Warm Weather Tips - Why?

Here's a copy of the unpublished "Warm Weather Tips" for BLMH.

These were never published. I discussed the merits of such tips with the board early in 2018 and it was agreed they might be useful.   As usual, the Rules & Regulations Director didn't want to do this. So I  prepared them and they were presented to the board. After I got some feedback I revised these tips, but they were never used.

One concern was the fact that these tips were primarily about our rules.  However, that was intentional. In the warm weather violations go up. Flower pots are rested on second floor balcony railings above other owners heads. We have extensive grounds and some owners want to move into the common areas for the summer. They would love public parties, firepits, BBQs, sports games, and even portable pools.   Some would enjoy flea markets and so on.  Some store their cars on the street or parking areas and then leave for weeks or months.  That causes serious problems for maintenance crews and contractors.

However the rules prohibit all of the above.

Experienced board members, or those members who walk the grounds or interface with maintenance, management and contractors know of all of these issues. They are very visible. There are work stoppages in the summer while management attempts to locate the owners of automobiles parked while seal coating is underway, or a water main issue occurs and so on. Sometimes management gets calls from "out of towners" to advise them that "Our vacation is over, we are returning and could you check our car and put air in the tires for us?"  Etc.

Under my leadership there were frequent board discussions about fairness wherein all owners are treated equally. There were also discussions of issues from owner interference with contractors, both accidental and deliberate.

The summer tips were designed to answer questions and provide guidance to owners. In an association where we have difficulty getting a quorum of owners to vote, and seldom did more than six attend monthly meetings from the period 2011-2018, these types of newsletter communications made sense.

However, our most senior board member argued against these communications.  The position was basically "owners who are interested should come to meetings." But they don't! That attitude is why these tips were never published.

Nevertheless, I do think communications has merit. I pointed out to the boards of 2010-2018 that it would be preferred that owners be informed this way, rather than showing up in small numbers at meetings to simply ask the same questions over and over. Residents also call management office and do the same this.

But the rebuttal was "No one reads the newsletter."  That's a very self serving opinion, isn't it?

Running Offense, Defense and Cleanup

After 10 years of involvement, deep involvement in this association, I can say that I left nothing on the table. I knew the problems after several years of research. I knew what needed to be done because of my years of experience. I also knew how to deal with adversity, and win.

More than a few attempted to stop where I was leading this association, but I was able to recruit three in eight years who did their best, put their personal agendas to the side, and really did what they could. As for the others, they operated somewhere between "personal agenda" first, "do nothing" second or "get in the way" third.

Winter Tips - Coming Eventually to Our Residents and Owners

Hint: Clicking on the image below will open it in "full screen" mode. Using your browser "zoom" feature you can enlarge it. I uploaded a better version which is quite readable. This is the November, 2017 version:

It is my understanding that the Board elected in September has decided to abandon the newsletter.  I'll explain.  I sent a copy of the Winter Tips to the board member who made a request for the template for the newsletter. I created a new, simpler one for her. I also sent the Winter Tips and reminded that these are sent to residents and owners before winter sets in.

Apparently, this is too much of a work load for the new board. So it was decided during the November 8 meeting, after missing the publishing of the September-October Newsletter to simply reduce the number of newsletters per year from six to four.  Voila' problem is solved.

I can assure the reader that I spent more time setting up the templates, sending several emails to the new board, etc. for the purpose of getting a newsletter to the residents and owners than the current board did. This is precisely why I am no longer on the board. Far too many 'do little' or 'do nothing' people out there, and I've re-evaluated where to put my considerable talents. Certainly, no longer will I cover the butts of the 'do nothings'.

An abridged version of the "Winter Tips" will eventually get to owners, probably with their December fee invoice. I understand it has been modified by one board member because it was "too wordy."

Ok, so a single board member (who has about one years experience) made this decision, and didn't send or provide the new text to the other board members before this decision was made. Hmmm, sounds like we are back to the old autocracy where one rules and the rest do whatever pleases them, assuming they can get it past the "pod queen".

