Letter from President Annette Mehal

I am honored to once again be given the opportunity to serve the East TN Chapter 57 as President for 2009. Our chapter has seen a lot of success in prior years and I hope to carry on this tradition in the coming year. I am even more excited to be working alongside such a great group of enthusiastic leaders who fill various roles within the Chapter. Special thanks to Lisa Hutton for serving as our President Elect, Kathleen Festa as Treasurer and Mary Rosson as our chapter Secretary. Without them and those who serve on various committees we would not be able to achieve IREM’s coveted “STAR” status.

 I am also proud to report we have gotten off to a good start this year. Several key goals were established as we made plans for the New Year. Several of these goals are being realized earlier than anticipated.  One such goal was to recruit new members and at last count, I believe we have added six or more new members to our roster so far this year. Thank you Ellen Bush and Mara Martin for keeping up with our CPM and ARM submissions. We are a stronger chapter due to your continued efforts.

 Currently Sara Sweat is leading the campaign for Income/Expense submittals. Last year we were one away from meeting the goals as set forth by IREM National. We hope to exceed this goal this year.

 In the area of communication, our goal is to improve our Chapter website. Through Natalie Desselle’s efforts, we hope to unveil a new and improved website soon. Region 13 has also been working towards a regional website to encourage communication within a three state area (TN, SC and NC). We are also exploring the possibility of using webcams in future Chapter meetings so our members in the Tri-Cities and Chattanooga area will have more of an opportunity to be a part of our meetings. We are also using matching dollars from IREM National to communicate and promote credential awareness through the local media.

 Speaking of meetings, our January Economic Forecast meeting with Dr Spiva was very well attended. Thank you to all who participated.  Our March meeting will spotlight our vendors along with a guest speaker who will speak on our country’s influence in IRAQ.  Our May meeting will highlight the importance of going green with a hands-on workshop following the luncheon co-sponsored by the local US Green Building chapter. By popular demand, our July meeting will feature another wine tasting event. The September meeting will be a “luau” themed meeting featuring IREM National’s past president, JoAnne Corbitt, as our guest speaker. We will finish the year in November with our local inaugural event with our Regional RVP, Connie Carpenter, as our guest speaker.

 Many of you have already seen the email broadcast announcing the new Friends of IREM program illustrating ways to earn IREM dollars that can be applied towards membership dues or education/conference expenses. Based upon the turn out at the annual Friends of IREM recruitment reception in January, I would say this program is doing well. Thank you Denise Samples and John Watson and all those who helped prepare for this event.

 In the area of Education, there is a RES 201 course planned for April which will be taught by Karen Shultz, thank you Karen for continuing this effort.

 Special thanks to Emily Hurst for the great job in coordinating our community service projects last year and for agreeing to so again this year. Thanks to all those who responded so favorably, many needy and worthwhile causes have benefited from your generosity.

 As you can see, there are a lot of good things planned for this year through the efforts of our members. So if you have not been to a meeting lately, let me encourage you to do so. Who knows, you may be the happy recipient of one of the door prizes to be given out at each meeting.

Thank you,

President Annette Mehal