Chapter focus: dallas.

Area Covered: The Greater Dallas Metropolitan Area Year Founded: 1944

No. Members: 494

Member Companies Represented: Southwest Airlines Co., Brinker International, ExxonMobil Corp. and J. C. Penney Co. Inc. are among the large corporations, mixed with a myriad of middle-market manufacturing and service companies.

Annual Dues: $275, which covers the cost of all chapter events: monthly meetings (21 CPE credits available), winter social (cocktails/dinner/entertainment, couples event), spring golf outing, off-season (summer) professional development sessions (4 CPE credits available) and various other luncheons/receptions for new members, chapter outreach efforts, etc.

Meeting Schedule: Monthly dinner meetings (1 CPE credit each), generally on 2nd Tuesday from September to April, preceded by Professional Development (PE) sessions (2 CPE credits each) and a networking reception.

Meeting Locations: Monthly meetings are usually held at the Bent Tree Country Club in North Dallas, though we always try to move a couple of meetings a year elsewhere. This year, we had one meeting at the Belo Mansion in downtown Dallas and our annual winter social at the Dallas Fairmont Hotel's Venetian Room.

Attendance at meetings has been steadily growing the past few years. The most popular meetings are those with nationally recognized speakers or firms, together with meetings held at new locations.

Dinner Speakers: Some of the popular speakers this year have included the chief economist of the U.S. Securities And Exchange Commission (SEC), a partner from KPMG's Forensics Practice, a panel led by a New York Stock Exchange Board Member and TV host, an oil industry CEO, a vice chairperson from a nationally known real estate company and the Dallas ISD Superintendent.

Monthly PD Sessions: This year included a panel session on risk management, an accounting update led by KPMG and an XBRL update, as well as sessions on e-discovery and ERP controls.

Chapter Sponsors: The Dallas Chapter has several sponsor levels. KPMG LLP is our Chapter Sponsor, Capital One Bank and Comerica Bank are our Strategic Partners and American Express Corporate Services is a Platinum Sponsor. Gold Plus Sponsors include Aon Risk Services of Texas and ADP Inc.; Gold Sponsors are Carrington Coleman Sloman and Blumenthal LLP, Cognos Inc. and Haynes and Boone LLP NC; and Silver Sponsors are Growth Capital Partners, University of Texas at Dallas Executive Education School of Management and Vaco Dallas LLC.

Regional Challenges: The region is growing and dynamic, bringing some CFO turnover challenges. As a result, we focus on member retention and strive to get people involved in their first year of membership through new member events and other special efforts.

Notable Highlights:

* With an emphasis on strong programming and good use of members' time, we have increased monthly meeting attendance from 90 to approximately 130 in the past three years.

* The Dallas Chapter wais among the top three in the nation in new member recruiting in 2007, in part due to promotions that targeted introductions by existing members and sponsors, and timely follow-up with member-prospect guests.

* Taking a page out of the FEI National Chapter Procedures Manual, two years ago we added vice chairs for all committees and put them on the board, ensuring succession and adding energy and ideas.

Unique Qualities: Good blocking and tackling on programs--we don't take "no" for an answer. For example, we'll move speakers to the next year's calendar if this year doesn't work; we leverage previous speakers for ideas; and we loop in our sponsors' executives.

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President: Paul Mason, executive vice president & CFO, Fujitsu Transaction Solutions Inc., 972.963.2523 or [e-mail].