Before the old Winter Tips vanish from the face of the earth, I'm putting a copy here.

1TB of Data, 30,000 photos, Hundreds of Videos and 7 Boxes of Documents

I'm in the process of winding down from my HOA board commitment. I'm putting a lot of stuff into storage and that will free up my home office.

I've got thousands of emails, tens of thousands of photos I took, hundreds of videos, including all of the HOA meetings from 2008 through 2017. Then there are 7 boxes of paper documents, samples of water mains including failed sections, aluminum flashing, carpeting, engineering blue prints and so on.

I accumulated this as a consequence of my job. As our professional manager once said to another board member "Norm doesn't do anything without a reason." He also gave me a brief acknowledgement during the annual meeting, stating: "With Norm, I learned a lot, at times more than I actually wanted to!" Owners and boards fail to comprehend that our management is not our engineer, our project engineer and our accounting firm. These are skills I honed over decades and I was once told that I "was the best systems engineer in the industry."  So I took it upon myself to become even better, and passed as much as I could on to others, to empower them in their lives. So too for our managers, boards and owners.  Those newsletters were written with a purpose.

In the course of my duties, I took on the challenge of learning and mentoring, or "sharing".  I've been that way for decades. That's how one builds successful businesses, particularly those on the "leading edge". In our HOA I took on the challenge of acquiring the knowledge necessary and then using it with my considerable skill so I, and others, could do the best possible job as fiducies.  Some of our board rose to the challenge and others did not. That's the way it is in society.

We are each limited by who we are, by our skills and our knowledge and our condition as human beings. But we can improve and grow. It is a choice. Every day is a choice and that includes how we spend our time.

I put some of my approach, issues and solutions out here in the blog.

Now, as I decompress, it is time to move on.

As a unit owner I'll continue to observe this association, and I'm sure I'll send my suggestions to the board of 2019. Assuming I am here longer, who knows, I may participate to a higher level.

It is important to state that I only actually have lived in my unit for about 25% of the time for several years. I would have been here less, had it not been for my commitment on the board. That commitment I never broke.  I described my efforts at a transition to a business manager yesterday. This is something which I've been orchestrating for more that a year.  She told me she was impressed by my attempt and told me "What you did is unusual."

9,000 emails - Whew!

Communications is critical in a Homeowner's Association.  The problem is that someone has to formulate that communications in a responsible way.

Among board members, that may mean preferring phone calls.  We aren't up to the level of "groupware" yet. In fact, regular access to a PC or the ownership of a "smart" phone is not a board requirement. However, with free email readily available (such as gmail) and a nearby college and the computers of the public library, it is possible for even those board members who don't have high speed internet at home to access email on a frequent basis.

Of course, that is not adequate when there are urgent matters to attend to.

Is a phone a problem? Well let me simply state that in our HOA we've had cliques formed from time to time among board members. That means a small group stays in communications, keeps others in the dark and then runs the agenda of their leader. That has been a problem in our HOA from time to time. It is a great way to hold and consolidate power, and it is a great way of manipulating the process while keeping other board members in the dark.  Politics and these types of power games have no place in a HOA and among the board, but this is reality. Not everyone should be on a HOA board, not everyone is willing to act as a team player, not everyone is willing to be a fiduciary and some do prefer to play these types of games.

I prefer email and that generally worked. Why my preference?

1. It is self documenting - information can be formatted, proofed and sent to everyone who needs to be informed. 
2. It can be forwarded to interested parties, and to others who "need to be in the know".  This is particularly valuable when promises are being made, timelines and dates established or duties and requests are being made. 
3. People act differently when writing email. It's amazing how much more cordial and thoughtful people can be when they know whatever they send can be printed and distributed. There is no "he said/she said" confusion. 
4. It can be sent to everyone on the board, or just those board members who must be informed. For example, financial needs or info or requests to the Treasurer, with copies to the vice-president and to management.
5. It can be prepared in advance, saved as a draft and then sent at the opportune time. For example, I preferred not to send emails to management on the weekend. They are entitled to time off, and I didn't want the emails to get buried. I don't know about others, but until recently because of business, I frequently received 100 emails, or more, each day. These were all directed to me and required some sort of a response. 
6. If used properly, it can be readily searched and threads are apparent. 
7. If a unique subject line identifier is used, then even large email databases can be searched. For example, if the HOA initials are used as a subject item, such as BLM. 

