By Renee M. Fazeli, President - Contra
Costa Chapter of NAIW
Last
Saturday Insurance Women of Fresno held the annual Leadership Workshop. Council Director, Kathleen Kerstenbeck, moderated.
She, along with her troops, presented several items of topic that I found so helpful and have been waiting to learn for such
a long time. The day started with Victoria Rivas teaching us about Protocol, followed by Parliamentary Procedure and Robert's
Rules of Order by Palmer Reilly. Tish Riley provided us with tools for marketing and branding our name. These
tools can be found in the marketing section of the national website and include brochures, formletters and templates. The
national website is massive so to have these tools presented to us is of such benefit. Mitula Patel presented how to prepare
a budget. The group shared how a small group may choose to prepare a budget manually, while a group as large as IWLA prefers
a spreadsheet. A template of this spreadsheet can be found on the California Council website. Christine Chandler-Tillett
presented Conflict Resolution, which ended with a personality test. I found it extremely interesting that the majority of
the room had the same results, which to me spoke volumes about what kind of professionals we are. It obviously takes
a certain type of person to be who we are and do what we do.
To kick off our year of education, this past Wednesday night Victoria Rivas presented
Leadership 101. Victoria is an excellent leader and presenter. She talked about how there is a leader in all of us. We are
not born leaders, although some of us may have a stronger capability. Being a leader is an ongoing learning experience that
has no end. She discussed four stages of leadership from "I don't know what I don't know" to the Cheryl
Krier's and Victoria Rivas' of leaders, the master gurus, the "I know what I know, and I want to pass it on to
you so you know too".
This
morning the chico's and 2011 conference committees met to provide progress reports. If you are not already on a committee,
please let me know. Michele's message today is that this is a group effort and its success is wholly dependent on our
collaborative efforts, not just the efforts of one. It's also time to send a reminder to family and friends to send
in their chico's registration forms. As of today, we are up to 70 registrants and the news hasn't even hit the papers
yet!!!
Next month we
will not hold a regular General Meeting, rather we will meet at On The Border Mexican Restaurant & Cantina for our annual
Joint Speak-Off with Tri-Vallley Insurance Professionals. We were unable to hold a CWC or ACS class this year but Tanya Chinchilla
and I will represent our chapter in the competition. I challenge EVERYONE who has taken CWC or ACS to participate in
the speak-off! We've taken the class; let's practice our skills!
We're getting close to California Council in Torrance.
Be sure to send in your registration by the 15th for the early bird fee. I look forward to seeing you there!
Until next time.......
