1. Membership - heading for 25% 2. Training – in full swing



Membership - heading for 25% TWENTY-FIVE percent of what? Twenty-five percent of the registered estate agents in the Western Cape. The Institute is the estate agency industry's only professional body, but it is to be regretted that there are still more estate agents out in the cold than inside, where it's warm. Recruiting and retaining members are ongoing tasks of the Institute's management, and we are happy to report that, during the first five months of this year, our membership has risen to 1616. But this is still less than one-quarter of the province's registered agents. We have therefore set ourselves a goal of increasing our membership to 25% of the registered estate agents by the end of the year. Once we've achieved that, we will set a new goal, perhaps of 30%. How do we plan to achieve our 25% membership? By continuing our existing recruitment methods. In addition, we call upon you, as an existing member, to keep up your membership, and to do your bit for your institute by helping to bring fellow estate agents in from out of the cold. Attorneys and others who qualify for associate membership are also most welcome. Let's remind ourselves of the main benefits of being an IEA member: • opportunities to network - profitably - with industry colleagues and associates • access to information and advice and materials which you need to use in the course of your business • access to training courses, seminars and workshops, to keep you up to date with the rapidly changing demands of our industry • opportunities to take on leadership roles at various levels, and to help to shape the industry and direct its destiny. You're a skilled salesperson after all! If you can sell houses, you can sell membership. And, as an existing member, you're a walking advertisement for the IEA. So, come on. Let's have 25% of the province's estate agents as members by the end of the year. With your help, we can do it. Training – in full swing OUR mission is to support our members. One of the most important ways in which we do that is through our training programme, which is in full swing for most of the year, every year. In the first five months of this year, 2002, we have experienced a notable increase in interest in our training courses. We attribute this to the upswing in the economy, which has encouraged people to join, or return to, our industry. Since January, we have run seven courses and nine workshops, at which we have trained a total of 598 people. Our top courses remain our Property Sales & Marketing Course and our EAAB Exam Course (which we ran for the March exam and are currently running for the June paper). Demand also continues for our Rentals & Management Workshops, in which panels of attorneys, managing agents, and representatives of the Rental Housing Tribunal discuss the many thorny issues surrounding renting and property management. Our Computer School has proven to be one of our most successful innovations in recent years. The basic range of courses has been established for just over a year now, and we have recently added a new one, to train people on how to keep records, to communicate, and to search for information on the internet. Further training innovations are in the pipeline. Some of the other IEA regions have developed courses which we want to make available to our Western Cape members, and we are negotiating for permission to present them locally. We must also establish a course to equip our members to meet the responsibilities which the Financial Intelligence Centre Act has placed on them, and which will be coming into force over the next six to twelve months. If you read the lead article in last month's IEA News, you will realise just how onerous some of these responsibilities are, and that every estate agency will be compelled by law to train its staff and agents how to comply with this new law. Either we will develop our own course, or we will arrange to co-present a course with another institution. Watch this space for details. In the meantime, let's present a challenge to each and every one of you: have you attended very existing course which we have on offer? If not, why not book for one of those which you haven't yet attended? On the other hand, if you have attended every one of our courses, how about sharing your knowledge and experience by joining our workshop panels, or getting involved in other ways? Give us a call at 021 531 3180.