February 2019 Consent Agenda

First Coast Apartment Association

Consent Agenda

February 8, 2019

1. Minutes of the October 26, 2018, Meeting of the Board of Directors

2. New Members

3. Executive Vice President’s Report

First Coast Apartment Association

Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors

October 26, 2018

Bonefish Grill

10950 San Jose Blvd. Jacksonville, FL 32223

Present:                                               Shannon Gregory, April Hudson, Ken Furtaw, Melissa Wenger, Katie Wrenn, Brian Davies, Beth Lakin, Jody Mayor, Michelle Murphy, Brenda Sherrill, Sharon Steffen, Holly Fox, and Terri Jeffries.

Absent:                                               Brian Cron, Jason Frotten, Dustin Hawley, and Jeff Jackson.  

Non-Voting Present:                      Camy Bermudez, and Kris Millerschone.

Staff:                                                     Lindsey McClain, Taylor Tucker, Crystal Verastegui

1. Call to Order and Welcome: President Shannon Gregory called the meeting to order at 11:12 AM.  A quorum was confirmed.  

2. Approval of Consent Agenda: Shannon Gregory

Motion:               To approve the Consent Agenda.

Status:                  Motion passed unanimously.

3. President’s Report: Shannon Gregory

300. PAC Update: President Gregory shared that FCAA hosted their first ever Jags Tailgate event to support NAAPAC this last weekend. They had great attendance with 25 ticket + Tailgate attendees and 6 additional Tailgate only tickets. After expenses FCAA netted $1,300. FCAA needed $1,274.45 to make the 2018 NAAPAC fair share goal. Gregory was pleased to announce that FCAA reached both the FAA APAC Fair Share goal, and NAAPAC fair share goal for 2018. FCAA finished the year with 66% Board of Director donation participation, and 33% Director Emeritus donation participation.
     
301. ICC/Valet Trash Update: Gregory shared on update on the International Code Council. She shared that the International Code Council meeting was scheduled for October 27^th – 28th. NAA tracked over 200 pieces of proposed code that would affect the Multifamily Industry for the past year. They were able to get it down to about 10 pieces of proposed code that could affect our industry. They will be sending out direct communication about all of the potential code issues. One of the code issues that they couldn’t kill is 5 different proposed code changes that would affect the valet waste industry.
     
     Gregory shared that currently there is division between the different valet waste vendors as to which is the best proposed code change to support. FCAA is following FAA to remain neutral on this issue. Currently all Florida Valet Waste providers are protected by HB 529 that FAA was able to get signed into law this year. So any proposed changes by the ICC won’t affect our Florida valet waste vendors until the law sunsets in 3 years. We hope to continue to work with legislators to be able to renew the law to keep the protections in place.
     
302. Thank you Brian and Jeff: President Gregory took a moment to thank Brian Davies and Jeff Jackson for all of their years of board service for FCAA. The October meeting was their last meeting as voting members. She thanked them for all of their years of service.
     
303. November Dinner Meeting – Gregory encouraged everyone to register and encourage their teams to register for the November Dinner meeting. This meeting will be a one of a kind meeting focused on how FCAA membership positively impacts Jacksonville and the First Coast. The Keynote Speaker was City Councilwoman Ju’Coby Pittman. Pittman is also the CEO of the Clara White Mission downtown. There were also special presentations from a few other FCAA supported charities.
     
304. Save the Date – Legislative Conference: President Gregory encouraged everyone to register early for the FAA Legislative Conference in Tallahassee. The FCAA presence has continued to grow year after year at this conference and we are excited to be a part of it again this year. Getting to have facetime with our Florida Legislators really helps us encourage adoption of friendly proposed legislation and helps to put a stop to unfriendly proposed legislation that can end up costing our industry.
     
305. Holiday Party Reminder: Lastly, Gregory reminded everyone to save the date for Friday, December 14^th for the 2019 FCAA Holiday Party and Board of Directors Installation. The party this year will be held at TIAA Bank in the Terrace Suites, and should be a great event. FCAA is doing “Guest Pricing” for the first time ever. Significant others are welcome to attend for half price with the cost of a full priced ticket.

