by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
It is no secret that the St. Augustine chapter of the Women’s Council of Realtors has struggled with membership and attendance over the last six years.
But now, the new president, Berta Odom of Realty Executives St. Augustine Beach, has a plan to change that.
Instead of having a lot of goals, she wants for focus on only a few in hopes the group can be successful.
“One of my goals is to not build a social organization but a working business organization,” said Odom. “That’s what I want to stress because I want to make it meaningful for members to be a member of this organization, not just a luncheon once a month.”
Odom is planning on creating a newsletter with links out to things that will entice Realtors and associates.
“WCR’s national office has that available to us, all we have to do is go onto their website and build a newsletter,” she said. “We are going to start doing it quarterly and if everyone likes it, we will try to do it monthly.”
Odom also feels that delegation is the key to any president being successful.
“I’m going to delegate more,” she said. “I feel that the presidents in the past have tried to do it all. Not that they weren’t successful, because they were, but I just feel that if I involve more people than the word of WCR and the meaning of WCR will go out further than just me and my officers.
“Four people can’t do it all, so we are ‘sub-committing’ things out.”
She has met with her officers and discussed members’ strengths and weaknesses so she can give them one job they can do well.
“When we have events, we want one person to do the press releases for us and that will be their sole job, that’s it,” said Odom. “They don’t have anything else to do for WCR but that. Then we have some one who is going to do the programs and get the speakers all lined up with their bios and everything so we can put it out.”
Odom said they are going to utilize their website, www.wcrstaugustine.org, more than ever before.
“We are going to have a calendar with the bios of the upcoming speakers, bios of the officers and Paypal so they can pay for events and lunches online,” she said. “We are also moving from Marsh Creek. Our meetings will now be held in downtown St. Augustine at OC White’s Restaurant. It is not open for lunch and the owner has advised us that we can use it free of charge. It has its own parking lot, so we will have plenty of parking just for us.”
The luncheon will still be $13 and it will be a buffet, similar to the Jacksonville WCR luncheon.
“It will be more convenient for everyone,” said Odom. “Right now we are catering to the members at the beach. We have the Watson people on U.S. 1 to think about. I mean they come, but I think if we are centrally located it might help.”
Odom she just wants the meaning of WCR out there.
“We benefit charities and we benefit each other and I don’t think we are doing that right now,” she said. “I don’t believe we have been doing that. We’ve tried, but for whatever reason there is no meaning to belong. I’m trying to give some meaning to being a member. That’s my No. 1 goal.”
Membership is hovering at the 30-35 mark. They will have a membership drive until April so perhaps they can win an award at a WCR convention if they can recruit enough people.
“We are going to get the word out that WCR is worth being a member of,” said Odom. “It’s worthy because of the networking, camaraderie and business sharing.”
Odom said she had some trouble getting affiliates members to participate in certain events because they complained that no one used their services.
She said she plans to get to the core of why they are not using their affiliate members and be brutally honest with them.
“I have one title company that no one is using,” she said. “I showed her the charges from other title companies and told her that she was $100-200 more than them. I think we need to be brutally honest with each other. If we are going to be a member and share facts and information, we have to try to help improve each other.”
Speakers, as we all know, make or break a meeting. No one wants to take their lunch hour to hear something either boring or not pertinent to their business needs.
“I want to be more direct to our business and organization and have speakers talk about exactly what makes a good Realtor, title company or mortgage person,” she said. “When they are talking about titles, it will be good for Realtors because we will know what they do and what our expectations are from these companies.”
Another change she is considering is moving the date of the meeting from the second Friday of the month to another day but that is not decided yet.
They will also have another special event in May.
“Our Holiday soiree was so successful that we are going to try and repeat it next year,” she said.
Odom prepared for her year by working side by side with past president Julie Knowles of Premier Properties.
“I’ve learned a great deal from Julie,” she said. “Julie is a very dedicated perfectionist. She will not do an event unless it is perfect. But, she puts on an excellent event. I’ve been very fortunate enough to be right there and learn how she does it. I’ve also learned from her struggles, what not to do. That is that she won’t let go. That is why you have chairman of events and the chairman reports to you.”
Odom has been a Realtor at Realty Executives St. Augustine Beach for three years.
She retired from State Farm after 30 years in 2000.
“I was the administrator for the auto division in the state of North Carolina,” Odom said. “I had 150 people under me that I managed and 541 agents.”
She was located in Charlottesville, Va., but she handled that regional office and the whole state of North Carolina.
When her mother passed away, she came home to St. Augustine and decided to stay and get into real estate.
“I came home and reacquainted myself with the community,” she said. “Real estate is something I had always been interested in. I know the community and I watched it grow.”
She enjoys volunteering with the St. Augustine Wildlife and Care Organization for the turtle watch. She has taken classes and is certified to handle the nests.
“When the turtles nest, I mark them,” she said. “When they hatch statistically I dig the nest to see how many hatched. We had to move them because of renovations, so I had to move one nest down.
“You have to be certified to handle the eggs because if you move them wrong they will detach from the egg and not hatch. They are fertilized, but their sex is not determined until they are in the nest and it is the heat that determines the sex. It’s fun watching all the turtles when they hatch.”