IREM Boston mid-year report

It is with great pride and honor that I serve our members as the 2014 president of the Boston Chapter of Institute of Real Estate Management. I want to thank all our members for your continued support for this great organization. The institute has been the leader in instructing managers in highest quality of education and ethical practices in real estate management for eight decades. As we reach the midpoint of 2014 I want to acknowledge the 81st anniversary of the IREM National organization and the 76th anniversary of the Boston Chapter. Those who are active in IREM know what I mean when I say IREM has become a second family to me. The lifelong friendships and business connections made through IREM has improved our careers and business relations. The personal benefits and rewards of IREM are difficult to fully express in words. I started in the real estate business as an emerging professional and have become a seasoned professional with the help of IREM. For this and many reasons we want to focus on both groups (seasoned and emerging professionals) as IREM evolves. We have had an exciting year so far. Although we are planning many new and exciting activities, we are maintaining many core activities that have made IREM a great success. We are continuing to provide IREM's world class education, lead by our very own Chris Mellon of The Simon Cos. Chris currently serves as the national secretary/treasurer and will be the IREM national president in 2016. We are very proud of Chris and his tireless commitment to the organization. IREM Boston is a chapter that is fortunate to offer its members all of the required CPM designation courses each year. This means our members do not have to travel out of the area to take needed courses. I am happy to report that we have been successful in our experiment with changing some of our venues and locations in 2014 I would like to take this opportunity to touch on some of our successes to date in 2014. We have had two nationally renowned keynote speakers conduct presentations in Boston so far this year. National economist Elliot Eisenberg, Ph.D was the keynote speaker at our annual economic and past president breakfast held January in Stoneham, Mass. And national leadership professional Steve Wiley, president of The Lincoln Leadership Institute at Gettysburg, who has taught leadership skills to many top 100 companies such as Apple Inc., Kellogg's, Black & Decker and presidential appointees, in June. Both events were well attended. We had an unprecedented 19 past presidents attend the January event and we swore in 25 ARM members at the June event. We have held three events in New Hampshire. Starting with our annual ski trip at Loon Mountain, Anheuser-Busch plant tour in Merrimack, and the New Hampshire State Capital tour. And coming on July 18, a family fun day at Canobie Lake Park in Salem. In Massachusetts, we have continued to hold events in Quincy at Granite Links Golf Club but have also branched out to metrowest with a MEMA bunker tour, north shore with our January economic breakfast and Boston with the JFK Library as the venue for our annual awards event coming on November 13. In May we toured the Mass. State House followed by a social event at Cheers Boston. I am proud to announce we have launched a professional women's committee that is headed by Candice Thayer Morse. This committee has developed a professional woman of the year award that will be presented at the December 4 holiday party. The committee is also working on activities and fundraisers for 2015 to assist women who are working in the industry. We have also launched a friend of IREM committee to better understand the needs and serve our friend members with Chris Cary of ServiceMaster by Disaster of Stoneham as chairman. We have dramatically improved our social media and web page with video and pod casts. And we have created a quarterly newsletter with the help from our friends Eric Wilson, Rick Kaplan and John Picard of the New England Real Estate Journal. This publication reaches an audience of over 40,000 montly readers. I want to close by thanking all of our members once again for your continued support in 2014 and beyond. David Barrett, CPM, PCAM, AMS, CMCA is the 2014 president of IREM Boston Metropolitan Chapter #4 and is the director of operations for Crowninshield Management Corp., Peabody, Mass.