Hockey Night Fun

Our 10th Annual Hockey Night with the Houston Aeros was another great success. On Saturday, February 2nd, over 500 of our community leaders, friends and families joined us at the Toyota Center to watch the Houston Aeros beat the Quad City Flames by a score of 3-1. The Aeros are now officially 9-1 in their Hockey Night games - our cheering fans must really make a difference!

Vice President Laura Tate was on the ice before the game as the Honorary Aero. She was joined by Morgan and Melody to pump up the fans with our popular cowbells.

Check out all of the photos of the fun from this year and past years on the Library page of our web site or just click the years here: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008.

Although it is a long way off, keep Hockey Night 2009 in mind. With the opening of our Bandera Office later this summer, we will be holding two Hockey Nights next year - one with the Houston Aeros and one with the San Antonio Rampage! Road trip anyone?

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North Office Open House

On April 4th we hosted an Open House to show off our beautiful, new North Office that opened in October. We had a nice turnout of about eighty board members and vendors who toured our facilities, met our staff and enjoyed good food and refreshments. If you are interested and didn't get to come to the open house, please drop by any time and we'd be happy to give you a private tour!

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New Office Construction

In January we announced our plans to open an office in the Hill Country - our Bandera Office. Good progress is being made on that project. Construction has begun on a 3600 square foot office building on 1.4 acres of land in Pipe Creek, Texas. Pipe Creek is about 25 miles northwest of San Antonio in Bandera County.

The steel structure was erected at the beginning of April and construction will continue through mid-June. The office will open for setup and staff training in June. The facility will have our corporate data center and provide accounting and technical services. We will be fully operational and open for business in mid-August. President Ralph Troiano and Executive Vice President Tina Jameson will manage the office.

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Project Highlight:
Colony Creek Village Clubhouse Restoration

In early October of 2007, a very strange event occurred in Colony Creek Village. It rained so hard and fast that the swimming pool overflowed and mixed with the rainwater in the park area behind the clubhouse.

The combined water could not exit the area fast enough and entered into the clubhouse. What was originally thought to be water that covered the floor, turned out to be 4 - 6 inches deep inside the clubhouse.

The Association's first response was to have a restoration firm come out; however, they only masked the problem. When a smell started permeating, the Board did more investigating and realized how much damage was really done. The insurance adjuster came out and determined that two feet of the sheet rock and insulation needed to be removed and replaced. Additionally, the clubhouse needed new carpet and linoleum flooring installed. It was later discovered that all of the kitchen cabinets were also damaged and had to be replaced.

With all the work completed, Colony Creek Village is now the proud owner of a clubhouse with a brand new interior of the clubhouse including new paint, carpet, linoleum, cabinets, trim, insulation, water heater and more.

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New Board Package Format

C.I.A. Services continually looks for ways to improve our services to our clients. We are pleased to introduce a new format for Board meeting packages. Starting this month, we are changing from manila folders to 3-ring notebooks.

Prior to each meeting, we will send each board member with an email address, a PDF version of the board package. We will then mail a hardcopy that is 3-hole punched, printed front & back, and ready to be inserted in your notebook. Each notebook will have monthly tabs so you will have a year's worth of information at your finger-tips.

There are many benefits of this new approach:

• It is easier to navigate through pages in a notebook than pages fastened at the top
• With a multi-tab notebook, you'll have information from prior meetings readily available
• Paper printed on both sides takes up less space and saves trees
• Paper printed on both sides reduces postage costs
• Sending a PDF version gets the board package to you as soon as it is ready
• With a PDF version, you can eventually discard the hardcopy but still have the information

Your Community Manager will bring notebooks to your next board meeting. The notebook you receive will be sized to accommodate the number and size of board packages generated each year for your community. We will copy the packages from the meetings you have already had this year (at our expense) and insert them in the notebooks for you in advance.

Our objective is to always provide our communities with the best service available. We hope you enjoy this change.

We are proud of every one of our communities so it is always hard to find just one to highlight. We start by having each of our Community Managers write a nomination for one of their communities. We then read them and take a vote. Here are our most recent selections:

• April - Brazos Lakes Property Owners Association
  Southwest Office - Leslie Baldwin, Community Manager
• March - Eagle Springs Community Association
  North Office - Laura Tate, Community Manager
• February - Fairway Pointe Community Association
  Southwest Office - Libby Hodges, Community Manager

To see the full story on these communities and to see the past winners, visit the Community of the Month page on our web site.

Our popular C.I.A. Services Seminar Series continues. We have trained over 600 students so far and have received very positive feedback on the content and presentation. Our goal is to provide timely and convenient educational opportunities to help you with your duties. Click here to view the seminar descriptions and schedule.

Each seminar begins at 6:30 p.m. and runs 2-1/2 hours. Since we always provide deli sandwiches, you won’t have to rush to eat dinner beforehand.  You’ll leave with knowledge you can use immediately and a great notebook with the seminar slides, samples and reference materials.

