2006 IRTA Awards Banquet
Presentation
(The
following commentary was provided by Krista Vardabash,
Executive Director of the International Reciprocal Trade
Association.)
Speaker Recognition -
Learning from each other is
a fundamental benefit of IRTA membership. The “IRTA U”
theme, the speakers, and their presentation topics for this
year’s Barter Congress were selected with this in mind.
We
would like to recognize and thank four invited speakers who
presented...Mr. Thomas Greco who opened our event on Friday
morning, Loren Murfield of Murfield International, Sean
Maxwell of Max Your Biz, and James Marshall from Sandler
Sales Institute.
Peers
who participated in our panel discussions and presentations
to bring us insights and information on valuable topics were
Richard Logie, Lois Dale, Dave Wallach, Bob Meyer, Harold
Rice, Sirri Simsek, Paul Suplizio, Steve Webster, Don Mardak,
and Ron Whitney.
The
Barter Ambassador Award
is given to those members
who have made an extra effort to introduce new members to
IRTA. They are Reiner Husemann, Harold Rice and Lois Dale.
The
Certified Trade Broker Program
has been a cornerstone of IRTA training and education. The
four CTB candidates this year are: Joe Lopez from Private
Currency Exchange in Hawaii, Natalie Ladd from The
TradeExchange in Maine, Jonathan Sanborn from Florida Barter
in Orlando, and Myles Webster from Alliance Barter in New
York.
IRTA
thanks Steve Webster (Alliance Barter) and Steve Acerra
(Florida Barter) for their dedication, and time spent at
this convention training and testing for the CTB program.
Individual Event Sponsors
were Bob Bagga (BizExchange) for sponsoring the Friday Night
Dinner, Don Mardak (IMS) for sponsoring the IRTA “U”
Library/Internet Café, and Richard Logie (GETS) for
sponsoring the Thursday Movie Matinee and our Keynote
Speaker on Friday.
IRTA’s Highest Sponsorship
our Platinum Sponsor for the second consecutive year is
Sirri Simsek from Turk Barter. Our Bronze Sponsor was Casey
and Kerry DesHotels from Instatrade.
The
Paul St. Martin Distinguished Service Award -
Many of us remember Paul St. Martin as a person who stood as
a shining example of selfless contribution of his time and
talents to benefit the industry. It is this quality that
embodies the Distinguished Service Award.
Even
though Paul left us in 2002, we still remember him for the
many times when he went above and beyond the call of duty in
service to IRTA. Therefore this award has been appropriately
named “The Paul St. Martin Distinguished Service Award.”
Tonight we will honor three special people who exemplify
this type of commitment and service to IRTA:
Therecia Venema
from TradeXchange NL in the Netherlands. She came to the
IRTA Europe Chapter like a breath of fresh air and with
incredible energy. Unintimidated by her newness, she signed
on to be the chapter secretary, worked to make UC a valued
currency with her peers in Europe.
And as
if that were not enough, Therecia stepped-up to host the
2006 European Meeting in May of this year. For those of you
who have hosted these events, you know that this is a labor
of love and time. Therecia functioned as an interpreter,
too!
Ron
Whitney from
Barter Network in Chadds Ford (PA). One of my first
conversations with Ron was after the IRTA 2005 conference.
He wasn’t a member of IRTA and hadn’t attended, but he heard
that we had an official from the U.S. Internal Revenue
Service (the IRS) as a presenter to our group.
Since
then, Ron has been our liaison with the IRS Partnership
Outreach. This past year, IRTA was extended an invitation to
a reception in Washington (DC) to meet. Ron traveled on his
own time to the event with an appeal about B Notice filing.
Because of his attendance, he was encouraged to apply to
serve on an advisory panel called IRPAC.
Gary Fisher,
from Capital Barter Bank in England, could not be here since
his son is battling cancer. Despite this very trying year,
Gary brought to IRTA an idea and a plan. The idea was to
combat the unauthorized use of the IRTA logo.
His
idea was to create a Certifiable Logo Program that would
verify the IRTA logo on a member’s web site. Gary and his
programmer built a program that works in conjunction with
IRTA’s member database; it launched in April of this year.
The
program recognizes members in good standing, so when the
IRTA logo is displayed on their web site a certificate of
good standing also appears. It can be found on many of our
members’ sites and has received wonderful feed-back.
The
IRTA Outstanding Achievement Award
honors individuals in the barter industry who have
demonstrated an outstanding, positive impact on the barter
industry through achievement in management techniques,
education, client services, and marketing/sales.
Please
help us recognize one individual whose leadership,
creativity and courage to take risks, helped to move our
industry forward...Dr. Lee Oi Kum from BarterXchange in
Singapore.
Dr.
Lee came to IRTA with incredible energy, plus passion to
learn and to teach. I met her for the first time at the 2005
NATE meeting in Atlanta (GA).
Since
that time, Dr. Lee has expressed relentless energy to
further the barter industry in Singapore and now in China.
In addition to leading an effort to create an IRTA Asia
chapter, BarterXchange Singapore will be present at the
Global Entropolis in Singapore next month. Why is this
significant?
Well,
the Global Entropolis Singapore is not your average event.
It is billed as the international marketplace for the
exchange of funds, enterprise, innovation and technology,
where over 10,000 of the best and most enterprising from the
international business community converge. Chief executives,
venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs work synergistically
together over three days exploring ideas, innovations, and
networks for enterprises to thrive, expand and grow.
In
2004, its second year, this forum boasted over $500 million
in funds for projects and investments. As you might guess,
not just anyone is invited. However, BarterXchange was
selected to participate in 2005 at the Global Entropolis,
and they have been invited back this year because of their
display of professionalism, innovation and forward-thinking.
I am
also pleased to share that this year, BarterXchange has
asked that IRTA be there with them to help present the
barter concept as a global financial solution for
businesses. So IRTA will have two representatives at this
event, thanks to BarterXchange Singapore.
Therefore, this award is given to BarterXchange for their
achievement in positioning and marketing the barter exchange
solution to such an enormous and positive way through Asia,
and for providing IRTA with a platform to educate businesses
on what to look for when considering this valuable solution. |