Bandera Riverfest

Every year, the Bandera Business Association holds a big party on the banks of the beautiful Medina River on the last Saturday of June. The Bandera Riverfest includes live music, an antique car show, a BBQ cookoff, arts and crafts booths, lots of food and drink, children's games and the final competition of a musical talent show (the Bandera Idol contest). And there are many activities within the crystal clear waters of the Medina River. You can paddle, swim, float or fly into the water from a cypress tree rope swing. You can take part in a water rodeo on tubes or enter your dog in a water fetching contest. And if you want, you can join the Great Hill Country Anything That Floats Regatta at the end of the day.

The regatta always has some interesting entries to entertain the crowd who flock to the river's edge when it starts. One of the annual favorites is from Buddy's Water Well Service - it is basically a big raft with an outhouse and a bunch of hillbilly's playing catchy music - you have to see it to appreciate it.

Since C.I.A. Services is now established in Bandera, we thought we'd enter something this year. Since an important part of the day is the car show, we decided to float a car down the river. We selected a 2006 red Corvette convertible. To keep costs down, we decided against using a real one. But our version was to scale in all the details: 175" long, 49" high, 22" wheels and 5,967 cc 6 liters V 8 front engine with 101.6 mm bore, 92 mm stroke, 10.9 compression ratio, overhead valve and two valves per cylinder LS2 (actually a Sears trolling motor but that fit the budget).

Everyone enjoyed our unique entry and we ended up winning first place in the business division! That has energized us so we already have grand plans for 2011.

Thanks to everyone who helped. Our designers & painters: Tina, Annette, Amanda and Ralph. Our dress rehearsal crew: Roseann, Cindy, Annette, Tina, Kerry, Jeff, Ashley, Courtney & Ralph. Our race day pit crew: Phillip, Jeff, Bob & Ralph. Our drivers: Annette & Kerry. Our photographer: Roseann.

To see more photos of our Riverfest entry and fun, click here.

Pathway to the Future Update

In 2007 we ran a series of eNews Monthly articles on our Pathway to the Future. We had just announced a number of significant advancements we would be pursuing over the next few years. We are about to complete the last of the advances and would like to provide an update. Here are the specific initiatives from our 2007 Pathway to the Future.

1. North Office Relocation - After 19 wonderful years at the same location for our North Office, we had to relocate when the owner of the building, Lake Houston Church of the Nazarene, needed the space for their growing congregation. In October 2007, we moved into the new Citizens Bank Building on FM1960 about 7 miles west of our prior location.
2. New Technology - We started by implementing a new communications system with integrated calling and phone management. This allows all of our offices to be part of the same system for seamless communications. The phone management software provides complete call control from your computer, call windows that show name and number of callers, silent messaging, and "presence indicators". The presence indicator will allow all employees to immediately see if another employee is in a meeting, on vacation, on another line, at lunch, in the field, etc. This has greatly improved our callers' experience by reducing the need to be placed on hold to find out if someone is available. The detailed caller ID and call log allow us to track all phone calls and make return calls with a click of the mouse.
3. Paperless Operations - This has been an exciting and continuing advance for us. We have made great strides at reducing paper by imaging documents into PDF format. To make this efficient, we have integrated PDF generation into our proprietary management software. We have a great document organization and retrieval system that puts what you need a click away. We can review photos, letters, resident communications, financial reports, meeting minutes, contracts, governing document, plats and everything else from any desktop computer. With a click of the mouse we can immediately email needed information to board members, residents, contractors, attorneys or CPAs. We eliminated nearly 100 filing cabinets when we imaged our existing property files.
4. New Support Office Opening - In June 2008, we opened our Bandera Office in Pipe Creek outside of San Antonio. Our nine employees handle all client accounting as described below and corporate accounting for C.I.A. Services. Our key software and network technical support staff are also located in Bandera. When we built our facility we included a specially designed computer room with isolated electrical circuits, a backup power system, a dedicated HVAC system and features. Our application, terminal, website and mail servers will be moved into this facility next month.
5. Centralized Accounting - Our centralized accounting in Bandera benefits our clients in several ways. The accounting staff are specialists dedicated to this function. The accounting staff assists our branch staff by preparing budgets, doing cash flow analyses, coordinating investments and conducting research regarding financial issues. We oversee the collections process, handle liens, releases, bankruptcies and foreclosures, provide maintenance fees quotes to title companies and realtors. Bandera processes all homeowner lockbox deposits, writes all community checks, handles all bank drafts and prepares all financial reports.
6. Customer Service Center - When we moved to our new North Office, we built out space for a Customer Service Center. Our new phone system allowed all phone calls to route to one location. The last piece of the plan was completed this month with a consolidation of our network servers which allows all employees at all offices to see all information about all of our communities. Our Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) will handle all incoming phone calls. When a resident calls, the person answering the phone will be able to handle most requests without transferring the call to another person or to voice mail. Our CSRs will be advocates for our residents helping them with solutions to their concerns or questions. In addition to providing a better experience for our callers, the customer service center will generate other benefits. Our administrative assistants currently spend nearly 50% of their time assisting callers while still carrying out many other necessary tasks. By having most phone calls handled by the CSRs, our administrative assistants will have more time to help their community managers on more challenging tasks. This change will give our community managers more time to concentrate on management. Our Customer Service Center will be fully operational next month.

