We held our monthly business meeting at the South Miami Elks Club this morning. Jack, John, Chip, Adam and I attended. Thanks to Adam and Beverlyn for the great breakfast! We also had a new prospective member that John brought…Margaret Yoder, a top residential realtor from EWM.

The following procedural items were discussed:

• There will be 4 Wednesday meetings a month – a trade talk @ Elks Club (morning); open house at member’s business (evening); networking event at Elks Club (evening); business meeting at Elk’s (morning)
• Attendance (including virtual conference center) at 6 of the 12 events quarterly is required for continued membership without excusal
• Dues will be $225, billed and payable quarterly in advance and June will be added to the first bill (may be paid by credit card; PayPal; check or ACH)
• Limited social functions will be held until sufficient membership permits – Founders’ day may still be held
• Other group’s social events (golf etc) will be publicized to the members
• We will concentrate initially on the exchange and referral of BUSINESS
• Business, leads etc will be reported verbally at meetings
• We will look towards limiting e-mails
• We discussed our business challenges, principally sales, collections, costs
• Steve will report back on using small claims court to collect
• We discussed marketing and the internet
• We brought forward some cost reduction strategies

Some of the ideas proposed to the attendees probably covered dues for the next month, quarter and maybe even the year!

We missed Alan, Ana, Norm, Janice, Lucille, Scott, Carlos and Patrick.

Steven Dohan.