Professional Community Association Management Since 1984
customercare@ciaservices.com
Houston 713-981-9000
San Antonio 210-490-0000
Home > Resources > Library > Archived Newsletter

Archived Newsletters

Every month, we issue an electronic newsletter, eNews Monthly, to keep clients informed about Association items, spotlight clients, answer frequently asked questions, and let you know what is happening with the company. Old issues of eNews Monthly are available on our Library page.

January 2018
eNews Monthly
Volunteer Spotlight
Image

Brenda McNeil of Parkway Forest
by Kaila Gattis

Parkway Forest has been through a great deal following the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. It goes without saying that Brenda McNeil has been instrumental in bringing the community back to a resemblance of normal. Brenda has served on the Parkway Forest Board for almost 20 years in several capacities. 

Brenda also serves on the Parkway Utility District Board as the President and works diligently to improve the surrounding communities. 

Brenda is always more than willing to review maintenance concerns, meet with contractors and establish relationships with local law enforcement and county officials. There is hardly ever an issue in the community that Brenda does not help resolve in a timely manner. 

Brenda believes that every property in the community is someone’s cherished home and tries her best to act as an advocate and peace maker on the board of directors. 

Brenda’s continued knowledge and relationship building skills are a major benefit to the Parkway Forest Board of Directors and C.I.A. Services, Inc. We are glad to feature Brenda this month for our Volunteer Spotlight to thank her for her time and dedication to the community. 

Year in Review
Image

2017 is now behind us and it was another busy year at C.I.A. Services. Great management flows from a foundation of doing all the small things well. Our dedicated staff members kept up with the thousands of daily details associated with managing communities. Here are a few statistics from the past year.

  • Our maintenance coordinators issued and tracked 5,199 work orders and projects for our communities. That is an average of 21 per workday. A work order can be anything from having a sign fabricated & installed to developing specifications & soliciting bids for a contract to having a new roof installed on a clubhouse.  Each work order includes a large amount of communication with contractors in advance and as follow-up.  That is an impressive amount of work.
  • Home improvement coordinators processed 7,522 home improvement and new construction requests for our communities. That is an average of 30 per workday.  Many requests entail multiple communications with the homeowner to ensure that the request is complete before passing on to the committee for a decision.  Each request finishes with a letter to the homeowner documenting the decision. That number includes 3,636 online submissions through our new online home improvement application system that was released in 2014.  This high usage tells us the online system is as awesome as we wanted it to be!
  • Our accounting department prepared 16,672 checks and coordinated 28,548 bank drafts for our communities. That is an average of 180 per workday.  It takes great organizational skills to coordinate that many bills, obtain reviews and approvals, and meet the due dates.  All that while keeping impeccable records that CPA auditors love to see.
  • Our customer service staff helped 2,127 owners set up payment plans for their delinquent assessments. Throughout the year, our accounting staff monitored each payment plan and issued 1,849 follow-up letters to owners.
  • Our community managers, administrative assistants and inspectors tracked and resolved 84,378 deed restriction violations by issuing 94,930 letters. Our deed restriction management efforts continued to be successful with 87% of all violations getting resolved before a certified letter was needed.
  • In December alone, our accounting and administrative staff received and deposited $12,857,710 in assessments in 20,776 individual payments.
  • Over the course of the year, we received 177,644 incoming phone calls!  Although we get calls 7 days a week, the majority come in on business days. Based on our total, the average number of incoming calls each work day was 710.  

All of these little details and small things equal up to great management.  We pride ourselves in providing excellent service at every level.  We look forward to another successful year in 2018.

Fun Times
Image

San Antonio Hockey Night

Each year, we invite our community volunteers, employees, families and friends to join us for Hockey Night with the San Antonio Rampage.  We spend a fun-filled evening watching a great sport.  

The 2018 Hockey Night will be on Saturday, January 27th when the Rampage will take on the San Jose Barracuda. Please ask your community manager for details on how to reserve your tickets.

Hockey is a cool, fun and fast-paced game.  If you’ve never seen hockey in person, you are in for a treat.  We’ll give you a nice guide to hockey that explains the rules (yes, there are rules!).  We have great seats reserved and hope to see lots of action at our end.  We’ll have a bunch of door prizes for everyone including the 10th in our series of collectible cowbells with the Rampage logo. 