We are pleased with each of these major advances but progress never stops. We have other initiatives under way which will be described in future issues of eNews Monthly.

"Nothing Happens Unless First A Dream" - Carl Sandburg

Website Outage

Our website will be down for a 24 hour period starting at noon on Friday July 16th while we relocation our web server from our Southwest Office to our Bandera Office. A temporary page will notify anyone trying to reach our website.

New Seminar Series Schedule

The schedule for our popular C.I.A. Services Seminar Series is now set. This is the eight year for our popular seminar series which give board members and other volunteers an opportunity to learn more about community associations. We continue to receive very positive feedback on the content and presentation. To view the seminar descriptions and schedule, click here or visit the Library page of our website.

Each seminar begins at 6:00 p.m. and runs 2 hours. We provide deli sandwiches so 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 for your future reference and to share with others. Here are upcoming seminars.

The Super-Budgeting Process "Super-Budgeting" is our term for preparing a comprehensive long term budget and business plan. This isn't something you do on the back of an envelope an hour before the budget meeting. We'll break the process down into understandable components and show you how assets and reserves fit in the picture. We'll start with a simple question that very few people can answer correctly: "How much money should our Association have in the bank?" By the end of the seminar, you'll know the correct answer for your Association. This is a critical seminar to take before you start looking at budgets. August 9, 2010 (Monday), 6:00 p.m. — North Office August 26, 2010 (Thursday), 6:00 p.m. — Southwest Office September 23, 2010 (Thursday), 6:00 p.m. — North Office September 30, 2010 (Thursday), 6:00 p.m. — Southwest Office

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

Community of the Month

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:

• July - SC Community Association
  Southwest Office - Leslie Baldwin, Community Manager
• June - Ashcreek Homeowners Association
  North Office - Brenda Ellington, Community Manager
• May - Ridgepoint Community Association
  North Office - Anna Quiroga, 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.

Anniversaries

Every month we appreciate the communities that are celebrating their anniversaries with us. Here are the clients that started with us in July.

• East Point Community Association — 20 years
• Inwood Northwest Neighborhood Association — 9 years
• Royal Palms Homeowners Association — 6 years

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.

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 onboard in the last three months.

• Community Association of Crockett Park — North Office — Annette Escarenio, Community Manager

Employee Spotlight

• Congratulations to community managers Karen Cooper, Gina Victor and Roxanne Bailey who recently passed their CAI M-100 class on The Essentials of Community Association Management. This three day class is provided by the national Community Associations Institute (CAI) and is part of the coursework for obtaining the industry's highest designation: Professional Community Association Manager (PCAM).
• Welcome to Dwayne Ring who joined our Southwest Office as a maintenance coordinator. Dwayne joins us with background in landscaping, customer service and marketing.
• Welcome also to Jenny Doweidt who joined our Bandera Office to help handle accounts payable. Jenny is replacing Kay Ely. Two years ago, we lured Kay out of retirement but the romance of the road is calling. Kay and her husband Don are embarking on a three month exploration of the New England states. Best wishes and send photos!



Karen Cooper		Gina Victor		Roxanne Bailey
Dwayne Ring		Jenny Doweidt		Kay Ely (right) with Annette McConnell





C.I.A. Services, Inc. www.ciaservices.com Toll Free: 866-219-0563
Southwest Office 9800 Centre Parkway, Suite 625 Houston, Texas 77036-8294 Phone: 713-981-9000 Fax: 713-981-9090	North Office 8811 FM 1960 Bypass, Suite 200 Humble, Texas 77338-4023 Phone: 281-852-1700 Fax: 281-852-4861	Bandera Office 465 Bear Springs Road Pipe Creek, Texas 78063-3178 Phone: 830-535-6222 Fax: 830-535-4265


(c) 2010 C.I.A. Services, Inc.