Rob Reuter

By Rob Reuter, YPN Manager

Happy New Year and congratulations on an outstanding 2010!  YPN has taken great strides in the last year growing to 8,700 registered members in 134 networks across 43 states!  We had 500 attend the YPN Fire & Ice Reception in New Orleans during the 2010 REALTORS® Conference & Expo, and more than 80 YPN chairs and liaisons attend a YPN Leadership Retreat last August in Chicago.  After a successful year of networking, educating, fundraising, and charitable events, we look to continue the momentum into 2011.

One of the changes we have made moving forward is a revised YPN Startup Kit.  While most of the revisions are minor, the most prominent clarification is that we are no longer referring to the term “chapter” within YPN.  NAR’s legal team has determined that the term is inaccurate since local and state YPN networks aren’t chapters of the national organization.  The suggested terminology can be found in the startup kit, but, in short, the appropriate title would be, for example, the Chicago Association of REALTORS® Young Professionals Network.  The clarification should not impact how your networks are currently structured.

Here are several other announcements for 2011:

• The YPN Advisory Subcommittee has two major goals for 2011:

1.)      A national YPN RPAC fundraiser, scheduled for March 14th- 18th.

2.)      Growing YPN globally.

The 2011 YPN Advisory Subcommittee holds two conference calls and two live meetings during the year.  If you have any ideas or items you would like to be reviewed, please email them to rreuter@realtors.org.

• We are currently working on a national YPN database, which will be NRDS populated and available to local and state associations to track their YPN membership and pull e-mail information to promote events.  They will also be able to designate their YPN leadership and committee members as terms end/begin.

• The YPN website will go through a bit of a makeover with the new “clarification” and we will also be adding an event directory where we can list events local and state YPN networks are hosting across the country.

• Recently, NAR went through a major marketing overhaul and the NAR YPN logo was changed to be consistent with the rest of the organization (see right).  NAR’s marketing department, however, has approved the use of the traditional orange YPN logo for state and local YPNs, so feel free to continue to use that logo.

• We have yet to determine if there will be another YPN Leadership Retreat or a national YPN Conference and will keep you updated if we choose to move forward with either/or.

If you have any questions regarding the revised YPN Startup Kit, the 2011 schedule, or any of the announcements, please email rreuter@realtors.org.

Thank you again for your participation and support of YPN. We look forward to working with you in 2011!