Imagine our membership in 2015
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Imagine for a moment, it’s May 2015 and you’re telling someone about the HBA:
· Policy-makers regularly consult with us and pay attention to what we say. After all, we represent the entire homebuilding industry in our community, that’s many voices, and many dollars.
· The media (or what’s left of them!) pay close attention to us given our influential position in the community. We get a lot of good press about our community service projects too.
· Other organizations clamor to work with us on coalitions and community projects.
· Members are always gathering together somewhere in town for both official and unofficial meetings. And unlike other organizations, we actually look forward to our meetings! We get a lot done while having a good time.
· You see both older and younger members working together on projects and programs. Our membership reflects our community, and our leadership reflects our membership. Everyone involved in homebuilding has found a home with us.
· We have a huge volunteer corps eager to get involved in tasks both large and small. We are accomplishing more than we ever have, and taking on new projects and programs to serve our members.
· Member retention is at a record high. Our members are engaged with and committed to our association.
Pinch me, we must be dreaming, right? Not necessarily. These dreams will be our reality if we gather the strategic assets needed to get there. Strategic assets? Yes, it’s simple -- members, one at a time.
Five years from now, we’ll look back and remember how it all started in May 2010 – a month we devoted to ensuring a successful future for our association by focusing on new member recruitment. By the time National Membership Day arrives it will be obvious that a new spirit had taken hold – a truly 21st Century Association
Sure, we’ve focused on membership before and often with good results. But this time, it’s different. This time it’s essential for us to remain in business, and to maintain our ability to serve the local home building industry. We all know that “business as usual” is no longer enough. We are buffeted by challenges from the market and economy, legislation and regulation, fees and taxes, online communities that offer networking and professional development opportunities, and misperceptions by many that we’re not the association for them. The only way to survive and thrive amidst these challenges is to have more people involved who can help us reach our goal of becoming the 21st century association of our dreams for all those in the homebuilding industry.
We can’t be the association we want to become without having more hands on deck to help us get there. We need help with programs and events, big projects and little tasks, professional development resources, publications, member outreach, community service projects, grassroots political action, regulation and policy review and member engagement and retention. That’s a lot of work! But we can do it easily with a large corps of member volunteers. Everyone will have the opportunity to learn, grow and contribute. And have fun while doing it.
May is Membership Month at HBA. Although some of your fellow members work on recruiting members throughout the year, I am asking each of you to help us in May.
But I believe the best incentive is that vision of the association we can create by working together to make us stronger. I’m asking you to join me and commit to recruiting just one member. You have time between now and May to prepare to do that and in coming weeks we will get you ready. We need to recruit everyone who makes a living in our industry, no matter their job or level of experience. I’m asking for your help to ensure our future as an association and as a community.
Yours Truly,
Rob Reilly
2010 HBA President
Reilly Construction Mgt.