The Southern California Sister Cities 2014 Annual Conference is now in the books. The conference went great, the panels were interesting, and the food was delicious. One of our attendees to the conference, David Zanatta, put it best.

Dear SOCAL Board:

As a past SOCAL board member and the present Chair and member of the Sister Cities of Long Beach, Inc. Board of Trustees, I felt compelled to comment on our experience at the SOCAL Conference this Past Saturday.

After many months of planning and SOCAL board interaction, it is my personal opinion, that “you all” deserve a round of applause, for navigating and producing an excellent conference.

It is always difficult to gain the approval, or consensus of everyone involved when planning and event and setting up an agenda, but this year’s conference accomplished just that. It provided valuable information to all and gave a glimpse of what is to come at Sister Cites International. SCI and Adam Kaplin’s presence and presentation, happily gave us a look at the very positive changes SCI’s – May Kane and her staff have accomplished in only a few short years, with the International Board in Washington; the conference panels offered valuable information to take back to our cities and not only attempted to put into play, but and opportunity for us to share information that will help each of us build new relationships; having in-person presentations by the Consuls General panel represented the opportunity to access and collaborate with what we have here in our SoCal region; the Alliance panel by the Rotary, Jetro, Japanese Foundation; Jalisco Federation; U.S.-Mexico Foundation allows us to step up and collaborate with them and ultimately will serve SOCAL well; Mickey Mello’s Youth and Young Professional panel gave each of the attendees a sense of positive hope, our future is in good hands; and Tim Quigley’s presentation on our upcoming National SCI Conference, showed the thoughtful planning and creative approach of addressing important SCI issues, while making the SCI Conference an enjoyable experience we can all participate in and be proud of here in California.

With this said, we as SOCAL Sister Cities are at a tipping point, where positive change, open dialog and working toward linking each of our organizations, programs and youth is a vital next step in our organization’s future.

Thank You all for and enjoyable day and thank you to Councilman Tom LaBonge, Kamila Blanche and the LA Sister City Program, for providing the leadership and opportunity for SOCAL to have this conference in the beautiful Los Angeles City Hall in downtown LA.

Job well done..!

David Zanatta

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