We at ASMC HQ hope this finds each of you having a terrific day!  As always, thank you for your continued membership in ASMC and your dedicated service to our nation.

MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL PROGRAM

Thanks to those of you who renewed your membership early or on-time in February! Congratulations to our "RENEW" YEAR's Resolution program March winners! Richard Tuttle of the Tampa Bay Chapter and Terri Shenk of the Central NY Leatherstocking Chapter each won $50 gift cards, and the $150 gift card was awarded to James Harvey of the Washington Chapter!

Each month, all on-time or early renewals will be entered into a random drawing to award two $50 gift certificates and one $150 gift certificate, respectively for those renewing on-time or early for one or three years. In addition to contacting the members who win the drawings, we will announce the winners on our website and social media. Renew your membership here: https://www.asmconline.org/membership/renew/.

ASMC MEMBER ENGAGE PLATFORM

Have you taken advantage of the newest ASMC member benefit? Engage, an interactive service platform provided by Higher Logic, has been adapted for integration with your ASMC membership. Our goals with Engage are (1) to use the collaboration platform to create an interactive space where ASMC chapters and individual members can communicate with their colleagues, and (2) enhance chapter administration and engagement with members via communications among officers and members through use of the “chapter” community.   

We believe the use of Engage will allow our members to better network and collaborate with each other. Log into Engage at https://engage.asmconline.org/home, using the email address and password associated with your ASMC member account.

CDFM INITIAL ENROLLMENT FEE MEMBER DISCOUNT—MARCH 2018 ONLY!

There are just a few days left to take advantage of the CDFM enrollment fee discount. For this month only, ASMC members who enroll in the CDFM Program for the first time pay just half price—$20. The regular enrollment fee for members is $40. The non-member rate is $75. Click here to enroll in the CDFM program. Remember, the discount is only active through March 31, so consider joining the 145 ASMC members that have (as of this writing) already taken advantage of the CDFM Program Enrollment Member Discount!

CDFM STANDARD SETTING WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS, WE THANK YOU!

A team of dedicated Certified Defense Financial Managers (CDFMs & CDFM-As) convened in Old Town, Alexandria, VA, on March 9-11, 2018, at a Standard Setting Workshop to establish passing standards for the new CDFM Module 1-3 exams.  Up to this point with the help of our contracted test development vendor, HumRRO (the Human Resources Research Organization), groups of subject matter experts (SMEs) have helped us update the CDFM exam blueprints, weight the competency areas, write new exam items (questions), review existing exam items, and create and “pilot test” new exam items. 

For three days, a diverse group of volunteers from all over the country received training in exam standard-setting best practices and reviewed the exam items for the new CDFM Modules 1, 2, 3. They made expert judgments about each test item and discussed those judgments with the other participants to reach consensus. Additionally, because the group worked so well together and finished earlier than expected, and because six of the 14 SMEs were CDFM-As, the CDFM-As also reviewed the Module 4 pilot exam items we have thus far. However, since we have not arrived at the desired sample size for this module, pilot testing for Mod 4 will continue for a while longer. We are administering Mod 4 pilot testing at the European PDI, Aloha Chapter RPDI, and National PDI, and we continue to reach out to local CDFM-As to come in and test at ASMC HQ.

As part of the next steps, HumRRO is now working on calculating the mean estimates for each item and then will sum the estimates across all items. After this step, a recommended cut score for each exam will be presented to the Certification Commission. Once this is done, the exam forms will be ready to be deployed in the summer.

We are grateful to these volunteers for a successful and productive Standard Setting Workshop!

CDFM RELATED EVENTS AT THE NATIONAL PDI IN DENVER

We will offer Pre-PDI courses on Monday, May 28, and Tuesday, May 29 from 8 am – 5 pm. Textbooks must be purchased separately for the Module 1-3 sessions.

•             CDFM Module 1 (1-day): Resource Management Environment $250

•             CDFM Module 2 (1-day): Budget and Cost Analysis $250

•             CDFM Module 3 (1-day): Accounting and Finance $250

•             CDFM Module 4 (2-day): Acquisition Business Management $475 *Fee includes textbook

CDFM exam testing sessions will be held Tuesday through Friday, May 29 – June 1, 2018, with the 6 am start time beginning on Wednesday. Module 4 Pilot testing will take place at PDI, as well. The CDFM Reception, sponsored by IBM, will take place on Thursday, May 31, at 6:30pm.

CHECK YOUR ASMC MEMBERSHIP PROFILE

In issuing invitations to a recent training event, we received a few “undeliverable” notices on email addresses. Unfortunately, until sometime in the future when we update our current association management system or migrate to another system, if a member makes an error in typing in their email address, the system does not catch the error. Thus, we ask that all members be very careful when they enter their email address into their member profile. If you are not receiving membership updates (and also notices of an approaching membership expiration date, it may be that your email address is either not current or is incorrectly reflected in your membership profile. Next time you access your membership account through the ASMC website, please take a moment just to ensure that your email address is correct. Also, if you’re not using your personal email address, we suggest you change your work email address to your personal (gmail, yahoo, aol, etc) address, so as to avoid any server firewall issues that might block delivery of email to your account.