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buildings and grounds, vandalism control, budgeting and accounting, all kinds of insurance, purchasing, new construction, salary negotiations, wage determination, and many others. CASBO was also a part of ASBO, Association of School Business Officials, (Of U. S. and Canada.) This organization was more interesting than it was helpful and although there is not much in common between snow removal in Nova Scotia and Southern California, there are many areas that are common to all school business operations. We dealt mainly in those areas at our annual convention.

I served on numerous committees in both the State and National associations. I also served on the Board of Directors of the State Association and as President and Board Member of the Southern Section of CASBO. Our efforts really paid off in the field of insurance because we represented millions of dollars of insurance premium in both fire and liability coverage. We could be very persuasive as a group. We always had high level insurance executives from large companies at our conventions.

Another organization I found to be very helpful was School Business Executives. This was a group representing the twelve or so largest school districts in California. It was started by Sky Joyner, Business Manager of Los Angeles Unified who felt that there were some problems in large districts that were due to size alone and that we should get together from time to time and compare solutions. The early meetings were held at King's Road, a training center in the Los Angeles District where students learned to be butlers, housemaids, cooks, waiters, gardeners, chauffeurs and other domestic positions. King's Road was a large mansion which was donated to Los Angeles Schools by a very wealthy couple. The District turned it into a training center for all the trades listed above. The facility paid its way by serving wonderful meals prepared by its students and for which customers paid a good price. Later the School Business Executives branched out and met in school districts all over the state.

The format for our meetings was rather simple. We submitted a list of questions that we wanted the group to respond to. This list was sent to each member at least two weeks before the meeting and each member prepared written answers for distribution during the meeting. The questions and answers formed the basis for discussion at the meeting. I remember one question I had and it went somewhat as follows. " Since the State Milk Board sets the price of milk for the school food service needs and the price will be the same on all bids, on what basis do you award the contract?" One district's answer was, "We award the bid to the supplier whose cows won the most blue ribbons at the County Fair." The rest of us were not so imaginative.

I felt highly complemented when I was elected Chairman of School Business Executives during my first year of membership. I did not feel quite so smug when I discovered that it was customary for all new members to be "elected" Chairman. It was not really an honor but a chore. It might be of interest to mention most of the school districts represented on School Business Executives. There were Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Barbara, Fresno,