Featured Posts

Welcome to a new year and a new decade! I’m thrilled and excited to serve as your 58th President of Women’s Council of REALTORS®, California and work alongside such a dynamic team. We have great things in store for our members throughout the year starting with our Winter Meeting and Installation in my own back yard, Anaheim. In addition to our Spring Meeting and Fall Leadership Summit, we will also have mid-year business plan reviews in June and July, the State Leadership Team Road in September and so much more.

We are ready to level up our mentoring and training in 2020 to elevate more leaders for the industry and strengthen California for years to come. Most of us are discovering new skills and revealing areas where we have room to improve, and it may be difficult to step outside your comfort zone. But in order to grow, we must challenge ourselves and Women’s Council is the safe place to show courage and be vulnerable.

California’s mission is for all our members to thrive and to ensure local network success.

Our goals are:

1. Create a culture of servant leadership to help each other grow and develop at your highest level possible

2. For our members to find their own unique leadership style to inspire others to begin their own leadership journey

3. To bring more diversity in our membership

4. Focused support to continue to strengthen each and every network with .

It is an exciting time to be a Women’s Council member. We are growing. We are strong. We are an amazing network of leaders. Working together, we will shape a better and brighter future. When you elevate yourself, you elevate the industry. Level up and change the world one leader at a time. We got this!

#letsgrowtogether #levelupleadership #elevateyourself #elevatetheindustry #goforthandslay #leadersmadehere

Eileen Oldroyd
2020 President, Women’s Council of REALTORS®, California

Message from 2019 President Fiona
by Fiona Theseira

It has been my absolute honor and pleasure to serve as your 57^th and 2019 State President for Women’s Council of REALTORS®, California.  I humbly thank you all for this amazing opportunity. It has been a year of successes for the Council, learning opportunities and embracing change.  It has been a tremendous experience and I have been thrilled to be able to visit and connect with so many of you during the year.

During the 2019 year we have provided several opportunities for training locally and at State meetings.  We started last September in San Diego with the State Leadership Retreat where the 2019 State Leadership team gathered. During this time, we learned facilitation skills from Jim DeLizia, which prepared us for the inaugural Fall Leadership Summit and also received leadership preparation from Otto Catrina.

The Winter meeting started off with the welcome reception at Tommy Bahama’s in Downtown Palm Springs.  Our Governors and District Vice Presidents led best practice presentations on recruitment & retention, events, branding, and protocol.  Our local leadership teams went into position specific breakouts for best practices and leadership education.  Susan Packard, prior C.O.O. of H.G.T.V. provided insights into business principles, branding and culture and how freeing it is that you do not need to master every little thing to add value.  Elizabeth Mendenhall, 2018 N.A.R. President, gave a fabulous presentation on unicorn leadership, and how such leadership strive immediate and solid results and returns.

In 2019, we added a new element to the State installation. For the first time, a V.I.P. pre-event reception was held. This V.I.P. event, held in my suite, allowed us the opportunity to invite State and other Dignitaries along with upper tier Strategic Partners and Installation Sponsors to attend.  This gave the Council added visibility and the opportunity for any State V.I.P.’s to drop by, even if they were not able to stay for the Installation.

Another first for Women’s Council, California was electronic elections during our Spring meeting in Sacramento.  We do consider the election process a success, and one upon which we will make improvements moving forward.  During the Spring meeting in Sacramento, we received an insightful economic update from CAR’s Sara Sutachan.  Our local leadership teams went into position specific breakouts to receive best practices and leadership education.  Amber Barnes, a certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator, helped attendees explore the skills of courage-building and the willingness and ability to “rumble with vulnerability”.

Our State elections brought in a good number of applications with multiple applicants running for positions.  We are happy to report that a number of our local Networks also experienced multiple candidates for leadership positions.  This is great news as it means that our networks are creating interest in their members to embark or further their leadership journey and take on leadership roles.

Congratulations to Inland Valley who won the State Second Chance membership contest. Greater Fresno was close on their heels!  Great job to all bringing on new members.  Keep up the good work!

