EllenS1
(Florida)
Posts:353
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| 07/11/2008 2:13 PM |
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Glen,
I'm not saying change is always necessary but exploring change and then deciding if it is a better way to go doesn't hurt. Hey, cavemen got fire by rubbing two stones together but we have improved on that...LOL |
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EllenS1
(Florida)
Posts:353
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| 07/11/2008 2:26 PM |
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KIRK,
I am confused..be explicit. What does "health of the property" mean? |
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/11/2008 2:43 PM |
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Kirk,
I appreciate your comments. Our HOA does have a webpage,a quarterly newsletter, a clubhouse but no pool. With 1200 houses, it is hard to know what the demographics are in each household unless with took a survey. Since we are walking distance to the supposedly best high school in the state, it is a big draw for families with teens. Half of the households could have children under the age of 12yrs. I just don't know. But we are a diverse neighborhood with many foreign-born professionals as well as retirees and single professionals. Because our Social Committee is overrepresented by
Moms of young children, (6 out of 7, I am the only mother of teens on the committee) the focus of the planning and the majority of the funds were being spent children's activities and they were overruling me w/ my suggestions for Teen events and Adults only events. I took the issue before the Board which agreed with me in all fairness. The Halloween party, Pictures w/ Santa, and Pictures with the Easter Bunny has no appeal for the Teens and other adults. However parents of young children think this is great. The Board seems to be happy that we are having any social events.
My proposal is that the parties reflect the demographics of the neighborhood in a fair manner. I am going to have to read our by-laws to see if budgeting for social events is permitted. By the way, what is CC & R's ?
thanks,
Brenda |
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/11/2008 2:43 PM |
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Kirk,
I appreciate your comments. Our HOA does have a webpage,a quarterly newsletter, a clubhouse but no pool. With 1200 houses, it is hard to know what the demographics are in each household unless with took a survey. Since we are walking distance to the supposedly best high school in the state, it is a big draw for families with teens. Half of the households could have children under the age of 12yrs. I just don't know. But we are a diverse neighborhood with many foreign-born professionals as well as retirees and single professionals. Because our Social Committee is overrepresented by
Moms of young children, (6 out of 7, I am the only mother of teens on the committee) the focus of the planning and the majority of the funds were being spent children's activities and they were overruling me w/ my suggestions for Teen events and Adults only events. I took the issue before the Board which agreed with me in all fairness. The Halloween party, Pictures w/ Santa, and Pictures with the Easter Bunny has no appeal for the Teens and other adults. However parents of young children think this is great. The Board seems to be happy that we are having any social events.
My proposal is that the parties reflect the demographics of the neighborhood in a fair manner. I am going to have to read our by-laws to see if budgeting for social events is permitted. By the way, what is CC & R's ?
thanks,
Brenda |
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/11/2008 3:30 PM |
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Donna,
The developer is in the process of turning over the HOA to our Board. Last year the Developer had a neighborhood-wide cookout that cost about $5000.00. We had a fairly good turnout. So the $5000.00 for the Social Committee came from this amount that was allotted by the developer for that one party. Our turnout has been low, no event yet has had more than 60 participants. I guess the thinking is that if we carve up the pie to offer a variety of events, there will be at least one event that will appeal to each neighbor. At the events that we have had so far, we always have the attendees complete a survey as to what events they would like to see offered.
Brenda |
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/11/2008 3:30 PM |
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Donna,
The developer is in the process of turning over the HOA to our Board. Last year the Developer had a neighborhood-wide cookout that cost about $5000.00. We had a fairly good turnout. So the $5000.00 for the Social Committee came from this amount that was allotted by the developer for that one party. Our turnout has been low, no event yet has had more than 60 participants. I guess the thinking is that if we carve up the pie to offer a variety of events, there will be at least one event that will appeal to each neighbor. At the events that we have had so far, we always have the attendees complete a survey as to what events they would like to see offered.
Brenda |
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/11/2008 4:07 PM |
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Bruce,
I have copied all of your nuggets of wisdom about the issues involved w/ the Board sponsored social events. Thanks for drawing our attention to all the liability issues. It makes me want to rethink whether we should have any Board sponsored social events. How about a Welcoming Committee greeting new neighbors w/ a bottle of wine ? No, just kidding, nobody is going to go for that. Yes, I'm all for dividing up the pie in a fair way, without one demographic getting the lion's share of the Budget. Isn't this what a democracy is all about, taxation with representation.
