Sally Baker posed a question about minimum operating standards for local associations and whether a certification process administered by the state association is currently in place. Answer: A joint work group of the AEC and Membership Policy & Board Jurisdiction Committee was appointed in 2002 to consider the continued viability of NAR’s Organizational Standards program. The work group concluded that NAR has a responsibility to maintain minimum operating standards for its locally chartered associations and that the current Organizational Standards should be retained (including the certification process). In conversations with Kevin Milligan at NAR, the certification database was in beta testing in Fall 2004. We expect that state associations will begin to use the new electronic certification process this year, however we have not received any detailed procedures to date from NAR. For a list of Organization Standards Criteria and related documents, click here:
Keep your subject line honest to your e-mail contents, make sure there isn’t any misleading header information, and let recipients opt-out with an easy-to-use method if you don’t want to violate the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, which stands for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask e-mailers to stop spamming them. The law, which became effective January 1, 2004, covers email whose primary purpose is advertising or promoting a commercial product or service, including content on a Web site. MAR has made every effort to comply with this law and we encourage local association and boards to do the same.
In order for members to get the most of their membership, it’s crucial that they have their most recent, and working, e-mail on file with their local association. It helps you get the word out, and it helps with our communication efforts as well. We have included a .pdf document of all local associations that report member count vs. e-mail count. Please note that if you are keeping your email addresses current in your MLS system, unless it is somehow tied to NRDS, you will also need to enter and update the information on NRDS as this information then comes directly into our system. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Julie Rowell at jrowell@mirealtors.com.
The long awaited online registration processing system is now available through mirealtors.com for the upcoming Professional Standards meetings, the Broker Summit and the MAR education courses. This Rapattoni module processes a credit card payment and updates the membership system with the registration information. Its use will greatly enhance the efficiency and handling of our registration transactions. Members are required to enter their NRDS ID and a generic “password” the first time they log into the registration module. The password must them be changed. The password is maintained in the MAR database. (For locals processing multiple board payments for member registrations, you must log on to each member record individually). Activity to date has been brisk.
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