Temple Area Builders Association
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On The Level - September 2009 Contents:
Brings You The:
Friday, October 2, 2009 at Temple Lake Park on Lake Belton TABA Members: We hope you'll join us for our First TABA Fishing Tournament on Friday, October 2nd at Temple Lake Park on Lake Belton. This is a two-man catch and release black bass fishing tournament and the entry fee is $120 per team or $60 per man. There is a $1000 guaranteed 1st place pay-out and a Big Bass payout. A place will be awarded for every 10 entries we have so the more entires we get the more prize money will be given out. If you are interested in entering, please click here and fill out this entry form. Fill it out and return it to the TABA office with the entry fee.This is an open tournament for members and non-members alike. You do not have to be a member of TABA to enter into this tournament. We are requesting that entries be in before September 26th, however if you decide to join us the week of the tournament you can still enter, but a late fee of $30 will be imposed. Fishing begins at safe light but every team must check-in at the Temple Lake Park boat ramp before setting out. Check-in will begin at 5am. All teams must be at weigh-in by 12noon. Winners will be announced at the Associate Appreciation Fish Fry that will take place from 12noon until 2pm at the pavilion at Temple Lake Park. This event is FREE for the entire membership and is sponsored by TABA Builder Members. This is their way of saying "Thank You" for everything you do for them and the Association during the year and what a year it has been. With the economy and tough building environment, our Associate members remain strong and supportive of their builders association and we here at TABA are very grateful to have such a strong membership base. NEW MEMBERS: This is a very special invitation for you to come join us at the Fish Fry. President Chris Alexander will be introducing new members who are in attendance and giving you 2 minutes to speak about who you are and what you do. Weather permitting, we will also have a table set aside especially for you to bring literature and/or business cards to set out. Please mark your calendars for this Membership Meeting. RSVP's are required. Please call the TABA office by Friday, September 25th with a head count from your company. We are very excited about this entire event and hope our membership comes out to make it wildly successful. On The Level - Table Of Contents 
 September is finally here. We are all praying for cooler weather…and a LITTLE RAIN would be nice too! The intense heat did not seem to hinder the turn-out for Home Pac’s 4th Annual Skeet Shoot on August 25th at Weber’s. The success of the event is the result of a lot of hard work by many. Thanks to Troy, Cheryl, and Debbie Swift for their hard work in organizing the event. A special thanks to all of you who contributed to the event as sponsors and to Weber’s for their outstanding facility. In addition, much appreciation goes to Jason Carothers and Chad Levin who did an excellent job of cooking on the grill all day long. Even with the warm weather everyone seemed to have a great time. Our next TABA event is the Fish Fry/Associate Member Appreciation event and Black Bass Catch & Release Tournament on Friday, October 2nd at Temple Lake Park. The fishing tournament will start at first light that morning followed by the Fish Fry at noon. Although there is an entry fee for the fishing tournament, the Fish Fry is free to all. The Fish Fry is sponsored by our builder members in an effort to show our appreciation for our associate members. The fishing tournament is open to members and nonmembers. Tournament registration information and more details can be found on the TABA website. The support of our builder and associate members is critical to making this event a success, so please mark your calendars for this fun upcoming event. Hopefully, the weather in October will be cooler and the fish will be biting. We are proud to welcome the following new members: Labor Finders, Lisa Childers and Woodward Creative Group, Bill Woodward. We encourage all new 2009 members to attend the Fish Fry in October so they can be recognized before our membership. As members of our local TABA, you are also eligible for member benefit programs offered though the Texas Association of Builders. Did you know that Valero Fleet Services offers a discount of 4 cents per gallon to TAB members? You can get more information by contacting Michelle.Squilla@valero.com. Verizon Wireless also offers an 18% discount off monthly calling plans that bill more than $34.99/per month or higher. You can find out more about this by calling your local Verizon representative or visit the “Members Only” section of www.TexasBuilders.org. I know that we all share concerns about the slow economic recovery ahead, but I continue to be encouraged by many of the positive reports that we are hearing regarding our housing industry. Forbes.com recently reported that new home sales in July rose 9.6% to 433,000 exceeding projections. The Mortgage Bankers Association is also reporting continued increases in mortgage applications. Our newsletter shows monthly data comparisons for the local Temple, Belton and Morgan’s Point new home starts. The latest report shows that new home starts were a little higher in July ’09 (45) than July ’08 (42). Data for August home starts show we are exactly the same for August '09 (39) as we were in August '08 (39). There is no doubt that we are learning new strategies from the difficult times we are going through. We will be stronger personally and professionally and our industry will be better for it. Thank you for your membership and loyal commitment to our TABA organization. On The Level - Table Of Contents 
