2019 Pre-Conference Sessions Announced
NASMM is excited to announce dynamic, hands-on, preconference intensives for our upcoming 2019 Conference. Pre-conference intensives will be held on Thursday, March 7 from 9:00 am - 4:00 pm. Lunch is included in the cost for the pre-conference. Fees for all day pre-conference sessions start at $299 per person.

Pre-Conference 1: Game Change: 5 Key Strategies to Grow Your SMM Business
No single strategy creates growth. Successful companies of all sizes are the result of planning, training, systems, infrastructure and leadership. This 5-part, full-day intensive explores these critical five ingredients that will take your company to the next level. Led by two of the most progressive leaders in the Senior Move Management profession, you will gain insights and strategies you can immediately implement to grow your company!

Faculty: Margit Novack, Moving Solutions, Havertown, PA; and Marty Stevens-Heebner, Clear Home Solutions, Sherman Oaks, CA

Pre-Conference 2: Mastering Your Space Planning Skills from Scale to 3D
Some professionals might be able to get away with approximating spaces, as their goal is to generalize sizing of the overall building and interior sizes. But Senior Move Managers need to fit as many items as possible into teeny, tiny spaces and require the highest level of accuracy. Choosing the correct measuring methods and tools for the desired outcome is critical to successful senior move projects.

Learn to say, 'No thanks — I'll create my own plan. Expensive mistakes are often caused by using incorrect measurements at the beginning of your project. When using community provided floor plans, too often SMM's find out 'on moving day' that their client's items won't fit. Sound trivial to you? It's not! Errors cascade and cost you; Money, Time, Trust, Reputation & Referrals. Learn the latest methods, devices and best-practices to utilize when conducting your site-visits.

In this action and information packed full day intensive, you'll learn how easy it is to measure, sketch space plan and organize project information faster and more efficiently than ever before. From understanding scale to 3D space planning, we'll teach you how to: Information Gather, Measure Twice, Move and Install Once!

Faculty: Donna Barlett, ViewIT Technologies, Burlington, ON

Legacy Navigator Acquires Moving Solutions
Richmond based Legacy Navigator, a leader in estate transition services, announced this week they have acquired Moving Solutions, based in Havertown, PA. Company President Margit Novack founded Moving Solutions in 1996 and is widely recognized as the pioneer of the senior move management industry. Novack served as the Founding President of the NASMM.

"Legacy Navigator compliments Moving Solutions perfectly," Novack said. "We both help families work through tough emotional transitions like senior moves and downsizing. Joining Legacy Navigator ensures that Moving Solutions will grow to help even more families and in more ways."
Read more.

Barry Izsak~Peg Guild Scholarship Applications
The Barry Izsak ~ Peg Guild Professional Development Scholarship was established in 2013 to help NASMM members who might otherwise not be able to attend the NASMM Annual Conference for financial or other extenuating circumstances. Each year, the NASMM Board will select two (2) scholarship recipients who will receive a complimentary conference registration for the following year.

Applications are due by Friday, September 14. Click here to learn more and apply.

Rescued from Obscurity: How Discarded Items Become Treasures
What is the value of a worn door from a shabby New York hotel, spray-painted with an X and thrown out during renovation? If the door was to Jack Kerouac's room, $37,500. For Bob Dylan's door, a whopping $125,000. How about a dilapidated house that a 1950s civil rights activist spent time in? At least $1 million. Most people would abandon items like these. But for others, the response is different: Cherish it the way someone else might prize a Picasso or a Renoir.
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Before You Move in With Family: A Checklist
Multigenerational housing can make sense in many ways: Older parents can be near their adult children in the event of health issues or emergencies, and when there are young grandchildren, having another set of adults around can make child-rearing easier. But there are a number of things that should be sorted out before deciding to share a home.
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Baby Boomers Bode Well for CCRCs
Continuing care retirement communities are expected to hold much appeal to baby boomers, and the good news is, the first wave of boomers will be entering the target age range for such communities within the next five years, notes a new "Market Insight" report from CBRE.
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Stuff — A Cluttered Life: Middle-Class Abundance
Why do Americans have so much stuff? And how much is too much? At what point do the toys and objects that fill middle-class homes become overwhelming to the people who live in them? In the first episode of this three-part series, three UCLA social scientists present a stunning, visual ethnography that reveals the material culture of dual-income, child-centered households featured in their new book, "Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors." Follow a team of UCLA anthropologists as they venture into the stuffed-to-capacity homes of dual income, middle-class American families in order to truly understand the food, toys, and clutter that fill them.
Watch here.

There's a window, and once it closes, it closes forever
"There's a window, and once it closes, it closes forever." Len Fishman, director of the University of Massachusetts Boston's Gerontology Institute, was talking about an urgent issue in a society that values "aging in place": deciding the right time to leave your home and move into housing for seniors.
Read more.