Email does have limitations.

1. Some people will refuse or avoid using it. In particularly those who are lazy, don't want to be accountable or responsible. Sadly, that's not the way it should be in a volunteer organization which is supposed to be comprised of fiduciaries who are supposed to be on a team and share the load. But this is reality we are talking about. So some won't use it, won't reply to emails and so on. The most intransigent will argue against communications. We've had one board member who has argued this way, going so far at to take the position "No one reads the Newsletters" as a position to avoid writing articles. Sad!
2. I say "if used properly" because that requires sticking to the "Subject" in each email thread and creating a new email for new subjects and topics. You would be surprised how many people use email as a kind of "stream of consciousness" communications device.
3. Likewise, it is easy to create "data storms" where people begin to respond to an email, then a thread, and then to another thread. Get five or more board members doing this over a day or so and it is almost impossible to deal with the messages which become cross-threaded and jumbled. 
4. Email should not be used to avoid public discussions during association meetings. But some boards use it that way. 

How many emails did I send or receive during my short time as a board member?

About 9,000 emails according to my records! 

Waiting for the September - October Newsletter

If you haven't yet received your association newsletter, there is a good reason. The new board is figuring out how to accomplish this.

Am I surprised? Not at all. I'm not sure who the President is, because that will be revealed in the newsletter, when I receive it. However I can state that if it is the longest standing board member (30 year, GHUA) then I can say that communications is not her forte. Which is why, even with 30 years on the board, you don't have your Sept-Oct newsletter.

On October 31 the previous Maintenance Director and I did receive an email from a current board member "Would you have an old copy of the newsletter and a version of the software you used to edit that you could send me? Sent from my iPhone so forgive Siri's interpretations."

I discussed with our previous maintenance director and I prepared a new "template" to send to the board member who originated this email. I also sent subsequent emails which detailed who the printer was, the requirement to send a pdf copy to our Management so they could put it on the association website, the issue of our "Winter Tips" insert for owners and so on.

"Hello XXXX:
Attached are two "templates" for the newsletter; I'm copying [our former maintenance director, who was responsible for the most recent newsletters]. This should address your request.

Board members have never been provided with software for our tasks. We use our home or office PCs and our own software; there are licensing and transfer issues.

To assist other board members I did lend laptop PCs to them (the 2014 version of the "Welcoming Packet" was created this way).

I created the version of the newsletter used since 2011 with Microsoft Word, a simple word processor. I wanted it to be as transportable as possible. One of the attachments I this email ends with the file extension ".doc" and is compatible with Word versions 1997-2003. The other file has a ".docx" extension with is compatible with newer versions of Microsoft Word.

 The "template" I have attached is a actually simple Word document constructed of text boxes. Whomever uses it will have to do the following:

1. Update date at the top of Newsletter.
2. Insert Masthead photo (replace with "insert photo") and I suggest the photo be edited and cropped so as to be less than 500 kb in size to avoid creating massive and difficult to use or transport MS word files.
3. Insert text in the appropriate text boxes and add the Director's or author's name.
4. Update the rear page to include the dates of future meetings and the names, onsite addresses and email addresses of the various board members.

This template accommodates up to six board members. Of course, the verbiage on the rear page should be modified to suit the current board culture. I sent the completed newsletter to the printer as a PDF file. However, I did not use MS-Word pdf print because it does sometimes create massive pdf files. I used my version of Corel PDF fusion. For example, most of my PDF transmitted newsletters were less than 350kb, which are easy to send via email. . If you have any questions, please contact me,"

I received this reply to my email:
"All very helpful, thank you!  I use Microsoft Version X and 365, so should be fine.
Sent from my iPhone so forgive Siri's interpretations "

I sent a somewhat tongue and cheek reply about "Siri's interpretations", although it probably wasn't interpreted as such:

"I'm glad to assist [you] and Siri. After you open the files then you will actually know if they are helpful or not.......   "Sent from my iPhone so forgive Siri's interpretations" which is why I will not use Apple's bots."  LOL.

