by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Cheryl Greenwood, the new vice president of the Southwest Council and sales manager/office manager of the Re/Max on Park Avenue office in Orange Park, just wants everyone to get along.
“I’ve been in the industry for a long time and I feel like we need to get back to the way we used to be in real estate where we respected other REALTORS®,” said Greenwood. “We are just a big fraternity and sorority and I think we need to work together without raising fists, fighting and complaining about other REALTORS®. I’d like to bring camaraderie back and increase good feelings about fellow REALTORS®.”
She will do this by improving communication and cooperation among the real estate community.
Her main goal of the year is to increase involvement of REALTORS® and affiliates in the council, thereby creating a vehicle for them to spend time together and make new friends.
“My main goal is to get more involvement from the Southwest agents and affiliates,” said Greenwood. “It seems we’ve had one or two offices with a lot of people from their offices verses having 10 offices with five people from each office. That’s very important to me, to get more involvement from all the offices out here.”
Greenwood has been involved as chairman of the Multiple Listing caravan previously and had been asked to be the vice president for several years, and this year she finally agreed.
“I was always been taught: don’t complain, just take charge,” said Greenwood. “I thought that, there are some things that we could do better. Not saying anything negative about anybody over there, every one does a fabulous job. But, I wanted to see what I could do.”
Her job as vice president is to mainly plan events for the council. Usually, they have four: a golf tournament, a sock hop, a costume party and a Christmas party.
This year, they are dropping the sock hop and the costume party and replacing them with a “Back to School Fling” where members can dress up in their high school or college colors and celebrate that their children are back in school.
She said they have had problems with attendance at the sock hop and costume party and wanted to replace them with one event which might attract more new people.
Three weeks before each function, Greenwood will go to each Southwest office and speak with the manager about the event.
“I will pass out flyers and ask to speak with their agents,” she said. “I want to get the word out on the street. I want to get people wanting to be involved in these functions and make them a fun place to go.”
They also are planning to have affiliate mixers once a month after work at various local restaurant/bar establishments in Orange Park.
“We meet after work, have a drink and eat some wings or whatever,” she said. “It’s great for camaraderie.”
Another goal she has is to get a sponsored bus together for a trip to the Florida Association of REALTORS® convention in Orlando.
As the vice president, Greenwood meets with her committee every two weeks to plan these events.
She formed her committee by sending out a note to all the managers of offices and past vice presidents inviting them to serve on her committee.
“We had about 20 people show up and it’s just so exciting,” said Greenwood. “Wayne Francis, past vice president of the Southwest Council, is on my committee. Actually, I have several past vice presidents on the committee which is really helpful.”
As the events get closer, they will meet once a week.
The Southwest MLS Caravan meets three times each month for breakfast and Greenwood attends those as well. The chairman of that committee is Carol Pate of Vanguard Realty/GMAC Realty and Jenny Spears, also of Vanguard, is the co-chairman. They take care of securing the sponsors for the breakfast meetings.
Greenwood has been licensed since 1988, but has spent most of her real estate career on the administrative side.
She started out her career 20 years ago working as a secretary with Stockton Whatley & Davin. During her career, she has been with Coldwell Banker, Watson Realty and Vanguard. She earned her license while with Watson, but soon realized sales wasn’t for her.
“I really liked the administrative part of it,” she said. “My children were young when I was in sales and I never felt like I was around for soccer games or cheerleading events because I was out showing properties. So, I went back to administrating part-time. I really liked managing. I do love what I do.”