2013 - 4th Quarter Newsletter, A Note from the President

As the final day of my Presidency winds down here on New Year's Eve of 2013, I can hardly believe how time has flown by!  It seems as if it were just yesterday that I was gearing up for the year.... scared to death I might add!  I'm happy to say that as a group, we once again made it thru as a group and are ending the year with more members than we started!

The past three month's have been busy as ever for us.  In October we learned about the many benefits of RPR (REALTORS Property Resource).  If you missed out on this meeting, please take a moment to go to www.NARRPR.com.  You'll be blown away by the resources offered to you on this site and best of all, access is paid for by your NAR dues!

November started with a bang as JoAnn, Joan, Angela, Theresa and I headed to San Francisco for the National Meeting.  We spent our time in the City By The Bay busy in committee meetings, learning labs and taking the opportunity to explore amazing San Fransisco.  For me, it was a bit of a trip home as I lived there for nearly 10 years.  We were able to attend the Installation Ceremony for our 2014 National President, Jo Kenney and it was a wonderful evening!

Upon our return to Houston, we hosted out Member Awards luncheon where we recognized our outstanding members.  I'm proud to announce the following winners:
Member of the Year:  Lane Pearson
Entrepreneur of the Year:  Suzette Peoples
Affiliate of the Year:  Chris Lesak
I can't express how honored I am to have these 3 people as members of the Fort Bend Chapter.  They exemplify the true meaning of a member that is living by our Mission Statement!  Please take a moment to congratulate them on their achievement next time you see them!

Then... there it was!  The 2014 Installation Luncheon...!  The day I too, take on the most honored role in WCR... that of a PPP (Precious Past President)!  Theresa's theme for 2014 is "Teamwork" and what a team she has in place.  Of course, Theresa will be our President, followed by Christina Daw as President Elect, Angela Johnson as VP of Membership, Julia Hardy as Treasurer and Wendy Mottern as Secretary.  I fell confident that this group will continue to lead our Chapter towards success in the year to come!  In addition to installing our new line, we took a moment to thank our Strategic Partners for 2013.  It is because of these Partners that we are able to hold these meetings on a monthly basis for the benefit of our members and we are ever so appreciative of them!

But wait!  That wasn't all for December!  This year, as years in the past, we were able to present a check to our Charity of Choice, the Fort Bend Couny Woe's Cebter,  This year, we were able to award them $2,800 thanks to the hard work of those that participated in our Celebrity Waiter Event in September!  They were blown away and ever so thankful!

I am honored and humbled by the trust you have placed in me to lead this past year, and please know that I have taken much in terms of experience and knowledge from this wonderful group of people over the past year.  Thank you for the opportunity!

October Business Luncheon

2013 - 3rd Quarter Newsletter, A Note from the President

2013 - 3rd Quarter Newsletter
A Note from the President

Quarter 3?  Really?  The year continues to fly by, but I totally understand why!  Fort Bend has been BUSY!  My goal since the beginning of the year has simply been to live thru the month of September and much to my amazement, it appears I've pulled it off with the help of our entire chapter!  Here's a quick look at what we've been up to the past few months:

July kicked us off with a different venue for our monthly luncheon - Churrasscos, and it was wonderful!  Our meeting was entitled "Safety on Steroid's", but due to a last minute scheduling conflict (and by last minute, I mean the morning of), our scheduled speaker was unable to attend.  Thanks to some last minute scrambling on our Chapter's part and the graciousness of Sheriff Troy Nehls and Major Chad Norvell of the Fort Bend County Sheriff's office, our meeting still went on as planned!   We were privileged to have a special guest as well - our State President, Sylvia Seabolt was in attendance, but that wasn't all for this one!  July has always been our month to collect school supplies for the Fort Bend County Women's Center and this year was no different.  Members came thru in force bringing LOADS of backpacks, pens, pencils and other school supplies to donate to these worthy children.  All in all, it was a great meeting and I must say, Churrascos is now on my "place to be" list!

In August, we held a cooking class at the new Darling Homes model in Riverstone and hosted by Chef Beatrice Keller.  We cooked our hearts out and then took time to enjoy our efforts!  Nearly 20 members and guests attended the event and those of us that were lucky enough to be there now have a handful of wonderful appetizers we can throw together in a pinch!

Later that same month, we held our annual joint meeting with Houston Association of REALTORS at the Sweetwater Country Club focusing on the Fort Bend Independent School District Reports.  I'm thrilled to report that we have some of the best schools in the state!  This is always a very informative meeting and we all walk away happy to say that we reside in Fabulous Fort Bend!