Transitions workshops were reintroduced this year.  We named them 2020 & Beyond; very fitting as we move into a new decade.  We had 28 of the 34 networks and 190 members attend our three events.  Kudos and thanks to all who helped set up and to those who attended.  Major thanks go to all of our Governors and District Vice Presidents who contributed to the success of 2020 and beyond!  To the Networks who contributed “seed money”, thank you, and you will receive your checks next week. Click here for more information

The 2019 Fall Leadership Summit was held in Downtown LA, at the Hotel Indigo.  This location was not where we were originally scheduled to have the event, however, the location was a success. Thirty-one Network leadership teams were in attendance.  The primary function of this meeting was to train the incoming leadership teams; and there was value for all attendees.  For more information click here

Thank you all for the journey you have shared with me.  I have so many people to thank and appreciate.  In the interest of your time, included in the thanks are the 2019 Leadership Team, Governors, District Vice Presidents, Strategic Partners, Sponsors, Local Network Presidents, Past State Presidents, Committee Chairs, Project team leaders and committee/team members, this list is by no means exhaustive.  THANK YOU ALL for your time, your wisdom, your creativity, your mentorship and your feedback! The learning on my journey was beyond anything I ever had imagined.  I have absolutely loved this year’s experiences, each one of them has been invaluable.  Both the joys and challenges will be forever treasured.

You are in great hands in 2020 with the State leadership team led by President Eileen Oldroyd.  They are excited and ready to lead California into a new decade and State Network model.

Dream | Believe | Achieve | Enjoy The Journey!

Fiona Theseira
2019 State President
[email protected]
858-344-2213

September is just around the corner and we have three great opportunities for each Network to bring their 2019 & 2020 governing boards and future leaders to a State run event.  These events will provide facilitation in handing over the baton between the governing board members, provide insights for new and up and coming leaders, an opportunity for members to attend a State meeting and enjoy Networking with leaders outside of the local Networks plus Social Media and Video training with Julia Glyde, a renowned speaker and trainer.  

We are excited to reintroduce the Transition Events, here are the links for the flyers and to sign up in Eventbrite:-

District 1 – September 11^th – Hiddenbrooke Golf Club, Vallejo

District 2 – September 3rd – Allegretto Vineyard Resort, Paso Robles

District 3 – September 5^th – Mission Viejo Country Club, Mission Viejo

Multi Event Sponsorship and Networking Brochure Opportunities

We are producing a Networking brochure that will be printed for each of the three events, containing the same contributors, with a different cover at each event.  REALTOR® members, this is your opportunity, for $100, to have a business card ad. in a State Women’s Council Networking brochure that will be State-wide and will have some longevity.  You can sign up in the appropriate link above.

There are sponsorship opportunities for each event.  We love and appreciate being in Partnership with our Affiliates. The Eventbrite links are included in each of the District links above. We estimate that there will be 80 – 120+ REALTORS® at each of the three meetings.

December 2017

As we come to a close of an amazing and very productive year I am so grateful for each and every one of you!

Team Work Makes the Dream Work and we proved that to be true this year.

Our success is measured in so many ways:

At the Local Network level:

The programming, membership retention and recruitment,  the level of involvement from our members, and the industry events have been phenomenal!

You have set the bar high!!!

At the District Vice President and Governor level:

Your involvement as liaison to the local networks on behalf of the State has proven to be instrumental in their success! You worked together in groups to put on great programs at the state meetings and your support of each other inspired us all!

At the State Leadership level:

Our Project Team Chairs, Vice Chairs, Committee Chairs, Vice-Chairs performed their roles with enthusiasm, professionalism and helped us to build a fantastic leadership pipeline!!!

The Line Officer team comprised of a perfect D.I.S.C. and we brought you great speakers, training, fun and creativity! My heart swells with pride at what we accomplished this year!

We look forward to keeping and enhancing the momentum in 2018!

Thank you for all you have done and continue to do to make your Women’s Council experience the best it can be and remember to “Try Everything”!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

With much gratitude and pride,

Theresa Wilson

2017 State President

[email protected]

559-760-3715

“California Leading the Way”

Before I say my thank you’s and share our accomplishments this year I want to tell you a little bit about your 2018 President Cheryl Keller.

Cheryl is a passionate, determined, creative, and energetic leader! These past 3 years we have spent together on the line, I have learned so much about her, her sense of humor, infectious laugh, determination to make life better for all is Contagious. She will serve you well and will build on all that past leaders have done before her. Give her and her team your full support, engage and be the Positive Ripple she knows you can be!