4. Treasurer’s Report: Ken Furtaw

600. Treasurer Ken Furtaw reported that as of October 22, 2018 FCAA is showing a favorable income of $85,600.52. We were budgeted to be $40,784.00 favorable by the end of October. We have sufficient reserves for any future financial shortfalls, economic downturns, or unanticipated projects that may occur. On October 22nd, we had sufficient cash and cash equivalents ($655,878.62) to cover general operating expenses (overhead) for more than a year.
     

Motion:               To approve 3rd Quarter Financials

Status:                  Motion passed unanimously.

5. Executive Vice President’s Report: Lindsey McClain

1. Executive Vice President McClain began with a staffing update. Friday will be Crystal Verastegui’s last day with at FCAA. She is moving to Tampa to be with her family. McClain wished her the best on her future endeavors!

1. McClain updated that FCAA is accepting applications for the position of Director of Education and Membership. She stressed that she hoped to hire and fill the position as soon as possible.

1. McClain echoed President Gregory’s sentiments that FCAA was very pleased with the first ever NAAPAC Jags Tailgate fundraiser! FCAA ended with a total of 25 Tailgate game ticket attendees and 6 additional Tailgate only tickets. The events was able to raise $1,300 from the event to reach the 2018 NAAPAC fair share goal.

1. McClain shared that they had a great Oktoberfest the night before with 134 registered attendees! There were excellent costumes in the costume contest! She shared that unfortunately, later in the evening there was an issue with a parking lot down the street. There were 3 member vehicles that were towed, but FCAA was able to work out a discount for our affected members with Marshall Adkison from Adkison Towing.

1. Executive Vice President McClain shared that she is looking forward to 2019 with some new excitement and big changes to our events. FCAA is excited to have great board leaders, and volunteers that make our association successful.
   

6. New Business:
   1. 2019 Slate of Candidates: April Hudson

Motion:     To approve 2019 Slate of Candidates

Status:        Motion passed unanimously.

1. Committee Appointments – April Hudson
2. Executive Vice President Annual Performance Evaluation
3. Social Media Policy – Lindsey McClain
   1. McClain shared a proposed Social Media Policy with the board for board members, committee chairs, and volunteer leaders. There were some discussion and requests to update some verbiage before an official vote for adoption.
4. Strategic Plan Update: Shannon Gregory
   1. Short Term Goals Update: 0-12 Months
      
      
      1. Investigate holding a quarterly or biannually market update meeting: Melissa Wenger, Dustin Hawley, and Michelle Murphy.
         1. Melissa shared that Costar would be presenting the first market update meeting in January.
      2. Change up Meeting Structure to attract more people: Sharon Steffen and Kris Millerschone
         1. Camy Bermudez joined this group to help give some input on how to attract NextGen.
      3. Develop a “We prefer to do business with FCAA Members” program: Brenda Sherrill, Holly Fox, and Brian Cron.
         2019. Holly updated that they are collaborating with the Membership Committee to develop this program, and that they have the goal to have it in place by January of 2019.
               
      4. Medium Term Goals Update: 12-24 Months
         
         
         1. Create annual tiered sponsorship levels: April Hudson and Jason Frotten
         2. Expand the “We Prefer” program to become the industry standard: Shannon Gregory, and Dustin Hawley
         3. Expand Student career outreach from colleges to local high schools: Camy Bermudez, Kris Millerschone, and Jody Mayor
            

• Long Term Goals Update: 24-36 Months
  
  
  1. Event attendance and membership growth plans in place for future: Brian Cron
  2. Develop leadership training program using experience of pas board members and presidents: Ken Furtaw, Laura Hulsey, and Katie Wrenn

7. Committee Updates:
   1. Special Events Committee – Committee Chair Laura Hulsey wasn’t able to be in attendance at the meeting. She sent an update to remind everyone to register for Bingo and to register early to take advantage of the Holiday Party early bird pricing.
      2018 Special Events Committee Goals –
      1. 1. Generate more attendance/participation
      2. 2. Create mini networking groups/events

• 3. More community involvement in committee and at events

1. Education Committee – Committee Chair Ken Furtaw shared that the education committee held their first video conference committee with great success. They were very pleased at how efficient and effective the video conference meeting platform was for their committee, and they are looking forward to continuing with it.
   2018 Education Committee Goals –
   1. 1. Increase Committee Attendance and Participation
   2. 2. Encourage Designation Enrollment and Exam Attempts