It is just that there is always disagreement as to what those allottments should be.
thanks,
Brenda |
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/11/2008 4:07 PM |
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Bruce,
I have copied all of your nuggets of wisdom about the issues involved w/ the Board sponsored social events. Thanks for drawing our attention to all the liability issues. It makes me want to rethink whether we should have any Board sponsored social events. How about a Welcoming Committee greeting new neighbors w/ a bottle of wine ? No, just kidding, nobody is going to go for that. Yes, I'm all for dividing up the pie in a fair way, without one demographic getting the lion's share of the Budget. Isn't this what a democracy is all about, taxation with representation.
It is just that there is always disagreement as to what those allottments should be.
thanks,
Brenda |
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GlenL
(Ohio)
Posts:1375
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| 07/11/2008 5:38 PM |
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Posted By BrendaM4 on 07/11/2008 2:43 PM
By the way, what is CC & R's ?
Brenda CC&R's means COVENANTS, CONDITIONS & RESTRICTIONS the governing documents of the Association.
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KirkW1
(Texas)
Posts:1145
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| 07/11/2008 6:25 PM |
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I was not the one to originally use the phrase "health of the property," but would generally expect it to mean protecting one's investment and property values.
I think it is probably a good idea to do a demographic survey and find out the makeup of your neighborhood. It is also wise to not allow any group to hijack the funds for their special items (kid's parties).
One thing you could also look at is if you survey your neighbors, ask why they didn't attend the large cookout. Some times you can learn more by looking into why someone doesn't participate then asking why those that do choose to. |
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/11/2008 8:06 PM |
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I guess we will have to break down and spend the time and money to do a demographic survey of the entire neighborhood. But everyone knows what kind of response that will be, very spotty w/ the responses. It will require a lot of follow up to get the surveys back. Has anyone canvassed a large neighborhood for this kind of info.- i.e. what kind of social activities are desired ?
Brenda
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/11/2008 8:06 PM |
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I guess we will have to break down and spend the time and money to do a demographic survey of the entire neighborhood. But everyone knows what kind of response that will be, very spotty w/ the responses. It will require a lot of follow up to get the surveys back. Has anyone canvassed a large neighborhood for this kind of info.- i.e. what kind of social activities are desired ?
Brenda
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GlenL
(Ohio)
Posts:1375
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| 07/11/2008 9:03 PM |
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| Brenda we're nowhere as large as you but we sent out a survey which allowed anyone who responded to remain anonymous to all the homeowners asking about 25 questions concerning the community along with a stamped self addressed return envelope. Basically all they had to do was check a few boxes and drop it in the mail and we got about 40-45% of the people to respond. |
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RobertR1
(South Carolina)
Posts:2154
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| 07/12/2008 4:44 AM |
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Glan,
I think it shows great concern for your group to put together a survey.
I am curious, because I know how you described this little survey takes some thought, organization, a little money, a lot of time and then the effort to determine what is reported. How large is your organization and how did this all come about. We have 100 units and through our web site we could easily do something like this. Wonder if our response would be better than thru mail. Our web site is tricky, we go along with daily hit figures that are pretty constant, won't mention numbers as don't want to mis-speak. Our web naster will, on occasion send a "Hot Scoop" message the the hits will spike up and then back to pretty much normal. I think we are shooting for a more interactive site but that will take time as our Board in the past would not allow a "Comments or Talk site, site as this." Don't ask,I haven't got a clue what they would be concerned about, right now we are in the process of waking our sleeping giant (owners) and see if we can make them growl a little, and also purr.
Thanks for any comments. I don'tknow if this deserves a separate Topic or not. |
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GlenL
(Ohio)
Posts:1375
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| 07/12/2008 7:47 AM |
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| Robert we have 132 units here. We did it because I got tired of a few people showing up to complain about things claiming to speak for the silent majority. So I asked my fellow Board Members for permission to do the questionnaire to find out what was truly on the minds of the members and what their true concerns were. They approved and I sat down and came up with the questions which I ran by the rest of the BOD. I had sections on Appearance and Landscaping, Recreation, Safety, Maintenance Issues, Social and Community Issues and The Future. Printing and postage cost around a $100.00, the president donated her time to collate the replies and I used the newsletter to let everyone know the results. Using the website for something similar sounds OK but you need to put some protection in place to keep one or two people or outsiders from voting multiple times and skewing the results. |
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RobertR1
(South Carolina)
Posts:2154
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| 07/12/2008 9:54 AM |
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Glen,
Thank you for your candid reply.
