A WINTER WONDERLAND IN BRENTWOOD Skating our Cares Away
	DECEMBER 2004

by Judy Hazen and Sheri Bogosian

We both are fans of our East County culture and are boosters of downtown Brentwood, in particular. It bothers us how many times residents drive “over the hill” in order to enjoy themselves in places like Dublin or Concord because of the lack of sufficient opportunities in Brentwood.

We would like to take steps to help correct that problem. We should have more attractions and events in our area so that local people can spend more time in our own lovely back yard.

People don’t realize how wonderful our East County is and how important it is to maintain the family here and to keep family members close. We want to continue developing Brentwood as a place offering events through which grandparents and grandkids, and young people and young lovers can make memories they can hold on to for decades — or for a lifetime.

A Vision of Winter Fun
We’re sharing a dream of creating a genuine wonderland for the families and young adults of our community. A year ago the two of us developed a vision for a Winter Wonderland in downtown Brentwood. We’re going to put in an ice rink adjacent to the snow park and are hoping to see Olympic ice skaters performing their own particular magic for our amazement.

Santa will be in the gazebo holding his enchanted court for glistening-eyed children. Walkways will be lined with boxed Christmas trees. Strolling carolers will fill the air with the sweet sounds of the season.

Brentwood Parks and Recreation is planning to erect their stage and bleachers so we can put on holiday concerts with singers and musicians. Local dance troupes will also be performing on our stage.

One of the High Schools will have a snack bar, selling hotdogs, popcorn, candy, soda, and (of course) steaming mugs of hot chocolate and coffee.

Our Winter Wonderland will help downtown businesses. For example, horse-drawn carriages will give rides, dropping people off in front of stores to do their Christmas shopping.

We’ll create a holiday environment in Downtown Brentwood so lovely that in the not-too-distant future residents will begin looking forward to our Winter Wonderland all year long. In a few years people from Concord and Dublin will be driving to Brentwood to have fun!

Putting Feet to our Vision
The biggest challenge is in getting the skating rink in place. We’re working with a wonderful company, called Ice Rink Events, who is in the business of erecting temporary ice-skating rinks for everything from small rinks behind some shopping center to full-blown Olympic-class venues. Ice Rink Events has placed ice rinks in locations from Germany to Stockton.

We got our vision for a Winter Wonderland in Brentwood a year ago after seeing the snow that Parks and Recreation has been hauling in for the past few years for the kids to play in. It occurred to us that this might be only the first part of something that could be expanded into a truly enchanting place for people of all ages.

We began last January to work with the Brentwood Parks and Recreation people. We schmoozed at a lunch with Craig Bronson and presented the idea to the City Council. Everyone who heard our pitch thought that we had a wonderful idea.

We’ve spent all year in a state of continual excitement about our plans. We want this so badly we can taste it! We can also hear it and even smell it.

Seriously! We both keep closing our eyes and visualizing the scenes that we will bring to reality. We envision ourselves walking through the park and hearing the laughter of the skaters, the shouts of the kids playing in the snow, the nicker of the horses, and the sounds of the musicians. In our imaginations we can smell the hotdogs and hot chocolate.

Most of all, of course, we can see the people — all the families, couples, and kids that are flocking to this magical place. And as we view the happy scene with our minds’ eye, everyone we see is smiling, laughing, and having a good time.

A Company Made to Help Communities
The two of us are working at the Keller Williams East County Office. Keller Williams is an innovative realty company currently numbering almost 50 agents locally. The company is whole-heartedly supporting our Winter Wonderland efforts. Even more than that, however, the company has created a culture that encourages employees to find projects that will have a positive impact on the communities in which we live and work.

Keller Williams especially cares for its employees and fosters a spirit of generosity that spreads through the entire workforce. In the spirit of “charity begins at home,” the company has created an internal organization, called KW Cares, which administers a relief fund for agents who work for the company. We raised thousands of dollars, for example, for relief of fellow-agents affected by the recent hurricanes in Florida.

In fact, we attended a “Mega-Agent Camp” in Austin, Texas during the Florida hurricanes. While there we raised $10,000 to donate to the Florida relief fund for the agents who were devastated by the floods.

Our local branch of the fund, called KW Cares East County, is responsible for raising $6,000 this year. Half of that goes directly into the community.

