be a virtual presentation on the Secrets of Japan and South Korea to be held Thursday January 19th over the lunch hour. By now you should have received your first invite to this event. Some have expressed a strong preference for live events and have asked me why we do virtual events at all. I too much prefer live events, it is more meaningful to connect face to face, and we will continue these as much as possible. However, there are some events, such as this month, that we do present virtually for a couple of reasons:
For these reasons we do hold virtual events from time to time. I hope we can look forward to your continued support and attendance at our events, no matter if they are live or virtual. Each will provide value to you starting with our Japan and South Korea event on January 19th! Please let us know if you have ideas you would like us to consider for future events. We are always open to hearing from our membership so that we may strive to serve you better. We appreciate your ASTA membership and look forward to serving you in the year ahead! Respectfully yours, Rob Hale Chapter President Message from your Chapter President
Hi friends! June is always a transitional month for me. On the one side, we leave behind the rush of graduations, proms, and other family milestone events to enter into the other “calmer” side of the lull of summer that the next two months represent. Here at ASTA, we also are beginning to transition, recognizing that the ASTA Global Convention in August represents the end of the ASTA calendar year and the beginning of the next ASTA year (which starts in September). Today we closed out our chapter event’s for this ASTA year with an excellent presentation from Tourism Australia! Hopefully, you were able to attend and go “Down Under” with us! At the same time, we are preparing for our next ASTA calendar year with a great kickoff event in September and our chapter’s first trade show event to be held on Friday, October 7, 2022. Please mark your calendars for this! You won’t want to miss it! Further details will follow. Just this week, I, and some other chapter members, headed to Washington, D.C. for ASTA Legislative Day, which was held on June 22, 2022. I will have a report on this in next month’s newsletter. Also, space is still available for the ASTA Global Convention in San Francisco on August 24 – 26, 2022. This is always a great event with excellent speakers, solid educational opportunities, and a good opportunity to network with your peers! I hope you will consider joining us in the “City by the Bay” for this event! The board and I thank you for being an ASTA member. As always, if we can assist you in any way, please reach out to us. Our door is always open to you! Until next month I am… Respectfully yours, Rob Hale | Chapter President | RobH@Travelnrelax.com | 303.317.6945 Message from your Chapter President
May – A month that represents spring and change. Here in the Rocky Mountains, that can mean we move from one day in the upper 80s with beautiful new spring delights and flop the very next day to the lower 30s with snow! Indeed there is nothing quite like the unique Rocky Mountain Spring! Like this fluctuation, your chapter is also working to flip the other way from that cold, snowy winter weather to a season of new buds and beautiful blooms that will hopefully please all of your senses and enchant you! This means new events and activities to engage in and opportunities for you to learn and grow! From live events to virtual presentations, we continue to develop new ways that will hopefully surprise and delight you! Next up on our list of chapter events is a June luncheon with our friends from Tourism Australia, where you will have the opportunity to learn about the land down under! Slightly further afield in San Francisco will be the national ASTA Global Convention in August, where we hope you will join your chapter in this annual educational and networking event. You can find more details on both in the “Events” section below. We welcome your feedback and suggestions on how we can best serve you. Should you have any contributions you wish to make, please let me or a board member know. Our door is always open! Thank you for being a Rocky Mountain ASTA member! Respectfully, Rob Hale | Chapter President | RobH@Travelnrelax.com | 303.317.6945 Message from your Chapter President
