Home > Meeting Proceedings > 2000 Meeting > Welcome

Welcome to the 2000 Annual Meeting


President Andy Schilperoort

It is with great privilege to welcome each of you to the Washington State Grape Society Seminar for 2000! I trust that the program we have planned will be informative and interesting for you. If you have any suggestions for ways to improve our annual seminar or topics you would like to see addressed in the future, please speak to me or one of the Board Members.

As I am writing this, all of the juice grapes and the majority of the wine grapes have been harvested and are waiting further settling and processing before being canned or bottled. The first vintage that begins with a "2" seems to have arrived with very good potential.

We have survived the uncertainty of Y2K, and yet we still face many of the same challenges that we faced in 1999. Each year we try to duplicate what we believe we did right in the good years, and we attempt to avoid the mistakes we may have made during the poor years. All this, while working around events over which we have no control. A friend of mine tells me that he has been involved in the industry for 23 years, but still has only one year of experience. Though there may be some truth in his statement, I believe that we must learn from both our individual and our collective experiences. We must also leverage those experiences to continue to build and strengthen the successful industry that each one of us has helped to establish here in Washington. Toward that end, I urge each one of you to take full advantage of this year's program as we look forward to a rewarding 2001!

Best Regards,

Washington State Grape Society President