Keller Williams’ philosophy of business is one of “for the agents; by the agents.” Rather than being mere employees, for example, the company gave the two of us the opportunity to become partners, empowering us to engage in the real estate industry as an enterprise that we ourselves own.

In other words, rather than operating as a traditional company, with a hierarchy running from senior management to lower-level employees, we’re a team within a company. Our partnership has hired four employees to manage the other aspects of our own business.

We called our partnership “Your Home Team.” As a result, we are able to tell prospective clients, “We’re a team of full-time realtors who are working together to make you successful in your search for a perfect home or selling your home.”

The company gives us tools we need in order to expand business in an intelligent way. We work smarter not harder. The business plans are written for us; we simply modify them for our own purposes.

Helping Others While Doing Good for Ourselves
The impact of our deliberate philosophy of working together to reach our goals extends far beyond making positive-sounding slogans. We really do run our activities in a purposeful mode working a business plan that targets families.

An important part of our plan of reaching families is that we don’t undertake community outreach activities on an ad hoc basis. Finding ways to give back to the community is part of our core mission statement.

Trying to improve our communities makes perfect business sense. If we are serious about reaching area families, it is only logical that we do our part in maintaining the area as an excellent place for families to live and to play.

The Keller Williams culture encourages its employees to live by faith — stepping out in service to God, family, and business, in that order of priority. The message corporate keeps sending down to us in many ways is, “It’s not about the money. It’s about creating lives worth living, careers worth having, and businesses worth owning.

So through our Winter Wonderland project we are merely taking our place in the corporate environment that our company seeks to foster.

One great outreach activity that we were involved in was creating thousands of programs for the Liberty High School football team. We were drawn to this because of our opinion that the quality of the programs distributed in recent years failed to reflect the excellence that we wanted for our local public school. So we printed 8.5 X 11 full color programs that made our school athletic program, and by implication the school itself, look good.

Combining practical with values-based business principles has moved Keller Williams into position as the fastest growing, most creative, and most innovative company in North America.

Each of us is rewarded for being the person we ought to be. New employees from other agencies join us and in two months we see their attitudes and demeanors change. They quickly figure out that we’re a family; there are no back-room deal-making, secretive things going on by which a clique of senior people protect the most lucrative opportunities for themselves.

We’re changing the image some people have of realtors as being similar to used car salesmen. We’re conducting ourselves as ambassadors of good will, bringing services to the community that enrich people’s lives.

Family Affair
Our conventions are called “family-reunions.” After attending the first one, everyone realizes that the name is a good one.

We deliberately blur the line between business and friendship. We become part of many of the families that we deal with. They regularly invite us to family gatherings such as Christmas dinners and weddings. Our lives couldn’t be richer. We are enriched by our clients in ways that go far beyond mere profits.

We’re working moms ourselves with strong personal traditions involving our core values. We both want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

The company is based upon sharing. We freely share educational opportunities and resources. The principle of sharing runs the gamut from national, through regional, down to local offices. Incidentally, we call these “market centers,” rather than “offices,” to emphasize the goal-oriented nature of our way of doing business.

The clearest illustration of Keller Williams’ principle of generosity is the profit-sharing plan that we all participate in, which is the icing on the cake as far as most of us are concerned. Each month the company gives back to the agents 48% of the net profit that was earned in that month. Agents who have been with the company for a while often make $8,000 a month in profit sharing. Even better, after three years agents become vested for life. Not only does this continue for the agents’ entire lifetime, but it also becomes part of their estate — willable to children or other beneficiaries.

It is wonderful to see how Keller Williams integrates values-based principles in every part of its operations — from agents, to their clients, to their communities.

We like to think of our outreach projects as having a Norman Rockwell quality about them, illustrating the values that we try to conduct ourselves by. For sure, when the Winter Wonderland thing becomes reality, someone like Rockwell could bring his easel by and get hundreds of inspiring pictures.

Brentwood is an awesome place to live and raise children. It is a wonderful family oriented community with a lot of heartwarming traditional values. So we’re really committed to our Winter Wonderland dream as one way to bring families together and give them a reason to stay in Brentwood.

Give us a ring at 925-392-4131or send an email to judyandsheri@sbcglobal. We would love for you to dream along with us!