Ideas for Forming New Committees

See! I'm moving on from my toxic past President topic ...

The main reason I joined the Board of Directors of my HOA, was to try to possibly instill a sense of community in my neighborhood. I broached the idea of creating some committees at the last Board meeting and was met with some enthusiasm. I now want to have a get-together to discuss what types of committees, such as Neighborhood Watch, Welcoming, Events, etc. I'm afraid that the meeting will just be a lot of talking, instead of implementing. How best to go about this? Any ideas?

Committees can only be established as outlined in the bylaws. Usually, the Board establishes or "forms" a committee, "charges" it with a job or task, or the president appoints the chair, and that chair finds members to be on the committee from the general membership.

Go ahead and have your gathering. It will NOT be an official "meeting", rather what is called a mass meeting of interested people. Formulate some suggestions to take back to the Board for approval. Then present to the Board the need, ideas and role of the committee(s,) volunteers who will carry out the committee's job, formulate a prpoosed budget for this committee, and have the Board officially establish it. The Committee should meet on its own and report its progress back to the Board.

Just a suggestion:

It may work for you to appoint a single owner to head up a committee and then direct them to form a 3 or four or whatever committee. I see no reason the Board has to appoint all committee members. If this works have the leaders of each group make a proposal on money needs and what they plan to do, why and how.
I believe an effort should be made to stay away from strick rules. These folks are owners just like the Board, have the same responsibilities to the association and should have control of their efforts. Then at board meetings, left the committe leader give a report, for discussion by the Board, if needed.

SusanW1 - You are correct in that committees must be approved, voted by the Board to establish their legitimacy. However, KimB9 needs to let this groundswell of interest take shape and even the act of gathering to discuss forming a committee with the goal of presenting the ideas to the Board for approval will be a great event. What came first, the chicken or the egg? There actually is an answer to that question but you get the point.

Donald,
personally I feel more comfortable working under or with a Board that really knows their job. However I am no big fan of separating or drawing lines with committees. To me, it all goes into the same basket and if I want to make an issue of a parking problem and I am on the landscape committee, where's the problem? Therefore I am in favor of your wildcat committee. Much more productive to make good changes than argue about who is supposed to report to whom.

I have recently been elected to a "Grounds Coimmittee". I look upon the grounds as anything on the grounds that belongs to the association. This seems to be very difficult for those that always operate in the batters box, but your "free roaming committee" seems to have proved itself, and the reason is obvious. It's whose doing the work and is doing it for the better of the association.

Joe W.,
It would be hard to disagree with your evaluation. It is also realistic to observe what is common in most associations and is closer to the norm. I just had a conversation with a couple of long time owners of a condo. Ex=president and at this time in their life find they can maybe contribute more that that have in the past. I mentioned we should lower our quorum for meetings (annual). I stated we needed the flexibility to be able to make decisions in the event of a hurricaine. I said we needed some owners on site or close by to make emergency action. Their response was they didn't want a few select people making decisions about the developement. Fact is our Board Meetings are closed, our annual meeting has to use proxies for quorum, and for the past 18 years have had a cloned board because of little interest. What has happened over the past twenty years is a few select members and a cloned manager have made all the decisions. I venture to say this is not uncommon. We have nearly all off site owners with 70% rentals. I have been on at least two committees a year that produce little. The committees spin around making recommendations and the Board lets the manager decide what is to be done.

So, I conclude most organizations are run by few people, committees do not blend with this kind of structure and the success or failure of the association is how much integrity, and ability, is holding the reins. So, it appears if you want to effect change and get things back on track and get them there, then be very selective of who these few that are going to end up running the show. If you don't get excellent people and keep them and support them, and watch them, you are doomed to be less and less effective each year, until you run aground and are forced to take a hold.
I am much more critical as to who I support, board members or not. I can look back on a twenty year track record and to make the same mistakes with selecting the few and expecting different results just seems not the way to go. These associations are all products of their past, and apathetic owners standing down that don't care enough, leaves the concerned with reality that they best make smarter selections of who will be running the show. Then you can talk about effective committees.

RobertR1; this is RobertR1 reminding you of a habit you have, as do some others here that post advise to Owners or whoever, when they seek some help. This thread is a good example. I am not being critical of the advise offered, but just to remind me to think I really don't know enough about the seekers perdiciment. I give advice a lot of tmes because that is how it applies to my situation living in my condominium, in our particular area, with the approximate numbers of members I deal with.
Which brings up committees: some of the advise here differs but it ll could be workable given the help seekers situation. If your Management (like mine) has a dismal record of Board appointed committees, my advise will reflect what I have learned over the years about my associaton. So maybe it becomes; "Just do something, even if it needs tweaking down the road to mnake it work."

Amen Sister Susan,

Would that the members take a hold and not treat associations as something foreign, when you as a owner start to count the members that are responsible, your name is at the top of the list.

EllenS1,
Good work and also a good example of the subject. Our condo has grounds, gardens seawall beach, parking garage and 65 units pricing around 600K for a medium guess. We also fall under a POA that is made up of Property Owners from all Residencial areas. It is rare to have a POA board member from a condo association. We have too many rental units and only five full time residents. So different places require different tactics.

I am convinced that the quickest way to turn off a Regime is to have a management that talks everything to death and never takes action. 28 years with the Documents just revised a couple years ago has resulted with a bunch of like minded boards over the years. With about 70 % rental units you would think that someone has done a deed that earned a fine. Never happened and our Closed regular board meeting can last well over four hours.

But patience and determination does work and today a couple new board member had a special meeting called and inside of an hour have abolished closed board meetings. Great day for our place and the people I talked to that found out about it, sound like different people. People that gave up the fight years ago have a smile in their voice.
Good luck on your self determination to do the right thing, however it has to be done, and force them into taking some action. This no action in HOA's is as distructive as talking about progress and never leaving home plate.

I would offer this advice:

Decide as a board to start a single committee to deal with the "low hanging fruit." In our neighborhood there are a lot of people wanting to et to know their neighbors. We are now starting a social committee and charging them with National night Out and other activities.

In our view this is easily achieved and will have a big return for the investment in time. After this is under way we will work to form our next committee. But get someone with leadership to stay involved. Don't let any committee become a group of people saying yes to the actions of one. Should the one move or burn out the committee will fold. Instead focus on action.

I will focus our social committee to divy up the work and get on with it. Find out how much we as the board need to spend to make it a huge party.

What the most pressing thing is in your neighborhood may be different. If you need input, seek it out. Send out a survey. Get a web site with interaction. The thing is to get something going that people can see. Success breeds success.