If you’ve not seen a live game, it’s a real treat and we hope you can join us!

Click below to see photos of the fun from the last nine years.

2017    2016     2015     2014     2013     2012     2011    2010    2009

Seminar Series
Image

Stay Plugged in with Webcasts

We have received great feedback on our new webcast approach for presenting our seminars!  With this new method of presentation, we are now able to offer the recorded webcast on demand for you to watch at any time! If you have missed a seminar, our seminars are available on our YouTube channel.  The following seminars are now available:

  • Board Member Orientation
  • Practical Deed Restriction Management
  • Understanding Collections and Financial Reports
  • Meetings and Records - The Legal Requirements
  • The Essentials of Architectural Control
  • The Super-Budgeting Process
  • Advanced Topics for Board Members

Just go to our website www.ciaservices.com and click on the Resources tab.  From there, select our Library and you will see the links to each webcast and other training materials or you can simply click here.

Community Spotlight
Image

St. James Place Homeowners Association

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:

  • January - St. James Place Homeowners Association - San Antonio Office - Brandi Brack
  • December - Atascocita West Community Improvement Association - Humble Office - Jennifer Northington
  • November - Indian Shores Property Owners Association - Humble Office - Linda Morris
  • October  - Bay Pointe Community Association - Southwest Houston Office - Libby Hodges
  • September - El Sendero (San Antonio) Homeowners Association - San Antonio Office - Brandi Brack and Sebby Regalado
  • August- Atascocita Trails Homeowners Association Humble Office - Linda Morris
  • July - White Oak Ranch Subdivision Homeowners Association - Humble Office - Valerie Lehr

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

Community Anniversaries
Image

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

  • Hunterwood Village II Association — 32 years
  • Homeowners Association of Timber Forest — 21 years
  • Cumberland Community Association — 10 years
  • Eastpoint Section 4 Homeowners Association — 7 years
  • Subdivision of Spring Crossing Community Association — 6 years
  • Reserve at Clear Lake Community Association — 3 years
  • Parkway Trails Homeowners Association — 2 years
  • Hidden Arbor Community Association, Inc. — 2 years
  • Harper Oaks Homeowners Association, Inc. — 2 years
  • BGR Property Owners Association, Inc. — 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.

New Communities
Image

Welcome Katy Pointe!

We are excited to announce that Katy Pointe will be joining our family of wonderful communities!  Katy Pointe is a new development from the Devlan Group located with close proximity to the Grand Parkway off Clay Road. 

We look forward to seeing all the wonderful families that will choose to call this community home!

Employee Corner
Image

Employee Anniversaries

We love to celebrate special milestones with our employees. In the Employee Corner of each eNews issue, we will list all employees that have reached their first anniversary with our company.  Additionally, once employees reach five years, we recognize them each year on their anniversary month.

Charlotte Bulcken has been a staple in our Humble office for 22 years! Charlotte wears lots of hats, handling multiple special projects and is our go to person working with governmental agencies.

Kim Terry is one of our newest stockholders celebrating 5 years with the company. Kim is the team leader for our check dispursment team in our Bandera office.  She stays busy overseeing all the check runs for our 170+ communities. 

Vina Evans is our other newest stockholder celebrating 5 years also with us.  Vina is the smiling face warmly greeting homeowners in our Humble office. 

Kristy Wardlow, Kelsey Ballard, Elisa Carry and Tra’Neshia Williams are each celebrating their first anniversary with our company and we are so glad to have them.  Kristy and Kelsey, as Community Specialists, are some of the friendly voices homeowners hear when calling our office and Elisa and Tra’Neshia are Administrative Assistants making sure homeowners in their communities are well taken care of.  Kristy, Kelsey and Elisa work in our Humble office and Tra’Neshia works in our Southwest office.

Read Past Issues of eNews Monthly

Every month, we issue an electronic newsletter, eNews Monthly, to keep clients informed about Association items, spotlight clients, answer frequently asked questions, and let you know what is happening with the company. Old issues of eNews Monthly are available on our Library page.