Here's the course schedule for Southern California CRS for 2008 (sponsored course) as of December 2007. This schedule is subject to change if courses are added, or due to lack of enrollment.

February 6-7:  CRS 201 Listing Course (Pacific West Association), Orange, CA

March 20-21:  CRS 204: Wealth Building Course (South Bay Association), Torrance, CA

March 25-26:  CRS 202: Sales Course (Victor Valley Association), Hesperia, CA

April 17-18: CRS 204 Wealth Building Course (Conejo Valley Board), Thousand Oaks, CA

April 24-25:  CRS 200 Business Planning & Marketing (Citrus Valley Association), San Dimas, CA

May 22-23:  CRS 200 Business Planning & Marketing (San Diego Association), San Diego, CA

August 6-7:  CRS 202 Sales Course (Pacific West Association), Orange, CA

September 17-18: CRS 201 Listing Course (North San Diego Association), Vista, CA

October 28-29:  CRS 206 Technology Course (Orange County Association), Laguna Hills, CA

December 4-5:  CRS 201 Listing Course (Citrus Valley Association), San Dimas, CA

Information about these courses and registration will be available on the Southern California CRS website. Postcards will be mailed out and emails will be sent to members with registration forms.

Here is the schedule of remaining Membership Meetings for 2008. This will be updated periodically as I get more information and decisions are made about locations and speakers:

NOVEMBER 21 - General Membership Meeting

& Installation of 2009 Officers

Come hear Stephen Spile, Esq. talk about the

"Top Ten Legal Issues in Today's Market"

Ayres Hotel in Hawthorne (Manhattan Beach area)

The final meeting for our membership is this Friday at the Ayres Hotel in Hawthorn, November 30, from 8:30 - 2 PM.

And the last Board of Directors meeting of the year is tomorrow (where the new officers start their roles for the coming year). Hope you are signed up for the meeting - it should be a good one.

As you probably know I will be taking on a new role in the Chapter as Treasurer, after a fine job by Marlene Bridges who will be the President Elect for 2008. I will be moving out of my role as the Area VP for San Diego (but I will continue to be involved!!) and Barbara DuDeck will become our new Area Vice President for San Diego. I am very pleased about this, as I know Barbara is, and I think you can look forward to a good year for the membership.

I started having a quarterly Coffee Chat this year for the San Diego members (thanks, to Vicki Campbell, for her help in getting this started) which was met with some success. While the attendance was small, we had some good topics (mold, photography tips, investing using your 401k) , and the San Diego members seemed pleased to have something in the local area.

I did not sponsor a Coffee Chat in this last quarter primarily because of timing - the fires impacted lots of agents and their clients and sort of took over everyone's focus for a few weeks; the timing for our quarterly meeting was earlier; and the approaching holidays. Barbara and I have talked and I expect we will continue offering the Coffee Chats for our local membership. We hope you will participate, even if you cannot make the quarterly membership meetings. And if there are topics you want to hear about, please let me know.

You can look forward to some changes in our Chapter website, too - this will be discussed at our board meeting tomorrow, and our focus for the coming year will be on technology. I am excited about some of the things we are planning to bring you, our members, including a more effective site where you can keep up to date with what is going on. These changes will also benefit prospective CRS designees.

Finally, as readers, I hope you will feel comfortable participating in this blog as well. It's FOR YOU, no matter what region of our Chapter you are in. You can ask questions, share stories, ask for help, post ideas, and so on.

I also hope to see other members of the Board and some Area VPs participating too.

See you at the meeting and on the Internet. Thanks for reading!