This seminar is a must for all new Board members and a great refresher for seasoned veterans. It will help you get up to speed quickly by understanding your responsibilities and authorities. We’ll review each of the documents that govern the way you do business. We’ll give you an overview of collections, deed restrictions, architectural control, contracts, facilities, insurance, conduct of meetings, elections, communications and many other important topics.

• April 15, 2008 (Tuesday), 6:30 p.m. - Southwest Office
• April 24, 2008 (Thursday), 6:30 p.m. - North Office

This is the required training course for certification as a Community Website Administrator (CWSA) on the C.I.A Services web site. As a CWSA you'll be able to maintain the pages for your community. You'll be able to create news flashes, update key personnel, add community information, display photos, conduct surveys and much more. At the end of the seminar we'll give you a taste of HTML - the web language that will allow you to do some pretty advanced things if you like. Being a website administrator is very easy on www.ciaservices.com and you can do it from anywhere you have an internet connection.

• April 21, 2008 (Monday), 6:30 p.m. - North Office

You can register at any time by calling 713-981-9000 or emailing seminars@ciaservices.com.

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CCUCA Trade Show

The Cypress Creek United Civic Associations (CCUCA)held its 22nd annual Trade Show and Seminars on March 1st. Each year about 150 board members from communities all over the greater Houston area attend this great event. The theme was "Prescription for Neighborhood Success" and our booth was decorated appropriately. Here are our doctors of community management, Brenda Ellington, Libby Hodges, Diane Santos and Olga Martinez.

C.I.A Services was pleased to be asked to present three key seminars during the event. All were well attended and received excellent reviews from the board members attending. Laura Tate and Libby Hodges presented Board Member Orientation. Renea Miksch and Kim Easterling presented Advanced Topics for Board Members. And Ralph Troiano and Bob Alexander, attorney with Hoover Slovacek, presented Practical Deed Restriction Management. Visit the Library page of our web site or click the links below to see the PowerPoint presentations.

• Board Member Orientation
• Advanced Topics for Board Members
• Practical Deed Restriction Management

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New Communities

C.I.A Services continues to grow as more communities hear about our unique approach to community association management. We would like to welcome our newest clients that have come on board in the last three months.

• Cinco Ranch Commercial Association II - Southwest Office - Karen Cooper, Community Manager
• Cinco Ranch Residential Association II - Southwest Office - Karen Cooper, Community Manager
• Cinco Ranch Southwest Community Council - Southwest Office - Karen Cooper, Community Manager
• Cross Creek Ranch Community Association - Southwest Office - Libby Hodges, Community Manager
• Cumberland Community Association - North Office - Shelley Brady, Community Manager
• Oakbrook Homeowners Association - Southwest Office - Margaret Eckhardt, Community Manager
• Whispering Lakes Homeowners Association - Southwest Office - Leslie Baldwin, Community Manager

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Anniversaries

Every month we appreciate the communities that are celebrating their anniversaries with us. Here are our clients that started with us in February, March and April.

• Parkway Forest Property Owners Association - 22 years
• Chimneystone Homeowners Association - 21 years
• Park Place Townhomes Homeowners Association - 18 years
• Ridgepoint Community Improvement Association - 18 years
• Idleloch Maintenance Fund - 17 years
• Pine Forest Village Community Association - 15 years
• Oyster Point Homeowners Association - 12 years
• Hunterwood Village I Homeowners Association - 11 years
• Blue Lakes Civic Club - 8 years
• Colony Grant Homeowners Association - 8 years
• Oak Hollow Homeowners Association - 7 years
• Eagle Springs Commercial Association - 5 years
• Eastpoint Subdivision Homeowners Association - 5 years
• Fairfax Village Homeowners Association - 5 years
• Marina Bay Park Community Association - 5 years
• Silverglen North Homeowners Association - 5 years
• Post Wood Civic Association - 4 years
• Summerwood Commercial Property Association - 2 years
• Greensbrook Community Association - 2 years
• Telfair Commercial Association - 2 years
• Cypress Place Homeowners Association - 1 year

Our goal has always been to create a positive, long term relationship with all of our client communities. We are very proud to be managing all of these communities.

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Employee Spotlight

• Congratulations to Shelly Brady on her 10th anniversary with C.I.A. Services. Shelley is a Community Manager at our North Office and a corporate stockholder.
• Congratulations to Rhonda Culbreth on her 18th anniversary with C.I.A. Services. Rhonda is a corporate stockholder and recently transferred to our North Office Maintenance Department.
• Congratulations to our newest stockholders: Carol Harrison, Paula Lunsford and Karla Santos, on their 5th anniversary with C.I.A. Services. Carol is an Administrative Assistant at our North Office. Paula is a Maintenance Coordinator at our Southwest Office. Karla is an Administrative Assistant at our Southwest Office.

Shelly Brady		Rhonda Culbreth

Carol Harrison		Paula Lunsford		Karla Santos