A banner year for the Upstate N.Y. CCIM chapter!

On behalf of the Upstate New York CCIM chapter, I want to thank you for your support during 2009. Your chapter's leadership has worked hard during 2009. The board of directors set high goals for 2009 and your leadership exceeded all of them! I would like to thank everyone that has worked hard to exceed our goals in 2009. During 2009, the chapter sponsored several networking events for its members. The largest was the membership meeting that was held at the Turning Stone Casino in June. Over 50 members attend this event and we will do it again in 2010! We also sponsored several other networking events across the state along with membership events. We will continue in 2010 networking events across the state. Several CCIM courses were held during 2009 in upstate N.Y. One of our goals for 2009 was to provide its members with the ability of taking all of the CCIM education courses in upstate N.Y. For 2010, we will implement "bring the Pin to Upstate New York." The chapter will sponsor all required CCIM courses to complete the education requirements for the CCIM Designation (The Pin). In addition, our designation chair is planning Portfolio Writing Workshop in 2010 to help our members with the portfolio requirements. The chapter sponsored several educational and technology events across the state. From lease verses own analysis, 1031 exchanging seminars to the new CCIM Excel Calculator course. We will do the same in 2010 sponsoring events such as a case study apartment analysis seminar (this is a real CCIM course) and an advanced Excel Calculator course. The advanced Excel Calculator course will be delivered in two formats: online and classroom. We do have a one-day Site to Do Business (STDB) course that is scheduled in May. Mining Your Market in Today's Economy is a "hands-on" STDB training which is necessary for success in commercial investment real estate today! The course is focused on the rifle approach to marketing verses the shotgun approach. We are also planning a three-hour introduction to the STDB seminar. This "hands-on" training will open the door to compete in today's market. Communication and Collaboration: By employing www.gotomeeting.com the chapter is more effective by having board of director and membership meetings online. Collaboration using an efficient platform for meetings was an important ingredient to the accomplishments during 2009. We invite all members to log on to any meeting. Our members now actively participate in the chapter meetings anywhere. We encourage all members to log on to chapter meetings. They typically last for one hour. The biggest initiative the chapter undertook for 2009 was the development of a new website. We expect www.ccimny.com to be up and running during the 1st quarter. Our new website will increase efficiency, transparency and provide one location for members to go to for up-to-date information and schedules. Members will be able to register and pay for events, pay their dues, download minutes from board of director's meetings and one of the key benefits will be the website's membership directory. We have developed a marketing campaign to drive investors, businesses and other commercial real estate professionals to our new site. I believe once the plan is initiated this will become a major member benefit! Joseph Larkin, CCIM, CIPS, MCR, MRICS, SIOR is the 2010 chapter president of the Upstate New York CCIM chapter, Albany, N.Y.