Hi Friends! Our little bold tree in the front of our house has begun to bloom, which can only mean one thing… April has arrived! This little tree is a trooper, always taking a bold, strong role to be the first tree in our neighborhood to bloom and blossom. It has found a way to outthink the other trees around it to show itself as the annual "winner" when it comes to first out of the gate to blossom. Like this tree, your local ASTA chapter is always looking for new ways to be first out of the gate to serve our members in better, more powerful ways that will benefit you, our members. We are always looking for ways to blossom more brilliantly to better profit you. Your local chapter board meets to consider our best path to serve you each month. Did you know that these board meetings are open for you to attend virtually with us should you wish to attend? While visiting non-board members are not provided a vote at these meetings, you are welcome to observe and input your thoughts. Likewise, at any time, we also welcome your ideas and thoughts to consider for the future path of our chapter. Should you wish to participate either way, please reach out to one of the board members below or me. On the topic of participation, it was a pleasure to see many of you at our chapter's recent live event at Denver's Thompson Hotel. Hopefully, those who attended found our first live meeting (post-COVID) beneficial to you. To those unable to participate, we hope to see you at other chapter events (virtual and live) that we will be hosting. Please see below for upcoming events and continue to check your inbox for event invitations as each event gets near. We appreciate your membership and look forward to seeing you at future events! Respectfully, Rob Hale | Chapter President | RobH@Travelnrelax.com | 303.317.6945 Board Members: Mitch Krayton | Chapter Vice President| Mitch@Kraytontravel.com | 303.365.0051 Darcie Bolton Weiser | Chapter Secretary| Darcie@Weisertravels.com | 303.725.7042 Trent Rogers | Chapter Treasurer | Trent@picturesqueexpeditions.com| 303.704.1262 Debi Kelley | Membership Chair | Debi@Premieretravelplanners.com | 303.589.1413 Lisa Hale | Social Media Chair | LisaH@Travelnrelax.com | 303.317.6945 Sally Sparhawk | Chapter Events Chair| Sally@envoyagetravel.com |970.618.1442 John McMillen |Supplier Representative | John.McMillen@insidetravelgroup.com | 720.316.0191 Skyler Mason |Supplier Representative | Smason@liveskyin.com | 303.548.2120 Message from your Chapter President
As I write this month's message, it is the eve of my departure to Budapest tomorrow to attend the inaugural ASTA Global River Cruise Expo! This is the last grand event planned by ASTA's icon Bob Duglin before his passing. As such, it will be a period of mixed emotions – joy at this first new event and sadness at the memories of Bob that I am sure will be present throughout. This ASTA event will represent a new beginning for this inaugural event and your chapter! Here at home, we will introduce our live events again, starting with networking and a tour of the new Thompson Hotel in Denver. Please see below for more information. We are also planning other live events to wrap up the ASTA calendar year, concluding at the ASTA Global Convention in August. Speaking of ASTA National events, please don't forget that you have access to these with your ASTA membership! We'd love to have several of you join us at ASTA Legislative Day in Washington D.C. in June and ASTA Global Convention in San Francisco in August. You can find details on these on the ASTA events page, and the events are open to both Advisor and Supplier members! This month's message will be short as I head off now to finish packing my suitcase en-route to Budapest. But know that your chapter board is here for you wherever we may be in the world. If there is anything I, or the board, can do for you, please let us know. Our doors are always open, and it is our pleasure to serve you! Respectfully, Rob Hale | Chapter President | RobH@Travelnrelax.com | 303.317.6945 Board Members: Mitch Krayton | Chapter Vice President| Mitch@Kraytontravel.com | 303.365.0051 Darcie Bolton Weiser | Chapter Secretary| Darcie@Weisertravels.com | 303.725.7042 Trent Rogers | Chapter Treasurer | Trent@picturesqueexpeditions.com| 720.694.2696 Debi Kelley | Membership Chair | Debi@Premieretravelplanners.com | 303.589.1413 Lisa Hale | Social Media Chair | LisaH@Travelnrelax.com | 303.317.6945 Sally Sparhawk | Chapter Events Chair| Sally@envoyagetravel.com |970.618.1442 John McMillen |Supplier Representative | John.McMillen@insidetravelgroup.com | 720.316.0191 Skyler Mason |Supplier Representative | Smason@liveskyin.com | 303.548.2120 Rocky Mountain ASTA members…
We are in love with you! February, the month of romance, has arrived, and our love for you, our chapter members, runs deep! We appreciate the trust you put in us as your board as we strive to find new and improved ways to maximize the benefits of your local ASTA membership. Recently you received a message from me announcing that our new chapter website is live! If you have not already done so, I encourage you to look at the Rocky Mountain Website and bookmark this site. This will be your immediate “go-to” reference (along with our chapter Facebook page) for the most up-to-date chapter information. We’ve also heard from chapter members the desire to hold our chapter events at different times. Our March event will be an ASTA first to show our passion for you! We will experiment with having the chapter meeting – twice – during the month. These will be on different days, times… and … separate weeks! Another ASTA chapter has never done this, and we are hopeful this method will allow more of our members to attend! We will look forward to your feedback