For those of you who were not able to attend, you missed out on a very informative meeting covering various topics. Unfortunately, I am not as good as our wonderful Secretary, Bill Gellman (City of Brea) at taking notes and I' sure there are many points that never made it into my notes. However, I will try to give you a sampling of the topics covered at our April meeting.

Cynthia Duprey discussed how Purchasing has evolved in the past ten years with more focus on Contracts, Terms, Conditions, Pricing etc. compared to just getting quotations. We now compare various Contracts from NIPA, NGPA, US Communities, WSCA, CDW etc..

Cynthia also mentioned that she has requested a list of "Green Choices" (Best Buys) from her Rep. at Office Depot. This list will help end users to identify which items contribute toward protecting our planet.

Cynthia is also looking to purchase a 27 foot CNG bus. Let her know if you have a contract for one.

Richard Hogate reminded everyone to make sure they are utilizing the Office Depot Rebate program. He's also happy with the 35% recycled content paper from Office Depot.

Kathleen Hodge, got a fantastic price on paper from Indonesia.

Kathleen will try to get a representative to speak at our August or September meeting.

Cynthia Duprey discussed United Storage who they use for records storage. She will try to get a representative to speak at our October or November meet.

Margarita Lee announced our speakers lined up for our May and June meeting.

May 6, 2009 Mike Muscara from Waxie will discuss their "Green" Sustainable Supply Chain Contract with WSCA.

June 3, 2009 Duff Erholtz will give us an introduction to NJPA Coop and their cooperative contracts (which is similar to US Communities).