 Buy Local You hear us say it all the time. Buy local, buy from members! We at TABA proudly recommend folks do business with our members on a regular basis. Our members are, to a large degree, family owned and operated small businesses. To a larger degree, they are committed to our area and seeing it prosper. The leaders of this organization work not only toward sustaining our industry and assuring jobs for thousands of folks, they work to make our community more attractive and inviting to all. This in order to entice growth that will be beneficial to the Temple and Belton area for generations. These leaders of ours wear many hats. You'll find them not only serving on TABA boards and committees, but on city and school boards as well. Regardless of the color ball cap they wear on Friday night, they all care deeply about the overall well-being of our community. They live in Central Texas, shop in Central Texas, go to church in Central Texas, raise their children in Central Texas and pay taxes in Central Texas. It is those tax dollars that provide the revenue base for the school, city and county services that we all need and use. For this reason, we not only ask people to do business with our members, we also advocate that our government do business with local businesses. Whether it be in determining which engineering firm to award a contract to or which architect to design a project, we believe if the service can be adequately provided through a local firm at a competitive price, we believe the contract should go to the local firm. The government contracts help sustain and grow these professional service firms. They also help sustain the local businesses the firms contract with. Additionally, the dollars that are earned in our area by local companies, stay in Temple moreso than they would should they be contracted to an out of area firm. More often than not, the out of town firms would complete the job and then go home to support businesses in their community. This is the drum beat we march to at TABA and we will continue to do so as long as we are encouraged to do so by our members and our partners throughout the community. The Temple Area Builders Association is only as strong as our members. When you succeed, we succeed. We work hard every day to help maintain a favorable business climate for you to do business in. Please let me or Cheryl know if there is anything we can do to better serve you. On The Level - Table Of Contents 
Labor Finders' growth continues in operate above average style because of our dedication to fulfilling our customers’ needs with qualified temporary employees, and our ability to perform in skilled areas not normally addressed by our competitors. Labor Finders' strengths come from the commitment of locally operated offices to consistently satisfy our customers, while demonstrating our core values everyday: Respect, Appreciation and Safety. The mission is simple: treat temporary employees with respect and they will work with pride and diligence. LOOKING FORWARD TO DOING BUSINESS WITH ALL OF YOU VERY SOON! SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY! Lisa Childers - Branch Manager On The Level - Table Of Contents 
The NEW 2009 – 2011 TAB Do your contracts:
The TAB contracts do! With the demise of the TRCC, a major overhaul of residential construction contracts became imperative, making the updated 2009 TAB Contracts Package more valuable than ever. A $299.99 (plus tax) two-year subscription to the package, which includes seven residential construction and remodeling contracts as well as more than 50 related addenda, saves builders and remodelers thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees. Additionally, the subscription covers any revisions to the documents through August 31, 2011. The updated package reflects the fact that the statutorily required warranties and performance standards cease to exist on September 1, 2009, and includes provisions whereby the parties agree to the specific warranties and performance standards that have been in place since 2003. The package also includes an amendment for homes contracted before September 1, 2009, but completed after that date, which will clarify that such homes will be held to the warranty and performance standards the home was subject to at the time the contract was signed. The TAB Residential Construction Contracts Package offers more value than ever and will continue to serve as the foundation for most residential construction transactions in Texas. Order your TAB Contracts Package today through your local home builders association. Contracts packages are available to TAB members only. Texas Association of Builders On The Level - Table Of Contents
