The association staff loves to show off, and last Monday's audience was a visitor from NAR--the first one ever! Julie Ann is a long time national association staffer, and a good friend. It was especially delightful to have her select our association as a one-day destination on her outreach assignment.
The outreach program is new at NAR this year. and long overdue. It's occurred to NAR that maybe its staff needs to know first hand how things function out in Reality Realtor Association. Of course it's grand to visit the Picture Perfect Board of Realtors, and I imagine there will be a fair share of folks who will want to see how it's done in the Kingdom of Orlando, or Huston, or Northern Virginia. But we were real proud to show Julie Ann our little northwoods enclave. Here are some of the moments she experienced:
Staff Meeting. Well, sort of. Two staffers were vacationing, and Lars the Geek was working on a crisis for another client, but we managed to get through the weekly schedule of committee meetings, computer training sessions, scheduled interviews with new members, and staff days off. Our staff also discussed the state of the association--annual dues collection is weak, members are uncertain about the economy, and the general mood of the members is restless and grouchy. We need an 'upbeat' moment.
Marketing to Members. This is a huge issue for us. Our members are over 100 miles from the TAAR office--a function of the internet expanding the world. Our challenge as an association is how to deliver services and build community when a member is only an email or a voice on the phone. We showed JA our website, our newsletter, our many online services for our real estate community.
Wait! Just who is our community? That is an important question for our association. Building a professional association in a small town does, by necessity, become fairly inclusive--we don't specialize in property managment or commercial real estate, because we're just to small a market to support exclusivity. We tend to open our arms to all business associates--appraisers, lenders, attorneys, builders, government officials. Julie Ann is amazed at how many of them wander through the door in the course of a day...to get a map, sign up for a class, or pick up some purchase agreements which we print in-house.
"Well," I tell her, "We don't much have committees anymore. People are too far away. They don't want to drive to meetings. We need other ways to get feedback from members." And how, she asks me, do you find new leaders? I answer that I don't have a real good formula for that--TAAR does make running for the Board of Directors as easy as possible, and we invite everyone who is interested to the Annual Retreat. We have a budget item for leadership training--for conferences, speakers and education. But I wish there were other ways to find the voices and the ideas to make our association what our members need. It occurs to me that we can't force new trends into the old shapes--committees and membership meetings, and social gatherings just don't seem to work any more....
Julie Ann gets to see some other things, too--we show her how an online MLS listing inquiry works, and how we put together our weekly newsletter. She participates with staff when our president-elect drops by to find out which pair of eyeglasses look best on her. Julie Ann takes me to lunch, and later I take her to the pub where I play Irish music on Monday nights. We meet even more TAAR members, and word gets around: The National Association has come to visit!
We say good-bye until New Orleans...and Julie Ann leaves to head for another local association. TAAR staff tells me the next day how much they enjoyed the visit--we are all proud of what we do, and we DO like an audience. And that's an "aha" moment--guess it's about time to schedule staff visits to our member offices.....
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