My mantra is “You have to Give to Get to Get to Give”

And our theme this year was “Try Everything”

We asked you to “Try Everything” and when you did you found new skills and opportunities for growth both personally and professionally! Thank you for stepping out and up!

This year we gave you:

Training, Training, and more Training starting with the October 2016 businss planning retreat meeting in Long Beach where we met with incoming 2017 state leadership team.

I asked them to do homework in preparation for our State Leadership retreat they did it and the results were amazing, they grew their leadership skills, became great mentors, facilitators and all stepped into their greatness! Groups were formed with your District Vice Presidents and Governors creating and facilitating training programs that are timely and relevant for your local network success. Leadership Support Project Teams A& B were created to replace the Strategic committees and they brought fun, engaging and interactive training!

A new strategic partner plan brought you Diamond partners at a higher level of commitment and more opportunities to be in front of you our members, and we assigned a line officer liaison to assure clear transparent communication with our valued partners and we also created a survey that helped to keep us in line with our promises to them.

A rebate program that encouraged attendance at our State meetings, which has proved successful and has helped to train and grow your leadership pipeline.

A member photo shoot to encourage current head shots and updating your Woman’s Council profiles and to use for your other marketing pieces.

A second chance retention contest, we provided you with a script to call all non renewed members and we gained back over 10% of non renewed members!

The winner is the East Valley Network, with 25% rejoining! Congratulations to Jennifer Higgins and her leadership team

We gave 8 state meeting scholarships and created a commitment letter for you to sign agreeing to many things one of which was a testimonial for us to use on our website, this also helps you at the local level for retention and recruitment.

We asked our speakers to provide testimonials for our website again showing the value of being a member and allowing our speakers to have an opportunity to see and speak about our value. Our Diamond Partners brought us amazing presenters, and we brought you a new type of training with Bruce Bishop, Kerstin O’Shields and Collette Carlson, the feedback has been fabulous!

We added Names in the News to highlight you the member for your accomplishments you have achieved over the year, be sure and let us know so we can add you to this page!

We created an Ambassador program whereby leaders at our state meetings wore Ask Me so you had a go to person if you had any questions about our state meetings. We had over 90 First Time Attendees this year.

We created a new and more user-friendly state website and trained you on how to use it. And our Private Facebook group pages have been instrumental in communicating with you, thank you for indulging us!

We concentrated on growing our leadership pipeline and as a result of years working on this we had 22 applicants for 13 positions…WOW!

We attended many local network functions throughout the state and are honored and privileged to have gotten the chance to see all your talents first hand.

We hit the road for 4 days and logged 1186 miles to bring you local network transition workshops, we had 25 networks participate and 139+ members attend!

Drumroll please!!!
The winner of the second chance retention contest is:
East Valley with 67% of non-renewal’s renewing their membership!
Honorable mentions:
Bakersfield 50%
Greater Fresno 40%
Antelope Valley 38%
Solano County 33%

Thank you to all networks that worked on this contest! We gained 10% of the REALTOR members we had lost as of March 31, 2017.

Retention is where your future leadership comes from and recruiting keeps us fresh and excited! Remember to utilize your first year membership communication tool provided to you by National!

We currently have 32 networks, of those 3 are Mega Delta, Long Beach and San Diego, networks (80 or more members) 10 Large network’s Central Coast, Coastal West, Greater Fesno, Marin, Monterey, Placer, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Solano and Ventura County 50-79 and 19 small networks.

Mid Year Membership contest winner is North Central Valley add 24% more members!

When I ran as your treasurer my promise to you was to be the member’s member, by that I meant that we are the same, we have different roles, but we are all members of an amazing organization, my hope is that you found that to be be true, and that my role as the leader of this amazing team brought you the tools and resources you needed to be successful.

Remember as Leaders to:
Stand Behind Your Network rather than in front as this will most definitely bring your success as a team!

Thank you for the journey you have provided me, the learning for me was exponential….you gave to me far more than I ever gave to you…I love you all….. Now as you head into 2018 support each other, learn each other’s leadership strengths and weaknesses and use them to make your team the best it can be!

Your humble servant,

Theresa Wilson
[email protected]
559-760-3715