We started the day with a conference welcome which updated us on the latest events…like registration is now open for NAR in New Orleans in November.  What a great opportunity for all of us to experience a national meeting and hear awesome speakers.  They also got us up on our feet with a newer WCR Are You Ready video which was great!

We then attended the Leadership Development session which included a panel of women from diverse backgrounds and cultures and pointed out that there are other forms of diversity such as experiences, perspectives, and talents.  They were asked why they joined Women’s Council of Realtors and they all replied, “Because we were asked”.  Their initial response to their first meeting was that there were top professionals who were warm, cordial, supportive, welcoming, and nurturing.

Past leaders must continue to be involved and serve as mentors to our newer members and assist in recruiting new members.  Our past leaders should also encourage current members to move into leadership roles.

Our next session was Local Chapter Presidents Best Practices which was a fabulous session where we broke into groups and brainstormed together and then shared with everyone. One topic covered was Membership and it appeared the general consensus was that quality programming is the key to recruiting and retaining members.  We should also give recognition to important events involving our members.  One idea to assist in increasing our REALTOR® members is to see if an Affiliate would pay for a REALTOR® membership as most chapters are experiencing the same issue with needing more of those types of members.  Another idea was to have a WCR Ambassador in the various offices to promote our meetings during their office meetings and encourage co-associates to come and visit us.  One month we could implement “What Does WCR Mean to Me” during our meeting and ask 1-2 people to give a brief testimonial to give prospective members an idea of what they could gain with their membership and the next month have members “Tell Me Something Good”.

Some bullet points:

• New members need a buddy system to assist in getting them involved
• Ask every member what talents they have to contribute to our chapter
• Create accountability groups to meet once a month to assist member in meeting therir personal goals.

Program and Fund raising suggestions:

• County history
• Economist
• Public speaking
• Shorts sales from the backside
• American Idol (talent show)
• Bowl a thon
• Operation Holiday for Heros

More to come….

~ Lisa, Robbie, and Sam