OCTOBER 31, 2001

Hall of Fame inductions on Nov. 13 in Charlotte. See story below
Ed Crutchfield	Felix Harvey	Duke Kimbrell	Dalton McMichael

NCCBI News

Banks pitch in to help membership drive
Three of North Carolina’s largest banks have volunteered to help NCCBI with its annual membership campaign, pledging to deliver 165 new members over the next few months. Wachovia, Bank of America and BB&T are volunteering the work of several of their executives to assist in the membership drive.

Will B. Spence of Charlotte, the president and CEO of Wachovia Bank, N.A., and a member of the NCCBI Executive Committee, has committed to a goal of 50 new members.  Anthony T. Grant, senior vice president of Bank of America in Charlotte and a member of the NCCBI Board of Directors, has taken on the challenge of 75 new members. Kelly S. King, president of BB&T Corp. and a member of the Executive Committee, has pledged that his bank will bring in 40 new members. 

BB&T is off to a great start with its efforts to recruit new members. All three banks plan to wrap-up their campaigns by the end of the year.

The overall membership campaign is being led by Second Vice Chair Sue W. Cole of Greensboro, the U.S. Trust of North Carolina executive. First Vice Chair Jim Hyler of Raleigh, the Fist Citizens Bank executive, is leading the effort to retain members who joined the association last year.

Meanwhile, NCCBI has nearly achieved a goal it set two years ago to have at least one member in each of the state’s 100 counties. The association reached 99 recently when  Albemarle Electric Membership Corp. in Hertford in Perquimmans County joined the association..

Graham County, located on the Tennessee border west of Asheville, is now the only county in the state where NCCBI does now have a member. But with Chairman Gordon Myers’ strong connection with Western North Carolina, we anticipate that NCCBI will soon achieve its goal and will be able to say that it truly represents all of North Carolina.


Kirk urges members to support state’s travel industry
NCCBI President Phil Kirk sends the following message to all members: Certainly we are still in the grieving stages of the Sept. 11 terrorists’ attacks in New York City and Washington. Equally true is the often-stated belief that ,unfortunately, life in the United States will never be the same for any of us.

Our government is doing all it can to capture the terrorists and to ride the world of this terrible threat. President Bush and the military are to be commended for thier leadership and valiant efforts. The Congress is responding in a bipartisan manner which will hopefully carry over into other issues. Americans have responded in exemplary ways, from contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to flying the American flag, to praying.

As a member of the N.C. Travel and Tourism Board, I would like to ask you to do all you can to help our state’s tourism industry to recover as quickly as possible. While I doubt much encouragement is needed to get people to eat our more often, our restaurant industry is suffering due to the economy and the aftermath of Sept. 11 – which are inextricably interconnected.

All of us are involved with organizations which often meet in other states. We can do our part in encouraging these groups to meet within our borders. We can take full or nini vacations in our state, much of which most of us have never fully explored. We can encourage friends and relatives to do the same.

Feel free to check with various tourism web sites around the state. As a starter, www.raleighcvb.org has more than 500 pages of information, as do others around the state.

Tourism brings in more than $12 billion into our economy. With the manufacturing, banking, tech and other jobs we are losing, we cannot stand the loss of revenue from the tourism industry. Let’s each do our part. Thank you.


Board plans first mid-year meeting
The NCCBI Board of Directors will hold its first-ever mid-year meeting this month, an assembly that also will mark the first time the full board has met outside Raleigh. The meet is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 13, at the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce offices at 300 South Tryon Street.

Traditionally, the full board meets only once each year during the NCCBI Annual Meeting in March. President Phil Kirk said this year’s first-ever mid-year meeting is a reflection of the growing participation by board members in association activities, particularly membership recruitment.

“Many of NCCBI’s member forums, the Council of Local Chambers and other groups already meet outside Raleigh once or twice each year,” explained association President Phil Kirk We have seen that moving these meetings around the state helps boost attendance and increases participation by members who get tired of driving to Raleigh all the time. We believe that holding a second board meeting each year in a location outside Raleigh will have the same positive impact.”

The meeting of the full board will coincide with two other important events that day in Charlotte. The NCCBI Executive Committee will hold its regular quarterly meeting in the First Union tower. The meeting will begin with a 12:30 p.m. luncheon in the corporate dining room on the 41st floor, following by a business meeting from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

And that night, the annual Business Hall of Fame dinner and induction ceremony will be held at the Adam’s Mark Hotel. The Business Hall of Fame, which NCCBI co-sponsors with Junior Achievement, this year will induct Ed Crutchfield, former chairman and CEO of First Union; C. Felix Harvey, chairman of Harvey Enterprises; W. Duke Kimbrell, chairman and CEO of Parkdale Mills; and the late Dalton McMichael, former chairman of Mayo Yarns.

At the dinner, former Charlotte mayor John Belk will introduce Kimbrell; Rev. Harold Leatherman will introrduce Harvey; banker Ken Thompson will introduce Crutchfield; and W.J. (Billy) Armfield IV will introduce Dalton McMichael Jr., who will accept the award for his late father.

The event begins with a 6:15 p.m. reception, followed by a 7 p.m. dinner. For reservations or for more information, call 704-536-9668 or e-mail info@jacarolinas.org.

All NCCBI board members are urged to attend the Charlotte meeting.

Area Meetings End: Attendance has been strong at the Fall Area Meetings but has been down at some because of the absence of state legislators. The chart at right compares attendance at each of this year's meetings with last year:

Media Seminar on Tap: Another in the occasional series of Media Relations Seminars taught by Bill F. Hensley will be offered on Thursday, Nov. 15, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. The seminars have been very popular with NCCBI members. The cost for members is $140 plus $125 for each additional participant. The cost is $150 for non-members. For additional information, call NCCBI’s Jennifer Nolan at 919-836-1405 or e-mail her at jnolan@nccbi.org.
 
UNC-G Honors Kirk: NCCBI President Phil Kirk received the Holderness/Weaver Award for Distinguished Public Service from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The award, one of the highest bestowed by UNC-G, was established in 1998 to honor two loyal and dedicated supporters of  the university, Adelaide Fortune Holderness and H. Michael Weaver. It recognizes North Carolinians who have rendered unusually distinguished public service to the community or state. In his remarks accepting the award at the school’s Sept. 30 Founders Day ceremony, Kirk said, “We can’t always give large amounts of money to every worthy cause, but we can give of our most precious resource, which is our time. We all have different talents and abilities. We all look different and we have different IQs. But we all have one thing in common. We all have 24 hours in a day. How we choose to use our time is by and large left up to each of us. We can sit at home, gripe and complain, or we can be active in helping others and finding solutions.”

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