ASSOCIATION • Association BUZZ From the Desk of the President Greg Chiecko, OABA President I
hope everyone enjoyed some much-needed down time and the holiday season with family and friends. It’s hard to believe we are approaching Florida Week
and all the activities associated with it. In 2025, the OABA marked a milestone 60th anniversary. Much has been ac- complished over the years but there are certainly many more challenges ahead. Working with our fair partners at the IAFE, we are concentrating on reaching our mutual goals and objectives.
IAFE Convention Highlights and Outcomes We had a very successful IAFE Convention in Denver at
the beginning of December. Last year, the board decided to hold our fall board meeting in conjunction with the an- nual IAFE Convention. This move to coordinate with our fair partners worked well and was beneficial for all involved. We held our second OABA cocktail mixer and it was a great op- portunity to mingle with our friends from the IAFE. Several of our members were grateful to have a gathering where everyone could see each other in one place. We held our board meeting on Sunday and reviewed last year’s accom- plishments and identified our challenges for the future. Most of our 2025 objectives were met and we will roll the few that did not reach completion into next year’s plan. Our work- shop, A Look Behind the Carnival Curtain, was attended by more than 100 individuals with great dialog among everyone there. We held our second OABA Advisory Board meeting, with advisors consisting primarily of fair management from a cross section of business of diverse sizes and locations.
The ideas exchanged will help us grow our partnership with the IAFE in the upcoming year.
Progress in Washington, DC Turning to our advocacy for guest worker P visa progress,
we made, and continue to make, great progress in 2025. We held a Washington DC Fly-in early in December. This Fly- in specifically targeted legislators on the Appropriations Committee. We have our P Language in the House Homeland Security bill and wish to do the same in the Senate. We also continue to promote our authorizing bill and have devel- oped a simple way for fairs and others to garnish support. By simply scanning a QR code and answering a few short questions, our lobbyist in DC will formulate a custom letter to be placed on the company’s letter head and delivered to the appropriate office in Washington DC. We can’t thank everyone enough for your continued support and we must continue to push to achieve our goals.
What’s Next We look forward to seeing many of you in Tampa for our
OABA meetings. Please join us at Top Golf for our major leg- islative advocacy fundraiser on Thursday, February 12, 2026. Please contact the office for more information.
We wish you all a Happy New Year and a safe and pros- perous season.
Sincerely, Greg Chiecko
, |
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32
