Good Morning Gentlemen:

I thought I would take a few moments to fill you in on all the work we have been doing here at Daddyshome this past year, and what a year it's been.

To start with, let me give you a little background for those of you who are reading this and wondering, "what is Daddyshome".  Daddyshome is a 501[c][3] nonprofit organization that was developed to support the at home dad and primary care father and the at home dad community at large.  It started with an idea that came from a discussion at a playgroup here at DC Metro Dads back in 2001.  Peter Steinberg (our founding father), Matt Vossler and myself were talking about why the at home dad community was so fragmented.  It seemed to be a loose compilation of email listservs, a few competing website and most of those were not being updated or relevant.  So we decided that we would start a nonprofit to try and help at home dads and Daddyshome, Incorporated was born in March of 2005 with the initial board of directors; Peter, Matt, and myself and we went about trying to get organized and deciding what was the best way to move forward.

Some of the accomplishments so far have been helping to support and grow the annual convention and help establish a convention scholarship fund with the help of the Brian Dickson family, the KC Dads Group, Doug Westerhaus, and Hogan Hilling in the name of Brian Dickson, a member of the KC Dads group that passed away before his time.

Fast forward to May this year, we started discussions to expand the board of directors of Daddyshome to get more dads involved and to better reach our goals.  The bylaws were set to allow 7 board members, but we expanded that to 9 to better suit us at this time. Over the summer we had several conversations and spoke to many different dads that had expressed interest in helping the organization from our presentation at the 12th annual convention in KC.  During this time Peter Steinberg had notified us that he was returning to the working world after being home full time for over 14 years and would be stepping down from the president's position, but still wanting to stay on to help where he could.  So at the annual meeting that was held just prior to the convention this year, a new slate of officers was voted in and I am pleased to introduce them to you.

President - Mike Stilwell,  Alexandria, VA

VP - Al Watts, Omaha, NE

Secretary - Doug Westerhaus, Overland Park, KS

Treasurer -  Matt Vossler, Kennsington, MD

At-large - Phil Andrew, Lincoln, NE

At-large - Hogan Hilling, Newport Beach, CA

At-Large - Andy Ferguson , San Fransico, CA

At-Large - Peter Steinberg, Springfield, VA

At-Large – Open

The new board of directors met at the convention where we really rolled up our sleeves and started to get to work. First order of business was for Daddyshome to formally take over the convention. This will ensure the continued asset to the AHD community as well as being able to grow the convention through tax deductable donations and services available to nonprofits. The convention planning committee is headed up by board member Phil Andrew whom along with his team did a fantastic job of planning and executing the 14th annual convention in Omaha this year. If you would like to be part of the planning or hosting of a convention, please contact Phil.

We have also developed a regional coordinator program to split up the work of connecting with and organizing other dads groups to become part of the Daddyshome community.  The regions and the current volunteers that are helping by being regional coordinators are:

Central (Brian Chalmers: Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois)

Midwest (Robb Tavill: Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas)

West (Jim O'Dowd: Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii)

East (Lance Somerfeld: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Washington D.C.)

South (open): Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas)

North (open): Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Canada)

If you are interested in helping by being a regional coordinator for one of the two open coordinator positions, please contact Al Watts; omahahomedad@cox.net who is organizing and heading up the regional coordinators.

We have also approved some changes to how the scholarship fund operates and the changes will be posted here very soon as well as on the convention website.  The major changes were that we expanded the award to cover the recipient's registration fee and an additional $100 to be used toward their expenses as they see fit.  We made the first award of the Brian Dickson Scholarship Fund at this year's convention to be used next year. The recipient for 2010 is; Chad Welch, a first time attendee to the convention this year.  We are working on getting more sponsors for the fund and we are always accepting tax deductible donations for the fund so we can hopefully expand the award to more than just one recipient each year.

Our next project that is in the works right now which is to get our website up and running, a big task considering what we have envisioned, but one we are working on as we speak.  However, our new website will not compete with this site, but we will complement the efforts here of Mike Biewenga. We have lots of ideas, but we never can have too many ideas, so please let us know what you think.  We currently have a small website to gather contacts so if you ever want to point someone our way they can go to; http://www.daddyshome.org We will be launching a Facebook page as well as a Daddyshome blog very soon to further connect and stay in touch with AHD's everywhere and the community at large.

Our further goals for the coming years and beyond is to bring the at home dad community together to a more cohesive group.  To help more at home dads connect with dads groups in the country, we will be providing support to help groups get established and grow, help get the word out about their groups and activities, provide website development assistance and hosting, be a one stop shop for all things at home and primary care dads everywhere, and to just help the at home dads do their job efficiently, effectively and with understanding and unfailing support.  That sounds a bit lofty, but we are really striving to make this a support network that helps the community to which we are all a part of and want to see flourish.  If any of you would like to help, we are always looking for more volunteers to help grow the organization.  Feel free to contact me or any of the other board members at any time; we are here for you!

That's all for now, but please look forward to hearing from us regularly, and remember, we started this organization because of, and for, you; the at home dad.

Warm Regards,

Mike Stilwell

President, Daddyshome, Inc. - The National At-Home Dad Network www.daddyshome.org

fleetsuper@msn.com

703-799-2904 (home) - 703-599-6713 (cell)