EDUCATION The Shortest Month Is the Busiest February may be short on days, but it packs a big punch for ALOA education. By Jim Hancock, CML, CMST T hirty days hath September, April, June and November … blah, blah, blah. You know the verse, I’m sure. And if you do, the thing that stands out, of course, is that February is seriously day/night challenged. People certainly smarter than I have said this was done to make certain the year balanced at 365 days and so the seasons remained in the correct months (I guess what they are saying is that with an extra three or four days, in eight to 10 years, every season would shiſt by a month and continue. So, summer would be in December at some point — dreaming of a really hot Christmas?). That’s why they also add the extra day every four years for leap year: because, apparently, three days is too much to lose, and two wouldn’t be enough during a four-year cycle. The bottom line is that February is just short. And it just so happens that February is probably one of the busiest months for the ALOA education department. “While February may be short on days, it is absolutely one of the busiest times ALOA education has during the year.” Plans Afoot We are finalizing SAFETECH plans, get ting ALOA Convention plans into their final stages and set- ting up the sched- ule for training at the ATC in Dal- las. This is also the beginning of the trade show sea- son, as it were, when 56 KEYNOTES FEBRUARY 2015 most of our vendor partners — as well as our chapters and local associations — start their regional trade shows. Since we provide instructors for a good portion of these, it gets kind of crazy. But what makes it all worthwhile is the fact that we continue to grow, develop and evolve ALOA education into something the membership can be proud of and take ad- vantage of. We continue to look for ways to mitigate costs and offer training to all who need or require it. Yes, we are looking at more online train- ing — when we can offer something other than a dog-and-pony show for a fee. We are looking at other distance-learning op- tions, such as webcasts. And we still are planning to bring classes to regional areas during the year. While February may be short on days, it is absolutely one of the busiest times we have during the year. Hopefully we can squeeze every drop of time out of the days we do have to keep ALOA education moving forward. Moving Forward Now, for all you business owners, I think we should lobby to do away with leap year and put 31 days into February permanently. Think about it: every eight to 10 years, in- stead of leap year, we could have elimination year, where we just do away with the entire month of February to get things back on schedule. One month less of payroll, payroll taxes, income to base bonus money on … (Nonsensical, but I bet a lot of you are thinking about it now, aren’t you?) ancock, CML, CMST, A’s education manager, n his locksmithing ca- r at the age of 8 in his dfather’s lock shop fport, Miss. He has ed in every aspect of usiness, from shop tech bile tech to operations gement. In 2003 and , he was presented with ructor of the Year. You g or (214) 819-9733. WWW.ALOA.ORG
