2014 Fort Bend WCR - 1st Quarter Newsletter

It's hard to believe that the first quarter of 2014 has come and gone so quickly.  The Fort Bend Chapter of Women's Council of Realtors has been busy with education, travel and an amazing schedule of Business Resource meetings.  We started out the year with a panel of super producing Real Estate Teams from 3 different firms in the Sugar Land area to share their "secrets" and "business finesse" about Team Building & Branding, we had very large attendance and all agreed they wanted to hear more from our panel.  Thanks goes out to Nancy Benevides of Benevides & Associates,  Susan Greer with the Susan Greer Group of BHG Gary Greene Realtors, and Kimbra Valachovic with Keller Williams Southwest for sharing their expertise and knowledge. Our January Spotlight office was RE/MAX Fine Properties - Broker/Owners Minesh and Nimesh Patel attended with several of their agents.  Before January came to a close Julia Hardy held a 3 HR MCE class absolutely FREE to our members - "Three Ways to Build your Business"- we all learned some new ways to generate business with open houses, buyer seminars, and house warming parties. Part of the class also included a food tasting with tantalizing tidbits from a local catering chef!! Talk about value for your membership!!!

February proved to be a very busy month for the chapter and its officers.  We had a fantastic presentation about Appraisals brought to us by Mike Brubaker with Brubaker & Associates. He shared the many challenges that arise in today's active market and how we the REALTOR can assist the appraiser with potential inconsistancies in comparibles and values. Our February Spotlight office was United Real Estate - Office manager Dianne Moore had many of her agents attend with her.   The second weekend of the month myself, Christina Daw, Angela Johnson, Wendy Mottern and JoAnn Stevens attended the Winter TAR/WCR meetings in Austin, TX.  We attended classes with our State officers and Governors to help prepare us for the BIG changes that have been made with our reporting proceedures to National WCR.  The highlight of the weekend is the TREPAC/WCR Celebrity Waiter event to encourage all in attendance to make their investments in TREPAC.  The theme this year was "Totally 80's" - we all had a great time dressing in our best 80's regalia and listening to the tunes many of us remember from our high school days!! TREPAC Houston raised over $7,000!! It was a very successful and tremendously fun event. The "Icing on the Cake" for the weekend was our very own member JoAnn Stevens was awarded "Member of the Year" by the Texas Chapter of Women's Council of Realtors.  She was so surprised when her husband, daughter, son-in-law and grandaughter were standing in the ballroom!  It was an exciting and very emotional moment.  We are so proud of you JoAnn!!

Our March luncheon meeting was a much anticipated visit from a national company called "Business Success Training", Chuck Douglas a business strategy trainer brought a riveting presentation to us at our luncheon meeting.

We have so many things coming up in April - You won't want to miss a thing! Coming up on April 4th is our always exciting "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere", it will be at the Redneck Country Club!! And on April 10th our second Annual Vendor Fair will be at Sweetwater C.C. and it is guaranteed to be packed with information and goodies again! We look forward to seeing you at all our upcoming events next quarter.  Watch your whoozin invites and our Facebook page for all upcoming events!