• 3. Create a Course and Instructor Evaluation form to be used after every class

1. Hospitality Committee – Committee Chair Jennifer McCombs wasn’t able to attend the meeting in person. She sent an update that Hospitality committee was actively looking for topics and speakers for the 2019 Dinner meeting lineup. She shared that they were going down to only three dinner meetings in 2019, and that January was going to be a breakfast meeting and March would be a lunch meeting.
   2018 Hospitality Committee Goals –
   1. 1. Increasing committee attendance
   2. 2. Increase value of dinner meetings

• 3. Focus on community involvement at dinner meetings 

1. Membership Committee – Committee Chair Holly Fox shared that the Membership committee has named the “Members do business with members” campaign the “Power of Partners.” She shared that membership wanted to launch a renewal campaign for members that would potentially include a window cling and tent cards.
   1. 1. Create "Members do business with Members" campaign
   2. 2. Increase Membership by 5% for Suppliers and Community

• 3. Improve Mentorship of New Members

1. Mentorship Committee – Committee Chair Holly Fox announced that Mentorship with currently being merged with the membership committee. They are still working hard on providing a “buddy” to all new members who attend a dinner meeting.
2. Communications Committee – Committee Chair Terri Jeffries updated attendees that the communications committee is working on some changes for Coastlines for 2019. They are focused on making the issues more locally focused on the Jacksonville area so that the magazine can really be a valuable member addition.
   2018 Communication Committee Goal –
   1. 1. Improving the Advertising income for Coastline.
   2. 2. Improving the Online Magazine Experience.

• 3. Improving the Magazine Content.

2019. Maintenance Committee – Committee Chair Kris Millerschone updated everyone that the Maintenance Committee was really pleased with the first Golden Plunger award and is looking forward to future nominations and recognition. Millerschone also said that the committee was very pleased with the first Maintenance Breakfast attendance is looking forward to the Maintenance Breakfasts in 2019.
      2018 Maintenance Committee Goals –
      1. 1. Younger generation participation
      2. 2. Partnership with local colleges and/or trade organizations for recruiting

• 3. Quarterly breakfast meetings

2019. NextGen Committee – Committee Chair Camy Bermudez updated attendees that she was pleased with the turnout and the NextGen Thankful Taco Tuesday event. The committee wasn’t as pleased that they weren’t able to reach their net income goal so that they could sponsor the NextGen Scholarship, but they are optimistic that they will be able to offer the scholarship in 2019.
      2018 NextGen Committee Goals –
      1. 1. Grow attendance/participation in Events & Committee
      2. 2. Create a Next Gen Networking Event

• 3. Implement a mentorship program

1. Legislative Committee - Committee Chair Shannon Gregory encouraged everyone to register and attend the FAA Legislative conference in Tallahassee.
2. Circle of Excellence Committee – Committee Chair Sharon Steffen shared with attendees that COE committee was gearing up for their first meeting to begin planning for the 2019 awards. The committee is excited to making some new and different changes to the event for 2019.
3. Trade Show Committee – Committee Chair Melissa Wenger shared with attendees that the Trade Show committee met earlier in the week and had a great first meeting to plan the 2019 Trade Show. The committee put together a list of three potential themes and that was being sent out to committee members and associate members to vote on. They are looking forward to a great show.
4. Maintenance Mania Committee – Committee Chair Jason Frotten updated everyone that the Maintenance Mania committee is looking forward to some new and exciting changes for the event this year. They have new prizes and more focus on maintenance appreciation.

8. Adjournment: The meeting adjourned at 12:51 PM

New Members

Community Members

Associate Members

Executive Vice President’s Report

FCAA was excited to welcome Cory Luster at the beginning of December to take over the Director of Education and Membership position. Cory joined FCAA with association management experience and in his short time with the organization he has already helped to streamline education sponsorships, and improve the student experience.

FCAA is off to a great start for 2019. We hosted our newly revamped January membership meeting as a Breakfast meeting featuring a 2019 Market Forecast. We had hoped for around 50 attendees and ended up with 81 attendees. We received very positive feedback from attendees on the breakfast concept and the speaker from CoStar.

FCAA has hosted some very exciting and productive committee meetings late in 2018 and early in 2019. We have some new changes coming to some of our signature events in 2019. The Maintenance Mania committee created a street team for their event designed to focus on outreach, recognition and appreciation. The Circle of Excellence committee is also off to a fast start with some exciting new changes for their event including a theme for the first time ever. Taylor and the Trade Show committee have been moving at lightning speed! Taylor was able to create our first prospectus for the trade show. It looks fantastic, and due to her and the committee’s hard work the Trade Show is already 75% sold out!

