July 12, 2007

The C.I.A. Services Seminar Series

We are very pleased to announce our 2007/2008 schedule of seminars that we will be presenting throughout the year for all of the Board members and volunteers in our communities. This will be the fifth year of our seminar series. We have trained nearly 500 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. Here’s the line-up.

v Board Member Orientation

v Advanced Topics for Board Members

v Understanding Collections & Financial Reports

v Practical Deed Restriction Management

v Facilities, Contracts & Maintenance

v The Super-Budgeting Process

v Community Website Administrator Training

Descriptions of each seminar along with the seminar schedules are given on the following pages (and posted on the Library page of our web site). Each seminar lasts 2½ hours and you’ll receive an excellent training notebook with copies of all slides and lots of reference materials. We have deli sandwiches and refreshments so you won’t have to rush home for dinner before the 6:30 p.m. seminars.

The “Board Member Orientation” and “Community Website Administrator Training” sessions are free! The others will have a $25 fee to defray the cost of training materials and refreshments. The knowledge and insight you will gain will be well worth your time.

Space is limited and advance registration is required. To register, please call our Southwest Office at 713-981-9000 or send an email to seminars@ciaservices.com. For your convenience, we’ll invoice your Association for the seminar fee, if any, after the seminar.

We can also provide private seminars at your location. We need a minimum of five participants – you provide the location and refreshments. All private seminars are $35 per person.

We’re excited about offering this training opportunity and hope you are able to attend some of the upcoming seminars. Please feel free to call me at our Southwest Office if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

Ralph A. Troiano

President

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C.I.A. Services Seminar Series

Seminar Descriptions

v Board Member Orientation

(2 ½ hours – free – April & October)

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.

v Advanced Topics for Board Members

(2 ½ hours – $25 – June)

After you’ve been on the Board a few months or a few years, you realize that some things are pretty complicated. This seminar has a heavy legal and legislative orientation. We’ll dissect the lawsuit process, review foreclosures and bankruptcies, and discuss significant portions of the Texas Property Code and federal law. After all the legal stuff, we’ll touch on aspects of “risk management” which includes insurance, reserves and budgeting concepts.

v Understanding Collections & Financial Reports

(2 ½ hours – $25 – February)

The first half of this seminar will cover all the steps involved in successful assessment collections. Since not everyone pays on time, we’ll get into late fees, liens, payment plans, bankruptcy and all the legal remedies. The second half of the seminar deals with reading and understanding your financial reports. We’ll trace the flow of money throughout the reports so you’ll never be in the dark when staring at all those numbers.

v Practical Deed Restriction Management

(2 ½ hours – $25 – March)

Deed restriction management is one of the most difficult tasks handled by homeowners associations because it involves subjective decisions, homeowner’s property and emotions. This seminar covers the steps in deed restriction management and how a process can contain “intelligence” and common sense. We discuss the relation between deed restrictions and architectural guidelines and give you examples of well crafted guidelines. We’ll clarify any confusion over whether something is a DR or an ACC issue. Practical deed restriction management requires clear communications and reasonable requirements.

v Facilities, Contracts & Maintenance

(2 ½ hours – $25 – November)

If you don’t know the difference between a vacuum breaker and a vacuum head and you’re not comfortable wandering around a swimming pool pump room, then this seminar is for you. We’ll review your major facilities and equipment including irrigation systems, pool mechanical equipment, gate operators and explain how they work (and fail). We’ll move onto the essentials of bidding major contracts. After that we’ll move to ongoing maintenance of landscaping, pools, tennis courts, buildings, fences and other common assets. When we’re finished, you’ll be talking like a skilled contractor!

v The Super-Budgeting Process

(2 ½ hours – $25 – August & September)

“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.

v Community Website Administrator Training

(2 ½ hours – free – January, April, July & October)

This is the required training course for certification as a Community Website Administrator (CWSA) on the C.I.A Services web site (www.ciaservices.com). 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.

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C.I.A. Services Seminar Series

2007/2008 Schedule

	Seminar	Date	Time	Location
1	The Super-Budgeting Process	08/09/07 – Thursday	6:30 – 9 pm	Southwest
2	The Super-Budgeting Process	08/14/07 – Tuesday	6:30 – 9 pm	North
3	The Super-Budgeting Process	09/10/07 – Monday	6:30 – 9 pm	Southwest
4	The Super-Budgeting Process	09/26/07 – Wednesday	6:30 – 9 pm	North
5	Board Member Orientation	10/09/07 – Tuesday	6:30 – 9 pm	Southwest
6	Community Website Administrator Training	10/24/07 – Wednesday	6:30 – 9 pm	North
7	Board Member Orientation	10/29/07 – Monday	6:30 – 9 pm	North
8	Facilities, Contracts & Maintenance	11/07/07 – Wednesday	6:30 – 9 pm	Southwest
9	Facilities, Contracts & Maintenance	11/15/07 – Thursday	6:30 – 9 pm	North
10	Community Website Administrator Training	01/17/08 – Thursday	6:30 – 9 pm	Southwest
11	Understanding Collections & Financial Reports	02/07/08 – Thursday	6:30 – 9 pm	Southwest
12	Understanding Collections & Financial Reports	02/12/08 – Tuesday	6:30 – 9 pm	North
13	Practical Deed Restriction Management	03/13/08 – Thursday	6:30 – 9 pm	Southwest
14	Practical Deed Restriction Management	03/26/08 – Wednesday	6:30 – 9 pm	North
15	Board Member Orientation	04/15/08 – Tuesday	6:30 – 9 pm	Southwest
16	Community Website Administrator Training	04/21/08 – Monday	6:30 – 9 pm	North
17	Board Member Orientation	04/24/08 – Thursday	6:30 – 9 pm	North
18	Advanced Topics for Board Members	06/23/08 – Monday	6:30 – 9 pm	Southwest
19	Advanced Topics for Board Members	06/26/08 – Thursday	6:30 – 9 pm	North
20	Community Website Administrator Training	07/24/08 – Thursday	6:30 – 9 pm	Southwest

Please register in advance by calling our Southwest Office at 713-981-9000 or send an email to seminars@ciaservices.com. Space is limited. Refreshments and training materials are provided at each seminar.