on this new meeting style. However, love cannot be victorious using an online world alone. Therefore, as we move ahead, we look forward to getting back into live events as COVID permits us. Your chapter is currently working on a live event in April; details will be announced once we get final confirmation from the venue. We hope you’ll come to join us to get reconnected there! We also know that Rocky Mountain ASTA does not just consist of the Denver metro area. We are looking at ways to hopefully expand our reach to other parts of our chapter’s region so more members can meet with us live. To that end, we are looking over our member lists to discover where our members are located. If you have interest in having a chapter meeting in your area, please let us know so we can consider coming to your town. Also, please don’t forget the ASTA national events you have access to with your ASTA membership! We’d love to have several of you join us at ASTA Legislative Day in Washington D.C. in June and ASTA Global Convention in San Francisco in August. Details on these can be found on the ASTA events page, and the events are open to both Advisor and Supplier members! We look forward to reconnecting with you in our chapter events and experiences to learn, travel, and have fun in the months ahead! As always, we thank you for being a Rocky Mountain ASTA Chapter member! If there is anything I, or the board, can do for you, please let us know. Our doors are always open, and it is our pleasure to serve you! Respectfully, Rob Hale | Chapter President | RobH@Travelnrelax.com | 303.317.6945 Board Members: Mitch Krayton | Chapter Vice President| Mitch@Kraytontravel.com | 303.365.0051 Darcie Bolton Weiser | Chapter Secretary| Darcie@Weisertravels.com | 303.725.7042 Trent Rogers | Chapter Treasurer | Trent@picturesqueexpeditions.com| 303.704.1262 Debi Kelley | Membership Chair | Debi@Premieretravelplanners.com | 303.589.1413 Lisa Hale | Social Media Chair | LisaH@Travelnrelax.com | 303.317.6945 Sally Sparhawk | Chapter Events Chair| Sally@envoyagetravel.com |970.618.1442 John McMillen |Supplier Representative | John.McMillen@insidetravelgroup.com | 720.316.0191 Skyler Mason |Supplier Representative | Skylersmason@liveskyin.com | 303.548.2120 Message from your Chapter President
Dear Rocky Mountain ASTA Members, Happy President's Day Monday! As you know, it's not often that I interrupt your week but I have exciting news to share with you! Thanks to the technical skills of Board Member Trent Rogers, our chapter now has an amazing new website! This website is up and live now for you to view and interact with! Our website will be your 24/7/365 home for finding chapter information, meeting updates, industry news and archives of past chapter events and newsletters you may have missed live. We hope you'll agree that Trent did an amazing job on the site! I invite you to take a look now at: Rocky Mountain Website Watch for your monthly newsletter soon as we continue to roll out exciting new announcements and events that will help increase the value of your membership! We have exciting things planned for you! Respectfully, Rob Hale, Chapter President Message from your Chapter President
January! A month of new beginnings and new hopes, January is always greeted with anticipation of what the New Year may bring. As one reflects on the past year, there is always hopeful anticipation that January will open a new calendar filled with our dreams and visions come true! Here at Rocky Mountain ASTA, we have laid out plans to benefit you, our members, in the year ahead. Exciting new projects have been in the works and are about to be unveiled that will allow us to better communicate with you and offer you unique experiences! In the months ahead, we look forward to showcasing these new chapter elements and experiences that will allow all of us to get reconnected and enjoy time together learning, traveling, and having fun! Barring future surprises like COVID, 2022 will be a fantastic year for our chapter that your chapter leadership looks forward to presenting and experiencing with you! First up, a unique supplier panel will answer questions on the best way to work with suppliers in a post COVID world. Please mark your calendar for February 17th for this presentation. Details will follow. As always, we thank you for being a Rocky Mountain ASTA Chapter member! If there is anything I, or the board, can do for you, please let us know. It is our pleasure to be serving you! Respectfully, Rob Hale | Chapter President | RobH@Travelnrelax.com | 303.317.6945 Board Members: Mitch Krayton | Chapter Vice President| Mitch@Kraytontravel.com | 303.365.0051 Darcie Bolton Weiser | Chapter Secretary | Darcie@Weisertravels.com | 303.725.7042 Trent Rogers | Chapter Treasurer | Trent@picturesqueexpeditions.com| 303.704.1262 Debi Kelley | Membership Chair | Debi@Premieretravelplanners.com | 303.589.1413 Lisa Hale | Social Media Chair | LisaH@Travelnrelax.com | 303.317.6945 John McMillen |Supplier Representative | John.McMillen@insidetravelgroup.com | 720.316.0191 |