Get to Know RHAWA Staff!

Daniel Bannon | Grassroots Organizer |  dbannon@RHAwa.org |

It is not unusual for members to reach out to me wondering how they can meet with our staff in person to ask them questions about RHAWA or simply get to know the team that supports them. If you have ever wondered this yourself, you’re in luck! There are plenty of opportunities available to our members to meet staff, learn more about the inner workings of the association and provide feedback on how the Association can improve. Our staff members are always excited to get out and meet our members face to face and we hope you are just as excited to meet us. In this article, I will go over some of the best ways you as a member can meet with our staff and learn more about the association and the people who make RHAWA function. While many of these suggestions will be obvious to our most involved members, there are definitely a few opportunities that frequently go unnoticed and underutilized.

The first and most apparent way for our members to meet our staff is to attend RHAWA events. RHAWA hosts a multitude of events throughout the year and each of these events presents an opportunity for you to meet one or all of our staff members. Some of these events are: TRENDS, The Spring Workshop and Tradeshow, our Annual Gala, and our Annual Business Meeting. These are some of RHAWA’s most elaborate events and they require nearly all staff members to be present in order to ensure the event runs smoothly, this means you are guaranteed to run into some staff members at any of these events! Some of you may remember meeting with

Denise, Luke, Melissa and myself at the TRENDS Conference. It was great for us to have the opportunity to get out of the office and make some connections with the members we work so hard to support. Furthermore, RHAWA always makes sure to inject some fun into our events, our 2022 Annual Gala was an absolute blast and were looking forward to topping it in 2023. So, if you’re interested in meeting staff, learning something, or simply having a good time, I certainly encourage you to attend one of RHAWA’s many events.

The second way you can meet with RHAWA staff is by attending some of our smaller events such as LINK meetings of our online classes. LINK Meetings occur several times every month at various locations around Puget Sound. The LINK Meetings take place in Snohomish County, Pierce County, and two in King County. LINK Meetings typically will have at least one staff member present as well as some of our most involved and knowledgeable members leading the meetings. As mentioned before,

RHAWA is always trying to find a balance between fun and informative and I believe LINK meetings are one of our most valuable and fun monthly events. We discuss different topics every month at these meetings, so I encourage all of our members to check out the schedule of topics that are already up on our website on the events page. While not an in-person interaction, RHAWA classes provide a great opportunity to interact with staff and affiliates of RHAWA as well. Denise Myers, our Education Director, is an incredible resource and hosts many of our classes, she helped get me up to speed when I first started with RHAWA and many of our members have spent hours learning from her in our Rental Housing Academy. Even if you can’t make it to one of our larger events, we have a multitude of opportunities for you to get to know the staff.

Another more overlooked way to meet with our staff is to attend other conferences in Washington State. For example, our Government Affairs staff recently attended an event called Roanoke which is a political conference in Ocean Shores. We met several members at this conference while also representing the interests of our members when speaking with some of the elected officials who were pres- ent at this event.

Our marketing staff attended a Social Media conference in September of 2022 as well which not only educated us on new ways to market RHAWA, but it also fostered connections with some expert marketers from all across the USA. The connections I made at both of these conferences have informed my approach to marketing and advocacy going forward and I always find conferences to be a rewarding experience. So, if you’re interested in learning something and also having the chance to meet RHAWA staff, attending a real estate or political conference could give you the opportunity to do so. Just look for a booth with our logo plastered all over it.

The last method I will highlight to meet RHAWA staff is getting involved in our Government Advocacy efforts. As some of you are aware, we rallied over 125 members to come down to Olympia to testify against rent control in late January.

These members had the opportunity to learn about the inner workings of RHAWA’s government affairs as well as chat with staff to learn more about the association. Additionally, we host a minimum of two weekly meetings regarding our government affairs efforts during the legislative session which gives you plenty of time to learn about any upcoming legislation, chat with our government affairs team or ask our lobbyists any questions you desire. I have personally enjoyed getting to know some of you during the 2023 legislative session and I look forward to meeting more of you as the session continues.

There are plenty of ways to get involved and meet the individuals that make up our team.

Meeting with members is one of my favorite things about working for RHAWA and I hope you have found time to meet the staff at some point. If you have any questions about the opportunities I have discussed, feel free to give us a call or email! Looking forward to seeing you soon.