In September, I took a big, deep breath and hoped for the best... I knew it was going to me a CRAZY month!  I somehow found myself as the State Ways and Means Chair this year as well as Local President, so the first event I had to plan for September was just days away.  The month started out with our Line Officers, JoAnn Stevens, Joan Berger and our Scholarship winner - Dianne Moore, taking a trip to Dallas for the State Meeting.  Here, we attended Learning Labs and Committee Meetings as well as our Annual Fundraiser entitled Wild, Wild, WCR which was held at Gilley's!  Clad in our best rodeo attire, a great time was had by all and we raised a good deal of money for the State Chapter in the process!

We then carried on to our own chapter's September Business Resource Luncheon - "Keeping your Nose Clean" featuring Real Estate Guru Attorney, Chuck Jacobus.  Chuck kept us entertained while teaching us a few key things to keep in mind as we conduct our daily business.  At this meeting, we also had elections for next year's line.  I'm happy to say, next year, you will have Theresa Fehr as your new President, Christina Daw as President Elect, Angela Johnson as Membership Marketing Chair, Julia Hardy as Treasurer and Wendy Mottern as Secretary.  It's a great group and I can't wait to see what they have in store for us!

But wait, September wasn't over quite yet!  On the 19th, at the Swinging Door in Richmond, under slightly stormy skies, we hosted our 2013 Celebrity Waiters of the Ole West Fundraising Event.  After hours upon hours of work from members of our chapter, we were ready for the big day!

In total, we had 191 in attendance along with 11 Celebrity Waiters working their tails off for tips!  The event brought in over $14,000 for our Chapter and the Fort Bend County Women's Center!  I can't say enough about all of the hard work and effort that went into this event on the behalf of SOOO many in our chapter.  You can't pull something like this off without a GREAT group working to get it done!  Please take a moment to look over our pictures on our FaceBook page if you haven't already done so.  There are some really great shots!  Thank you to David Goldberg for being our photographer for the night!  We also had Vaughan and Alisa Pederson's band perform and keep us on our toes dancing the night away.  Sponsors included:  Tracy Walker with State Farm, RE/MAX Fine Properties, Weichert - Wayne Murray Properties, Entouch, Trendmaker, Dr. Shel, Rightway Home Protection, Highland Homes, CertaPro Painters, Independence Title, and Insurance Solutions.  Ruth and Barbara worked to put together a very successful cake auction while Lane coordinated all of our waiters and their guests.  There were just so many involved that worked so hard, I want to say a sincere "Thank you" to all of you!

In addition to ALL of that, we were lucky enough to add 9 new members to our Roster over the past 3 months!  Angela is doing a great job as Membership Marketing Chair and I know she'll continue to amaze us next year!

So yes, our Third Quarter was BUSY!!!  I feel like we can all breathe a little more easily and take a slight break before we ramp back up and finish out the year strong!

Here's a quick look at what's ahead:

October 10 - Becoming an "RPR 4 U"
November 5th - Tech Tuesday
November 14th - Member Awards & Professional Clothing Drive
December 12th - Installation of 2014 Line Officers


Stay Ready, Stay Strong, Stay Empowered.....

An exhausted, but very pleased -
K Shaw

2013 - 2nd Quarter Newsletter
A Note From the President


Another three months have passed us since my last newsletter... and what a busy three months it has been!  Our Fort Bend Chapter has enjoyed great speakers, a successful Basket Auction and an Informative Tech Tuesday!  Just in case you missed any of it, here's a quick re-cap:

We started things off in May with our Annual Basket Auction headed by Cathy Simeone and Sherrie Fontenot; which raised over $1,500.  All of which went directly back to our Chapter!  Many thanks to these two ladies for once again making the Auction a succes!   


At that same meeting, Chris Lesak spoke to us about the New WCR Fort Bend website (www.FortBendWCR.com), as well as how to utilize the tools on the WCR App!  We learned the importance of keeping our profile up to date to encourage those all so important Referrals!!
If you haven't had the opportunity to check out the new website, please be sure to do so.  It is loaded with useful information for our members!  We were also honored to have our WCR Area C Governor, Marty Chrisman join us for the meeting... Thanks again for making the trip to Ft. Bend Marty!

June started out with our quarterly "Tech Tuesday" event entitled "Marketing Strategies that Work" presented by Richard Smith and coordinated by Luba Shuckers.  This event was held once again at the beautiful Town Square Office Suites in Sugar Land.  Richard taught us so much about cost effective ways to market ourselves and our businesses in this Tech Savvy Environment!

The topic for our June Business Resource Luncheon Meeting was "News You Can Use" by Gary Maler, Director of the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.  He talked about the trends in Real Estate and the most important question on all of our minds... "How long will this upswing last?"
If you missed this meeting, you missed a good one! 