We are looking forward to 2019 with some new excitement and big changes to our events. We are excited to have great board leaders, and volunteers that make our association successful.

 Membership

At the time of our last board meeting, October 26^th, 2018, there were 169 Supplier Members and 344 Community Members with 82,519 units. As of January 29, 2019 there are 177 Supplier Members and 350 Community Members with 83,786 units.  Overall FCAA saw a 7% increase in Community membership in 2018.  

All of the 2019 membership dues went out to our active properties and supplier companies on December 1^st. The dues are due on January 31^st. Dues have been emailed as well as physically mailed. At the beginning of February we will begin reaching out to properties, management companies, and supplier companies with outstanding dues. At the beginning of March we will send out letters with copies of the open dues invoices informing members that if dues aren’t paid by March 31^st that their membership will become inactive. Properties, management companies, and supplier companies with open dues balances as of April 1^st will be non-renewed.

Events

A comparison of revenue and expenses to the budget and to FY 2017 is shown in the table below.

Overall Event revenue was slightly lower than expected for 2018. Our dinner meetings were a main focus for 2018. We put a lot more time and planning into trying to make our dinner meetings as successful as possible including adding a one hour networking hour in advance of the meeting. We found that while we received a lot of positive feedback on the changes to the dinner meetings, but it still didn’t increase attendance to the events. For 2019 we rolled back to only three dinner meetings a year (July, September, and November). We are hosting a breakfast for our January Membership meeting, and partnering with IREM to host a lunch meeting for our March Membership meeting. Some additional factors for lower than anticipated income included cancelling Poker Run, lower than anticipated income for Trade show and Maintenance Mania, and lack luster income from Bingo. In contrast, we had great success with our newly reformatted Business Exchange, Golf Tournament and Holiday Party.

2019 will see focus on some key changes for some of our signature events include Maintenance Mania, Circle of Excellence and Trade Show.

Please note that both the Property Bus Tour and the Pac Fundraising Event both reflect the amounts after the APAC and NAAPAC donations were made. We were able to make a $1,000 donation to APAC from the Bus Tour, and a $2,071.55 donation to NAAPAC from the Cruise raffle and the Tailgate.

Education

A comparison of designation and seminar revenue and expenses to the budget and to FY 2017 is show in the table below.

Designation programs continued to be strong in 2018. We were slightly below our budgeted Designation program goal due to smaller classes. We were pleased with our increase in Seminar revenue. This is due primarily from being able to offer multiple fair housing, leasing, and landlord tenant classes for the first time annually. We have received a lot of positive feedback from our membership by offering those classes biannually. 2018 also saw a lot of new seminars offerings including Drywall Paint and Repair, Active Shooter Training, and Advanced Leasing. We are looking forward to continuing to expand our educational offerings in 2019.

Communications

A comparison of advertising revenue and expenses to the budget and to FY 2017 is shown in the table below. 

Coastlines continues to be a challenge in creating advertising revenue. Advertising income is lower than expected due to loss of advertisers. Communications committee is focused on improving the content of Coastlines to make it a more valuable resource for our membership which will in turn generate more advertising income. Communications committee was able to secure a few package sponsors toward the end of 2018. So advertising revenue looks stronger going into 2019.

Financial

As of December 31^st, 2018 FCAA was showing a favorable net operating income of $57,382.11. We were budgeted to be $12,667.00 favorable by the end of the 2018.  This favorable income is due mostly to better than expected Membership, and Education Income. We also received a higher than expected FAA affiliate share for 2018. We had budgeted for a $10,000 FAA affiliate share, and received $34,320. This was a one-time windfall that won’t be duplicated next year. This higher than expected share was due to the transition of the NAA click and lease from “Pay-per-click” to “Pay-per-unit.”  We have sufficient reserves for any future financial shortfalls, economic downturns, or unanticipated projects that may occur.  On December 31st, we had sufficient cash and cash equivalents ($866,156.03) to cover general operating expenses (overhead) for more than a year.

Summary

FCAA is so excited to see our increase in community and associate membership. We hope to capitalize on that momentum going into 2019 to really revitalize and excite our current and new members with our programming and events.