I have a hunch the reason you did what you did is how a ton of things get done in associations. If you won't do them they won't get done. That's ok also if what we done gives us our reward. I am not sure how long you have been involved with all this but probably long enough some Regimes do a good job, others do a bad job, and if truth was know the ones run badly take more time to getthe job done.
Also I speak in part about the Websites and the potential that is coming down the track to really make this a wonderful tool for associations. As always we have to be aware pitfuls along the wait. |
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KirkW1
(Texas)
Posts:1145
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| 07/12/2008 9:59 AM |
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Brenda,
You don't actually have to survey every house in the neighborhood to get reasonably accurate results. You do have to take the correct sample though. If you have 1200 houses, I would start with 120 houses. Then get some volunteers to actually go out and ask the neighbors.
I would request a list of the addresses and simply take every tenth address from the list for the sample. You probably won't get all 120, but if you can talk to 100 of them you will be pretty well off.
The biggest issue you might face is that with a neighborhood your size, you may find that you have several sub neighborhoods with different demographics. But I would start with something quite simple. Perhaps the number of people in various age ranges. |
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/12/2008 2:27 PM |
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Glen,
I would say you got a great response from your residents. Must be an active community who really care about what's going on. Postage for such a large neighborhood can be quite costly. If we post the survey on the web page I am afraid the response will be so low that it won't be useful.
Brenda |
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/12/2008 2:27 PM |
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Glen,
I would say you got a great response from your residents. Must be an active community who really care about what's going on. Postage for such a large neighborhood can be quite costly. If we post the survey on the web page I am afraid the response will be so low that it won't be useful.
Brenda |
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/12/2008 2:30 PM |
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Kirk,
That's good advice that I think we will try. I really appreciate all of the useful information I have gotten from this forum. Obviously, many of you have years of experience w/ your HOA and we can learn from you.
thanks,
Brenda
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/12/2008 2:30 PM |
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Kirk,
That's good advice that I think we will try. I really appreciate all of the useful information I have gotten from this forum. Obviously, many of you have years of experience w/ your HOA and we can learn from you.
thanks,
Brenda
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/12/2008 2:31 PM |
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Kirk,
That's good advice that I think we will try. I really appreciate all of the useful information I have gotten from this forum. Obviously, many of you have years of experience w/ your HOA and we can learn from you.
thanks,
Brenda
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/12/2008 2:32 PM |
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Has anyone noticed that the clock is about five hours off ?
Brenda |
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/12/2008 2:32 PM |
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Has anyone noticed that the clock is about five hours off ?
Brenda |
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RobertR1
(South Carolina)
Posts:2154
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| 07/12/2008 2:44 PM |
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Brenda,
Quick, tell me if I am five hours early or five hours late, I never noticed. |
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KirkW1
(Texas)
Posts:1145
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| 07/12/2008 3:55 PM |
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In looking back over this, I realized that there was a question of doing it on the web. I can say that I personally would be more likely to respond to a web survey. Even before the advent of the web I always seemed to have problems getting things mailed.
One thing I would say is if you do a web based survey, you should consider usability. My city's Parks and Rec board recently put up a survey. A couple times they wanted me to order priorities on more then 15 items. And to complete the survey all had to have a unique priorities. This was a waste as I didn't care by the time I was past 10. And this is normal. I would say that only the top three to five choices are valid in this type of question. |
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/12/2008 4:05 PM |
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Robert,
The clock indicates that your post came at 10:43pm which hasn't occurred yet. I suspect that it was 5:43pm instead of 10;43pm July 12th. So that makes the clock five hours later than it really is. Go figure
Brenda |
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/12/2008 4:05 PM |
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Robert,
The clock indicates that your post came at 10:43pm which hasn't occurred yet. I suspect that it was 5:43pm instead of 10;43pm July 12th. So that makes the clock five hours later than it really is. Go figure
Brenda |
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DwightT
(Idaho)
Posts:456
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| 07/12/2008 4:13 PM |
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Brenda - it's probably your settings. Go to 'My Account' at the top of the page then click on "Manage Settings". Next make sure your timezone is set correctly. For me Robert's post time shows 4:43pm. Your last one shows 5:45pm. The system should adjust the timestamp for the user's local time if the timezone is set correctly.
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BrendaM4
(Kentucky)
Posts:21
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| 07/12/2008 4:36 PM |
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Thanks, Dwight I was on Tijuana time so now I have the zone settings correctly set on Eastern time.
Brenda |
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