VAMA - We're Moving Forward

This will be an exciting year for the Virginia Apartment Management Association as changes are on the way to improve membership benefits across the state.

The changes planned for this year actually got their roots about 5 years ago during VAMA’s strategic planning session. During that meeting, many of our volunteer leaders from across the state discussed the challenges they and their local affiliate were facing managing their local association. While VAMA is made up of 6 local chapters, only 1 of those 6 have professional staff to handle the day-to-day management of the association. This meant that for those affiliates who did not have staff, all operations of the association, everything from event management to bookkeeping, had to be carried out by volunteer leaders. As individuals with full time "day jobs" this presented an enormous challenge to our volunteer leaders and deterred people from accepting leadership positions within the association, which in turn hampered the expansion of member benefits throughout the association. During the strategic planning meeting, the VAMA Board made a commitment to the development of strong organizational leaders and decided – we need to change!

For starters, we are becoming one organization (VAMA) with one board of directors. We will no longer be 6 different organizations with 6 different boards of directors and 6 different databases. Duplication of effort is being eliminated and while many functions are becoming centralized, VAMA’s governance has been restructured in such a way as to retain control over event programming and membership benefits at the local level. What we are looking at is essentially centralization of administration to improve efficiencies and localization of membership benefits so they can be tailored to the particular market. In fact, VAMA will operate in each market under the trade name of the current local association. Most importantly, local chapters will now have professional staff to assist in their management. This means there will always be a professional staff member of the association available for you to go to with questions; someone there to assist you with membership benefits so that you are positioned to recognize the best return on investment possible.  

Like all changes this will take some time. Nothing happens overnight; 2014 is our transition year. Databases have to be consolidated, financials need to be merged and staffing requirements need to be addressed. Oh, and there is still a Virginia General Assembly out there we need watch and a VAMA conference happening in April. Change takes time, however, if all goes as planned, we hope to be a consolidated association by 2015.

If you are a volunteer leader you will recognize the change when your administrative workload is reduced (i.e. as soon as you start meeting with VAMA staff). If you are a member, and not in a leadership position, the changes will be subtle and will not be noticeable except as a cumulative assessment of the organization. Among the things you might notice are:

• Stylistic similarities from one chapter to another.

• Event registrations done online using the same system.

• A full list of educational opportunities across the state available on the VAMA website.

• Supplier branding opportunities available online and viewable months in advance of the event so you can budget accordingly.

• And, last but not least, staff available to assist.

I hope you are as excited about the changes as we are.  It’s going to be a filled with challenges and opportunities but 2014 is the starting point on the road to improving membership benefits and bringing you the return on investment your membership dollars deserve.