The booking process has begun for the 2010 Home & Garden Show. Exhibitors from this year should have received a large mailer on new contract details, pricing and show layout for next year's show. If you exhibited this year please do not let this opportunity pass you by to book early for next year. You have first right of refusal on the booth you had in 2009 and the option to be moved first to locations that will open up. If you plan to exhibit in 2010, please fill out the exhibit space response form and the appropriate contract and mail it in with your $100 deposit. New this year, we have made available a 3-year contract option. This option will lock exhibitors into the 2010 price for 3 years and provide an upfront 10 percent discount on their booths. We think this is a valuable option for those planning on exhibiting for the next 3 years so please read the information carefully. If you have questions, please contact the TABA office at 254-773-0445. The show is scheduled for February 27 - 28, 2010 at the Bell County Expo Center. The floorplan has basically remained the same with the exception of the center booth, which has been divided into 3 booths. We also moved the Headquarters Booth down to the floor. Two of the center booths are 10x30 and the third one is a 10x20. The costs of these booths are slightly higher than all the others. These booths will be sold on a first come first serve basis and are available only to TABA members so if you are interested please contact the TABA office immediately. If you have misplaced your layout and price guides, you can find them on our website in the Home & Garden Show page. For those members who wish to exhibit in the Show for the first time, please call the TABA office in October. Open booking will begin at this time. New exhibitors will not be assigned a booth until after the September 30th in order to give our past exhibitors time to book what they had last year. We thank you for your patience and we encourage you to exhibit in this show. We have approxiamately 5,000 people attend this show over the course of 3 days. Can you get that many people in your showroom in that span of time? On The Level - Table Of Contents NEW HOME STARTS
ALL HOME CLOSINGS
On The Level - Table Of Contents  TABA FISHING TOURNAMENT If you fish or know of someone that does, please let them know about our first TABA Fishing Tournament being held on October 2nd at Temple Lake Park on Lake Belton. As we try to reach various segments of our membership, we continue to develop other events and programs that hopefully members will find fits them best. If you don't golf or shoot skeet, maybe you fish - if so, this is the event for you! There is a $1000 guarantee first prize pay-out and a prize will be paid out for every 10 teams that enter. This makes quantity of entries so important. The more teams that enter, the more prizes will be awarded. Check out the front page of the newsletter for further details as well as an entry form. ASSOCIATE APPRECIATION FISH FRY Immediatley following the fishing tournament, we will hold our Annual Associate Appreciation Fish Fry at the pavilion at Temple Lake Park. This is a builder sponsored event and is FREE for eveyone to attend. We encourage you to bring out your employees and join us for lunch from 12-2pm. New TABA Members will be introduced and be given 2 minutes to speak about themselves and their company so new members are highly encouraged to come join in on the fun and networking opportunity. That's it from my desk. I really hope to see lots of faces at the October Fishing Tournament and Fish Fry. On The Level - Table Of Contents 
On The Level - Table Of Contents 
As it has the previous three years, the 4th Annual TABA Home PAC Skeet Shoot proved to be an event that we can build upon in years to come. Even though we continued to exceed the participation from our inaugural event, there is plenty of opportunity to grow it and we plan to do so in coming years. Many thanks to our event committee. They took special pride in assuring that the event went off without a glitch. In all, about 70 companies and 84 shooters participated in our event. Special recognition goes to Texian Insurance Team for placing first with a shooting of 187 (of a possible 204)--the team name will be added to a perpetual plaque that will be displayed year round at Weber's in Troy for all to see! Tri-Supply and Aldrich Thomas Group also went home with event plaques, placing second and third respectively. A slide show from our 2009 fundraiser will be made available in the next edition of On the Level--look for it next month. Thanks again to Bruce Walker and the folks at Lengefeld Lumber Company for your generous sponsorship of our event! Special thanks to the following:
Finally, we couldn't have put on this event without the support of our committee. Joining Mitch Johnson on the skeet committee were Cheryl Hunka, Debbie Swift, Jason Carothers, Jeffrey Schneider, Mat Naegele, Danny Owens, Drew Dennison and Robbie Johnson. TABA Home PAC can't thank these folks enough for all they did to support our event. On The Level - Table Of Contents |
FISHING TOURNAMENT & ASSOCIATE APPRECIATION FISH FRY
