It’s September already!  Perhaps the rapid passing of the summer season, the Olympics, and all of the national election hype has served to distract temporarily - at least for a few of us - away from our focus on the continuing poor news of our industry and the economy in general.  If so, the eventual recovery, or at least the bottom we all expect in 2009,  may aware seem just a little bit closer. 

Associations throughout northern Illinois, as well as nationally, are struggling financially.  Membership is down drastically in many areas and a renewed focus on cost-cutting initiated from the bottom up throughout all facets of our industry, which accounts for about 15% of the U.S. economy. 

The recently announced take-over (bail-out?) of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has been greeted with mixed signals, although many suggest it was the only option, and may be mostly positive for our industry, at least in the short term.

Closer to home the NIHBA staff and leadership—your board of directors and various committees—have been busy addressing these and other association issues/concerns.

A few recent activities include the following: hosting a successful Cavalcade of Homes, which not only generated positive feedback from almost everyone involved, but needed revenues for your association;  our recent golf tournament providing networking opportunities, a break from the everyday dismal news, and more revenues (thanks in great part to our sponsors and everyone in attendance).  Other successful projects include  the publication of our 3^rd issue of Design and Build magazine, targeted to high-income consumers, providing our members with low-cost promotional advertising.  We anticipate the continuation of this publication and probable future revenues for NIHBA as it becomes a recognized source of valuable information for consumers in future years.

Also, your board of directors recently approved the purchase of Builder Fusion, a new interactive web-based software program used by many of the larger builder associations nationwide. NIHBA is the first NAHB association in Illinois to implement this program  which will eliminate our current use of multiple data bases, provide the ability to utilize the internet and our web site for instant on-line mail/fax/member updates/activity notification/payments, etc.  Look for more information as we roll-out this labor-saving program during the next few weeks.

Regards,