by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
John Chapman of Century 21 A1A Realty is sad to leave his post as president of the St. Augustine/St. Johns County Board of Realtors but is now ready to take on his new role as District One vice president of the Florida Association of Realtors.
“I’m actually going to miss it,” he said. “I’m moving up a step so I will still be involved. Now, instead of this just board to worry about, I’ll have six boards to worry about.”
The six boards he will be overseeing are the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors, St. Augustine/St. Johns County Board of Realtors, Gainesville Board of Realtors, Flagler County Board of Realtors, Amelia Island/Nassau County Board of Realtors and Lake City Board of Realtors.
“I’ve been over to the Gainesville board office and they have a brand new building, which is really very pretty,” said Chapman. “I’m going to make a point of going to each board at least once this year and push the FAR message. Participation is down all the way across the board - not just our board.
So I can make that kind of my project ... get participation up.”
Chapman said there was supposed to be a second person running for the position, but they dropped out, so he was unopposed.
“FAR called me,” said Chapman. “When the original candidate changed his mind so suddenly, they had no one to run. So, then two of us put our names in and I decided it would be a good thing. I had thought about being DVP, but I hadn’t thought about doing it this quickly.”
One problem with past DVP’s has been that they have not been very visible and Chapman wants to change that.
“We are not visible, so that is my primary objective - to be more visible,” said Chapman. “We have a great incoming state president in Russell Grooms (of Watson.) He will be very dynamic and very politically oriented. So, my job is to spread the gospel according to Russell.”