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Letter from the President

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Dear Colleague—

On behalf of your Association, let me wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, or, if you prefer, Happy Holidays.

We have had a busy, slightly Merry, generally Happy 2009.

We had a very successful annual dinner, honoring our friends who began their service to our country in uniform, and then came to Congress.

This year, we are honoring a Former known to many of you—Ray LaHood from Illinois, currently continuing his service as Secretary of Transportation.

Our annual meeting this year will be different, and I hope quite valuable to all of us, but also to the country.

We have moved the venue to the National Archives, and your association will host a day-long event there with a varied and distinguished group of presenters devoted to the issue of bipartisanship, and whether that is a concept which, in today’s environment, is dead, or which can, with the right leadership and sense of determination, be revived.

The day will be capped with the annual dinner, which will also be at the Archives.

Many of you will probably be reacting, as did I, with a sense of incredulity at holding an event such as ours’ at the Archives—you simply must attend to see what this facility can do.  They are extremely excited about this, and so am ‘I.

In conjunction with the annual meeting we will have the golf tournament with Formers, Currents, and a contingent of Wounded Warriors from Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval.  Even if you don’t golf—I don’t—you should come out the day of the tournament and meet these kids.  They will renew your faith.  I guarantee it.

Speaking of renewing, we are trying very hard to renew our involvement in the international election monitoring effort.  We may well be sending some people to Iraq in January, for example.

We have a growing relationship with the House of Representatives on democracy building.  A team of our Members has just returned from Kenya, and we will likely be sending another team to Georgia (not Atlanta, the other Georgia) in February.

Your staff remains stable, steady, and strong.  We are losing an existing staff member, who wants to don her red shoes and go home to Kansas, but she is being replaced by an individual who shows the same degree of talent and dedication as did Whitney.  We will miss Whitney, and wish her well.

Our relationships with the legislative bodies of Germany, Turkey, Japan, and, now, India are strong and the sitting Members get a lot of good experience from these contacts.

This year is the 40th anniversary for the FMC.  I hope that many of you will find the opportunity to join with us in some one of our events to help celebrate.

I should mention one other thing in which FMC is heavily involved in, and that is a very ambitious effort to join many distinguished Americans, including Justice O’Connor, to help re-ignite the effort to leave no child with a high school diploma who does not understand the Constitution.  It is to re-introduce what we all suffered through in classes known as “civics.”  Your fellow members have participated in the creation of several webcasts on a variety of civics-related topics, which are being seen in classrooms all across the country.  This effort, and Congress-to-Campus, may well be the most important contribution we make to the continuing strength of our country.

Bless you all, and I hope to see many of you in 2010.


Sincerely,

John J. Rhodes, III


John J. Rhodes, III, the Board, and the Association Staff would like to wish you happy holidays and a Happy New Year.

Christmas Tree


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