January 14th, 2015
From the President:
On Tuesday night Jan 13th I opened the meeting welcoming everyone back with the hopes that all attendees had a wonderful Holiday and a happy New Year. I was extremely pleased that we had a very healthy turn out for the first meeting of 2015. We had a wonderful blend of attendees.
After we all introduced ourselves I reminded everyone whom our past sponsors had been in late 2014 and that it is our responsibility as a chapter to support the products that sponsor our meetings. Following that reminder our NJ Chapter Secretary, Judy, followed up on the minutes from our last meeting and the Chapter Treasurer, Gus, reported on our financials. Some of the members had some good questions about our budget and they asked about our intent with the budget. Gus explained the need to cover the costs of some events and that we need to continue to grow our budget so in the future we could potentially look at events or promotional ideas for the chapter. Some of the members suggested we look to invest in some small social media like Facebook. A motion was made to invest in utilizing Facebook to help promote our Chapter. Everyone felt this was a great idea for the Chapter. We all feel the need to continue to make more of a presence. As NADRA some progress has been made but we need to continue to strive forward and grow.
After Gus had updated everyone on the financial aspect of the Chapter I introduced Vinnie C. from Admiral Spacemaker. He was the Sponsor of the meeting. Joining him was a fellow NADRA member, Dave Lombardo from MD. Vinnie launched into his presentation explaining the benefit of Admiral Spacemaker and Dave added to the presentation by discussing some of the installs he had completed over the last few months. All levels of the channel had excellent questions. They seemed excited to see a new concept in the market. Some of the builders had great questions as it related to install techniques, which Dave was happy to answer.
On the heels of Vinnie’s presentation we had our guest speaker Michael Beaudry from NADRA HQ explain to the group all of the tools that NADRA offers. He expressed how pleased he was with our participation with the Deck for a Soldier® program. On a local level, he suggested we get more involved with Deck Safety Month® . He reminded everyone about the deck certification course and reminded all attendees that NADRA had just completed the deck certification course with a good number of home inspectors. He explained that all of those inspectors will be looking for NADRA deck builders as decks need to be replaced. It was refreshing to be reminded of all the wonderful marketing tools that NADRA really offers and in the future we should always consider adding the NADRA logo to our business cards, letter head, etc. We need to continue to raise awareness wherever we can. For the retailers he made a wonderful suggestion by reminding them they should post the deck safety checklist for homeowners and contractors to see at their locations.
Our committee updates went very well. We discussed the upcoming deck awards and reminded everyone to please register and get projects submitted and by a show of hands I asked who might be supporting the awards by submitting projects. All of the builders agreed to participate and then Judy in turn asked about sponsorship and asked the manufacturers/distributors and dealers to please get their sponsorship forms filled out and turned in. Everyone is excited about the event and it looks to me like we will get some good participation. Gus and Bruce spent some time reviewing our recent Deck for Hope project and how well it went and how much we appreciated many of the manufacturer reps stepping up in addition to our builders. Bruce read off a beautiful email that we got from Jack M.- the project coordinator for Homes for Our Troops. He really appreciates what we are doing in trying to give back. Feeling humbled, I reminded the group how it has made me feel so much gratitude for being part of the NADRA organization. Tina from MRS did a very professional report on some fun events we will look to do based on surveys she had taken months back. As part of the location committee she mentioned we all agreed to keep our meetings at the same place for sake of consistency.
After our committee updates I again thanked all in attendance and again thanked our sponsor and our guest speaker. Overall, an awesome meeting with great content and great participation by all attendees!
Lainie Sleppin
NADRA NJ Chapter President
