Our Vision ~ Through our influence as successful business professionals, women will effect positive change in the profession and in the broader community.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
2013 - 3rd Quarter Newsletter, A Note from the President
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 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
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
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!
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
Sunday, March 31, 2013
2013 - 1st Quarter Newsletter
A note from the President
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
Sincerely;
Kimberly Shaw
2013 Fort Bend Local Chapter President
Sunday, December 30, 2012
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Message from the President
President’s
Farewell
I am so pleased to have had the opportunity
to serve as President of the Fort Bend Chapter this year. My journey began as the Membership Chair for
Lane Pearson when she was our Vice President of Membership back in 2009. Serving as an officer for the Women’s Council
of Realtors provides opportunities to travel to local, state and national
meetings. During these meetings I have
been able to meet wonderful Realtors from all over the nation. We have heard amazing nationally renowned speakers
and attended classes that have helped me become a more effective leader and
business woman. In addition, I have
gained many lifelong friends. Sharing a
room with two or three other women is a recipe for fun.
Planning agendas for board meetings, monthly
Business Resource Meetings, overseeing fundraisers and keeping up with the
Annual Business Plan requires the assistance of many people. We are fortunate in Fort Bend to have a very
devoted group of Precious Past Presidents and members, both Realtor and
Affiliates, who value this organization and are willing to step in and help
when help is needed. I will refrain from
listing all of your names because I am sure to overlook someone. Please know that I am aware that without your
support and advice, I could not have gotten through this year. I look forward to taking on a similar role of
support for our new board members and future boards. See you all in January!
WCR Fort Bend December Business Luncheon
December
Installation Luncheon
I think the December meeting is always so
special. We say goodbye to our current
board members, and celebrate the installation of the new officers. The ballroom at Sweetwater is dressed for
Christmas and paired with the installation decorations it is quite
festive. This year we were fortunate to
have Vaughan Pederson, James Greene and James Greene Jr. entertain us with their jazz
trio. Cathy Simeone and her crew did an
amazing job with the decorations. Incoming
President Kim Shaw chose an animal print theme and it was stunning with the
black chair covers and zebra print accents.
Gene Miller, the general manager of Sweetwater provided complimentary
Poinsettia drinks. We all got of kick
out of having green tongues from the sugared rims on the champagne flutes.
Vaughan Pederson served as Kim’s Master of
Ceremonies, and Jo Ann Stevens installed our new board. Following installation, Dr. Shel spoke to us
about Women’s Health, and the meeting culminated with our raffle drawing and
life auction. Vaughan did double duty as
auctioneer and helped raise over $7000 for our organization. We are grateful to Jo Ann for taking the lead
again on the raffle and live auction.
Many members donated or collected items to make this a huge
success. This fundraiser helped us
finish the year with a healthy financial status.
Barbara is enjoying her last meeting as President.
Barbara Marlin, Nikki Owen and Val Howell
James Greene
WCR Fort Bend contributed $1000.00 to the Women's Center!
We do enjoy our meetings
Officer Installation
Barbara Marlin Entrepreneur of the Year, Vaughan Pederson Affilliate of the Year
Installation, raffle and auction
JoAnn and Kim
Jazz Christmas Trio
JoAnn presides over the installation
Kim's mom, Kim and James
Lane Pearson, Kimberly Shaw, Barbara DiBlasi Marlin
Leadership Ladies
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