Amongst all of that, JoAnn, Joan, Theresa and I loaded up our bags and headed to the National Meeting in Washington, D.C.  We spent 4 full days in WCR meetings and trips to the Capitol.  As a highpoint, we were invited to join U.S. Congressmen John Culberson in his office to talk about current issues in the Real Estate Market and enjoyed lunch in the Congressional Dining Room.  What a wonderful trip it was!  We toured the many sights of Washington, learned allot and met some wonderful people. 




 Once again, Texas took honors in the awards program by wining the 2012 Mega State Chapter of the Year award!  But that's not all, we, here in Fort Bend won the Gold award for our local chapter yet another year!  Way to go Fort Bend! 
 

I'm also proud to mention that our very own JoAnn Stevens is running for the 2014 National Financial Secretary position.  We know that she will make an excellent Officer and wish her the very best of luck in her journey!  When you see her, please take a moment to thank her for her continual commitment to serve Women's Council!  Also, please be sure to like her FaceBook Community Page at https://www.facebook.com/JoAnnSStevens?ref=ts&fref=ts
GOOD LUCK JOANN!


If it seems that we've been busy recently, it's nothing compared to what lies ahead of us next quarter!  Here's a little bit of what we have in-store:

July:  "Safety on Steroids" (Lt. AJ Gwen)
August:  Cooking Class with Beatrice Keller
              "School District Reports"  (Joint meeting with HAR)
Sept:  "Keeping your Nose Clean"  (Chuck Jacobus)
           Waiters of the Old West Celebrity Waiter Event

Look to our website and our Facebook page for all the details on these upcoming events.

Stay cool this summer and Sell On!
K

2013 - 1st Quarter Newsletter

A note from the President

It's hard to believe that we're already thru the First Quarter of 2013... and what a quarter it's been!

We started out with Dr. Mike Abdelsayad talking to us about how to "Stay Ahead of the Rat Race" at our January 10th meeting.  He stressed how important it was to not only take care of your clients, but to take care of yourself as well!  We learned loads and all vowed to be good to ourselves in 2013!

February started off with a bang as our Officers Traveled to Austin for our Winter Meeting.  Teya Grayned accompanied us on scholarship and had a great time in doing so.  We attended the Annual Celebrity Waiter Event - Heroes and Villains Style where approximately $21,000 was raised for TREPAC!  We also attended meetings thru-out the weekend that were full of useful information we were able to bring back to use here at home in our local chapter.

February also brought upon one of our best ever events... "The Vendor Love-A-Fair".  This was a totally new concept for our chapter and the success was phenomenal!  We had 32 Vendor Tables and an attendance of over 190 at the event!  The chapter made over $4,000 on the event, so there is no doubt we'll be doing this again next year!  Our goal was to reach beyond our members into the general Real Estate community and we no doubt accomplished that!

However, that wasn't it for the month... on the 21st we loaded up for a "It's 5:00 Somewhere" event at Sugar Land's "Painting with a Twist".  I can say with great confidence that a great time was had by all as we each created our own masterpieces!

As March rolled around, we no doubt kept up the pace.  We started with one of our "Tech Tuesday" classes at the Sugar Land Office Suites where we learned the in's and out's of "Linked In".  Be sure to add our local chapter as one of your contacts if you haven't done so already. 

Our luncheon in March was entitled "Appraisal Dreams and Nightmares" where local appraiser, Howard Hill taught us how to use new methods to prove our rapidly increasing values.  I have already used the tools Howard taught and I hope you have too!  We also held one of our "Community Service" events at this meeting, our Prom Dress Drive.  Members brought in dresses and accessorize by the loads for donation to the "Cinderella/Cinderefella" project which helps deserving seniors that would otherwise be unable, to attend their Senior Prom.  What a great project to be apart of!  A sincere "Thank You" to all that helped make it happen!

As I said earlier... we were certainly busy in our First Quarter, but we have no intention of stopping!  Here's what we have planned for the next three months:

• April 19 - "It's 5:00 Somewhere"  A wonderful, fun cooking class taught by  Beatrice Keller
• May 9 - Our Annual Basket Auction Luncheon and class on using the WCR app to help grow your business
• June 4 - "Tech Tuesday" - Creating property flyers that sell
• June 18th - "News you Can Use" - Real Estate Trends and Stats taught by Gary Mahler, Texas A&M University

We'll look forward to seeing you and what we can do as a chapter in the months to come!

Sincerely;

Kimberly Shaw
2013 Fort Bend Local Chapter President