Travel Dates

Good Morning!!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!
Don't you all just love the Energy Bus! Great book. I wanted to give one to all our members as part of our top producer luncheon but I dont think it will fit in our budget this year. I might by some and raffle them off??? Not sure yet ...

I have a quick question.

I pulled the travel dates from the FAR and NAR website for next year but does anyone have the dates for WCR events.

Thanks
Kathleen.

Thoughts on Blog

Yes, great idea with the blog! Thanks.

I'm an avid blogger for my business with 2 blogs currently (www.phxcityliving.com and www.urbanvertical.com/blog) and a third in the works. If anyone has any questions about blogging, feel free to email or call me anytime....I'm more than happy to share my experience and suggestions. My first bit of advice...don't take it up unless you are prepared to set aside the time everyday to blog. I spend a minimum of 2 hours each day, 7 days a week. And since we cannot sacrifice normal business hours (especially in this market), my nighttime hours have been reduced :-). I just share that so no one goes to all the work and effot of creating a blog and then realizing the time committment the hard way. For some, there's definitely other ways you'd prefer to spend your time or market yourself. Again, feel free to contact me if you have any questions on blogging.

I look forward to this blog for sharing ideas, questions, etc. for WCR.

Hope to see everyone in Vegas as well!

Ideas for 2008

Rae,

Thank you for starting this blog, and for inviting me. This is one of my first blog posts ever, but I do intend to create one soon on Active Rain, which I just joined as well. Another networking tool I discovered is LinkedIn, which I have been a member of for about 6 weeks, but have networked it hard (it the evenings) and am now up over 300 contacts, mostly Realtors around the nation and world.

Back to WCR, I echo the comments that the Lake Buena Vista conference was excellent, and as PE for Venice, I am greatly looking forward to the state retreat Rosemary and others are putting together for October. We also have our Board in place, most of whom you will see in Vegas. We are now finalizing our programs for the first quarter of 2008, put out a call for committee volunteers (and some chairmen), and beginning to organize our member renewal process. I would be interested in hearing how other chapters, particularly local chapter Board members for next year are specifically looking to renew members, both national members and local affiliates (i.e., e-mail, letters, personal visits, etc.).

Best wishes for 2008 to all,
Rory A. Dubin, President Elect
Venice, FL Chapter

So Glad that you like this idea

Thanks to all who have said that they really like the idea of the blog...everyone who has been invited - all of you - may post on the blog as well as make comments. Several of you have said see you in Vegas - I am looking forward to the trade show as well as some of the educational sessions. The Florida Assoc. of Realtors conference in Orlando had really great sessions. This is certainly the time for us to get some new "nuggets" of information to run our business smarter. We are all going to be in a time crunch.
I have at this time..have my board chosen and will be meeting with them next week for a half hour to let them know what I think we should be focusing on next year. I have also planned our retreat. If you would like the agenda for the retreat let me know and I will email it to you.
Next week I will start working on our budget. The more I can get in place now the easier next year will be.
Have a great day!
Rae

Flag The Feed ...

Don't forget to Flag the Feed so that you can receive comment/ posts directly to your inbox as they are posted!

This way you never miss a great idea!


Kathleen Price

This is the first time I have posted on a blog but we would like to start one for our Gwinnett Chapter so this is good practice. Thanks for starting this blog! Leadership Academy was wonderful and so much information but this is a great way to stay in touch and exchange ideas throughout the year. I just read the Florida State Chapter's Newsletter which was awesome and had great tips and info and was sent to me by Lana, my new New Mexico friend who I met at Leadership in Chicago. Thanks, Lana!

All the names are in

Well, a little later than I thought, but all the names are now in the blog...I hope that we will all remember to use this tool...there are a couple of questions on the board now...
One is ideas for fund raisers and here are a couple that we have done.
1. Fashion show
2. Dessert Auction....we get the chefs in town to donate the desserts (they love the challenge and we give the best dessert chef an award and publish that in the paper)
3. In Florida you can adpot a precint...the town pays people a $100 a day to be at the polls.. they love to have a nonprofit take over the job of manning the precinct. They pay the non-profit instead of the individual. This costs the chapter nothing but time.
I hope this helps...
I hope many of you will look at and use this blog
You are all able to just post instead of commenting...
Rae

Green at Blogging...but learning fast

Thanks for setting this up...My first Posting to a Blog...Ok, I'm am a little techno challenged.

I am looking forward to this coming year...

I have just joined a group called YTB and am working on setting up a Travel Association for any Chapter who would like to set their own site up allowing members and friends to utilize this site to make discounted travel, lodging, golfing and more arrangements. YTB uses the Travelocity system and a portion of each transaction comes back to the chapter as fund raising...Every one of us travels and it is an easy way for chapters to generate revenue. I'll send more info as I receive it. Until then have a great week and great few months until the 2008 year.

Need ideas for new chapter

Great idea Rae. We are a new chapter in East TN and are looking for ideas for recruitment, fundraisers and speakers. Any idea would be a big help we just chartered our chapter in January of this year. Its been a good year so far, but as I get ready to take the president position I am concerned about where we will go from here. Please share your idea's with the "newbies"!
Thanks! Kimberly Clark, Lakeway Area WCR

I have heard back from a lot of you

Thank you to everyone that said this was a great idea. Once you are "invited" to the blog...I have to enter each person one at a time...I did 50 yesterday and will try to do 50 everyday until everyone is in....you go up in the right hand top corner and hit new post and you are all set to post. That is better than just hitting comment....Any suggestions or ideas...please post...
I hope everyone has a great day.

Why I set this blog up

Good afternoon, I set this blog up so that we can share ideas with each other as we go through our year as Presidents of our chapters. I made so many contacts that it was awesome and I got some great ideas....but there were so many of you that I did not meet...personally and you have great ideas too.
It will take me awhile to get everyone on the blog....as there are 242 of us...but I will keep working at it.
Lets get ready for 2008
Rae Wakelin
Naples on the Gulf Chapter
Naples, FL