Newton, MA The New England Chapter of SIOR held its annual golf outing jointly with its RW Holmes Scholarship event. This year’s golf outing was held at Brae Burn Country Club on Wednesday, October 7. The event started at 12:30 pm to be followed up with a cocktail reception, golf awards and the announcement of the RW Holmes Scholarship recipient. The scholarship goes to an upcoming commercial broker in the New England Chapter area that can be applied to an SIOR Designation course or convention. 

The golf event was a nice day for fall golfing. Approximately 28 people signed up for the golf outing including the SIOR national president Mark Duclos who traveled up from Connecticut to attend this event. Greg Klemmer the in-coming chapter president welcomed everyone at lunch prior to teeing off. He thanked the sponsors Dacon and Vantage Builders for their support. The golf format and awards were explained to the attendees and box lunches were served as members teed off. The golf event completed at 5 pm and a cocktail reception with awards ceremony was then held in the clubhouse at Brae Burn. 

At the clubhouse, approximately 26 people attended the ceremonies and scholarship portion of the day. Klemmer then welcomed everyone and first thanked Mike Giuttari as immediate past president for his hard efforts in his role as chapter president over the last two years. This was the first event for Klemmer as the new chapter president. Giuttari was given a gift as a token of appreciation on behalf of the chapter. Klemmer then thanked Bob Cleary for arranging this event at his country club and Mark Duclos for attending as SIOR national president. 

Klemmer then announced that the chapter had a full calendar coming up over the next few months. He remarked that the SIOR Global Conference was anticipated to be outstanding with elite speakers. The fall conference was to be held in Boston this year on October 21-23, but now will be virtual. He spoke about the virtues of being an SIOR and said if you attend these SIOR conferences, you will never not want to join SIOR. 

He then announced that due to COVID-19, this was the first time that the golf outing and RW Holmes Scholarship event was merged. Typically the golf outing occurs in the spring or mid-summer and the RW Holmes event is a September or October event. The chapter breakfast series will start again as well. The first NE Chapter event will be a topic on tenant improvement costs and how deals are lost. There will be a panel of speakers from Paradigm, Dacon and Boston Industrial Consulting. Then the chapter may hold events with architects, or the Bank of New England with another bank on financing. The NAIOP/SIOR End of the Year Forecast was held virtual in November. Klemmer then turned the program over to Cleary to announce the golf winners. 

Cleary welcomed everyone and then announced the winners. He thanked Klemmer for taking over as chapter president. He asked everyone to volunteer to be on the Chapter Board of Directors and encouraged others to volunteer and help with other chapter events. He stated that the golf course was still tough even with COVID-19 protocols and the freedom of time with a wide open course. He thanked the scholarship nominees who were in attendance. The golf course is a par 72 and he said that there was a tight knit of scores. The winners were the first and second place teams on a net basis and then an award for closet to the pin. He first announced the runner-up with 11 under par at 61. The team that was runner-up included Greg Klemmer and Mark Duclos. The first place score was a score of 12 under at 60. There were five teams with the same score and so the winners would be sharing the awards. The low net winners included Mike Dalton and Dan Driscoll. Closest to the pin was Chuck Reilly of Dacon. The pin was the 6^th hole at 144 yards. Several people were within 15 feet but Reilly was within 5 feet and then putted for a birdie. The longest drive was Bob Cleary on the 18^th hole in which he drove the ball within 100 yards of the flag. After the winners were announced, Cleary then turned the program to Mark Duclos.

Duclos stated that being SIOR national president is a hectic job but he meets a lot of people. Because of COVID-19, his one year term has now become a two year term. He’s met more people than any other SIOR past president due to Zoom. He said that our industry is all about relationship development and business development and SIOR is about developing relationships. In the past, it was physical meetings and now within 7 months, due to COVID-19, it’s about connecting virtual and that’s the pivot of SIOR. SIOR is about connecting. The SIOR Fall conference was supposed to be in Boston this month and the last time Boston held the conference was during another bad time with Sept. 11^th. Cleary and Rob Nahigian were co-chairing the Boston event then and SIOR wasn’t sure who would show up for the October convention. But SIORs came through with a populated convention. The good news now is the Spring 2021 conference is in Indian Wells, CA. SIOR needs to offer the convention virtually and SIOR has the experience to now do that, both in person and virtually. Some members may not want to attend due to COVID-19 concerns or cannot physically attend. So SIOR will offer the convention in both formats. Virtual will be the basis of future options and they can now offer the convention to the European SIORs who cannot attend in person. 

Duclos believed that the October 2020 convention was an absolute event to attend. Attendees will be able to experience round tables, general session speakers and he felt that it’s better online then in person even with the IAMC events. 

Duclos stated that people look to gain new knowledge, opportunities and relationships. He has gained these factors meeting more people on Zoom than in person. He then thanked the scholarship past winner and current nominees that understood that SIOR was a way to extend your overall network. He expressed to current members that the convention was a way for us to extend our networks as well. He felt that the New England brokers see the world as Connecticut and Massachusetts but that it isn’t the world in reality. It is in fact global and SIOR will open up that world to its designees. 

Klemmer then chimed in with his own personal story when he had his own company, SIOR was his network. Now he’s at Colliers and is still an SIOR. He said we need to respect the SIOR pin. He uses SIOR next to his name in correspondence and he gets responses on requests regardless of personal gain.