Blog # 413 Copyright 2016 COBA7® @ 11 September 2016; community-investor.com
Perspective. ‘Land-lease-lifestyle Communities, a.k.a. manufactured home communities and ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing.’
This blog posting is the sole national advocacy voice, official ombudsman & historian, research report & online communication media for North American LLLCommunities!
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INTRODUCTION. Last week’s ‘What No One Else Will Tell You!’ long view topic of MH ‘national advocacy’ & LLLCommunity ‘national resources’, from 1980 to 2017’
generated a spate (‘freshet or storm’) of supportive responses from businessmen and women across the U.S! However, sharing these interesting commentaries will have to wait a week or so, as we ‘recover’ from the exciting week spent at the 25th anniversary Networking Roundtable in Nashville, TN.
What follows here, is purposely penned as intimate correspondence between me and those who routinely support, as affiliates, the Community Owners (7 Part) Business Alliance®, and the 180+ businessmen and women, from 25 states and the District of Columbia, in attendance at the subject event.
Friends
I am appreciative and feel appreciated, as I sit here alone at 6AM on the balcony outside our hotel room. Carolyn and I will soon leave the Gaylord Opryland Resort Hotel for home in Indianapolis, IN. But right now I am parsing and expressing feelings of…
APPRECIATION for everyone, from hotel meeting support staff, to 20+ seminar presenters, and 180+ attendees, as well as Carolyn, Susan and Drew – all for helping facilitate and host the 25th anniversary International Networking Roundtable. It’s now done, and has been a complete success!
&
of being APPRECIATED. Because dozens of ‘friends in the MHBusiness’ took time to pen tributes regarding our 35years of dedication to manufactured housing and land-lease-lifestyle communities nationwide! It was a complete surprise when Ken & Katie Hauck presented the ‘three ring binder filled with salient memories and encouraging words’ to me, during the final hours of this year’s roundtable event.
Details of the networking roundtable itself? They’ll have to await elaboration in a future blog posting, or issue of the Allen Letter, even the Allen CONFIDENTIAL! business newsletter.
On the other hand, here’re some of the comments found in the collection of tributes and memoires:
• Several mentioned the opening session, when we stand as a group of 180+ and pledge allegiance to the American flag! We’ve done this since that fateful day, 9/11 in year 2001, when our nation came under terrorist attack. That year we postponed the Networking Roundtable until November; and during that session, implemented the pledge of allegiance feature, as well as an informal Friday morning prayer meeting, ‘for our nation & its’ leaders’
• Several recalled the ‘blizzard of 1999’, when, for several days, Networking Roundtable attendees were stranded en masse, at the Marriott Hotel on the outskirts of Colorado Springs, CO. And how the skeleton hotel staff served meals in the lobby, and Networking Roundtable guys shoveled paths through the five feet deep snow.
• And while I don’t think it’s true, more than one person opined I “…introduced the idea of interpersonal networking to the MHBusiness”. Maybe more to the point, we did, many years ago, initiate the rare-but-highly-popular practice, during the opening session of each Networking Roundtable, where ‘everyone stands, one at a time, and introduces themselves to the entire audience’!
• While many of the penned remarks ‘touched me’ – in varying ways, in this collection, one described how I would like to be remembered during years to come: ‘Thank You for creating and maintaining the foundational baseline of industry data and operational practices, as well as creating tools and resources for MHBusinesses across this nation.” TF
• Some put their finger on the difficult but needed road I’ve chosen to travel professionally, when they commented: “…as a contrarian, George keeps everyone on their toes – EVERYONE! Progress demands some challenge the status quo.” CN. And how I “…consistently take the ‘opposite position and ask the hard question.” JR One could certainly be known for worse peccadillos.
Here I’ve but touched on passages that play to the ‘appreciative & appreciation’ theme of this morning’s blog musings. Perhaps in a week or two, I’ll mine more gems, from the tribute binder, and share them with you – with an eye to helping all grow and mature as MHBusinessmen and women.
And to all of you who patronized this year’s 25th anniversary Networking Roundtable, a heartfelt Thanks to ALL! GFA