This week we dedicated the town hall meeting to a discussion on bylaw amendments regarding CREA’s 3-Way Membership Agreement. 

You can go to the I SAY YES page to learn more. I hope you do take a few moments to look at the short campaign video that is posted there, as well as read the documents and discussion papers.

More importantly, we need you to share your thoughts and opinions – either on that page or on this page below.

Although yesterday’s weather for our in-person town hall was not ideal, we still had a constructive and productive conversation with our members. I have received some comments and questions about why we didn’t broadcast our in-person town hall. In fact, we do host virtual town halls separately and for good reason: different communication styles apply to these different formats, and the idea of a town hall style meeting is to let the audience guide the conversation.

This is also why we do not provide a summary or minutes of a town hall meeting. If you aren’t in the room or streaming online as a virtual participant, you don’t get the same feel for the flow of the conversation.

Member attendance at town hall meetings is always optional, but we appreciate those of you who attend because you help us understand your needs. We also know you are busy and that sometimes the issues raised may seem secondary or nonessential. 

However, if you heard some of the passion and concern in the room at the town hall this week, you may wonder what all the fuss is about. How is it that an industry with so many burning issues has time to worry about the few hundred dollars a month it costs to belong to organized real estate? Usually, none of this matters, until it really matters. 

Don’t feel you need to learn all there is to know about the 3-Way Agreement? You can confine your thinking to why we only ask if you say YES. We also want to know if you do not want a say in membership structures that might open doors to more efficiency and less overlap between AREA, CREA and CREB^®. If you say NO, tell us why.

Our goal is to confirm that in fact YES, you want this option. Anything after that should either come with a long heavy consultation before a big decision is made or a better alternative is that you hear very little about this after the April CREA AGM, and the creation of this option opens the door to a seamless member experience. I SAY YES to the latter!

With that, I encourage you to post your comments or questions below or if you heard something at this week’s town hall that you want to have a deeper discussion about. And watch for the promotions of our virtual town hall, which will happen on Feb. 27.