Although there was no further request or comments, I sent additional emails with document transmittals:

"Hello XXXX:
In the fall a single page insert of “Winter Tips” is inserted into the newsletter. In 2017 this was in the Sept-Oct newsletter issued in October. It should be inserted in the next newsletter to deliver to the owners before freezing and snow hits the association.

 You didn’t ask about this. I discussed with [our former maintenance director] this morning and I am taking the liberty of sending a Word version and a PDF version to you. This version is dated October 18, 2017 (_____20171018.xxx)."

I then sent an email to our printer, to notify them of the procedural change:

"Hello Ken and Sheryl;

We have a new board and [our former maintenance director] and I will no longer be involved in the printing of the newsletters for our Association.

I’m copying [the current director who is apparently doing the newsletter] who I think will be your new contact.

Thanks for your good work while [xxxxx] and I were on the board. "

I then sent the following email about this to the current board member:

"Hello [xxxx];

 I don’t know if you have the complete procedure, or what procedure you intend to use. Nevertheless, here is the way it was previously done (approx 2011 to Sept 2018). This may be helpful.

 1. We send a pdf to the printer with instructions and they print it. When [xxxxx] was doing the newsletter she would pick it up at the printer’s and the bill. We had the newsletter collated and split into two groups. One group for distribution on the property. The other for mailing by management to the offsite owners. The bill with the offsite bundle was turned over to management.
2. The printer we used is A-Reliable on Roosevelt Road west of Park.
3. A pdf copy of the newsletter and any inserts are emailed to Rosemary at G&D with a request that she put it on the WWW.BLMH.org website. servicemanager@gd-pm.com

Here’s the text of the email that was used to print in October 2017. This was emailed to a-reliableprinting@sbcglobal.net

You probably would want to send them an email to the printer to introduce yourself. I have sent an email to A-reliable and copied you to advise them of a change in personnel and to expect to be contacted, most likely by you.

“Hi Ken and Cheryl;
This is for Briarcliffe Lakes Manor Homes newsletter for September-October, 2017. I’m sending this because xxxxx] DSL modem is down and she asked me to do so. [xxxxx] will pick up the newsletter when it is ready. She can be reached at 630-nnn-nnnn.

 Attached are two documents for printing.

These are to be B&W as usual (grayscale photos);

 1. 11x17 Newsletter to be printed front and rear and folded to give four 8-1/2 x 11 pages (pages 3 and 4 are numbered).

2. 8-1/2 x 11 “Winter Maintenance Tips” to be inserted into the folded newsletter. We’ll need 430 copies split into two groups, (1) 340 and (1) 90. .

 Thanks, and have a good day! Norman Retzke”


I then sent a final email to the board member:
"Hello xxxx;
 1. The frequency was every other month; six per year, with newsletters issued Jan-Feb, March-April, May-June, July-Aug, Sept-Oct, Nov-Dec.
 2. We included a special insert in the fall. October or November preferred months for the “Winter Tips.”
3. A Warm Weather Tips” newsletter insert was created in March 2018 by me, was reviewed by the board but there was no agreement reached to issue it to owners and residents. So it was not used. I have a copy. The purpose was to provide guidance to residents about the property during mild weather. A lot was based upon rules and the “does and don’ts” on the property.

 The association website has many of the newsletters, and these can be viewed or downloaded. WWW.BLMH.org I sent you a copy of the Winter Tips via a separate email."

==========================================

That's all I can do. The rest is up to the board!  I no longer have any obligations to this homeowner's association beyond keeping the rules, which includes paying my monthly fees. I am no longer a fiduciary. Yay!

Unless there are specific, timely requests,  then I no longer have anything to do with the operation of this homeowner's association.

I've not yet received a single phone call from  a current board member. That's not a surprise.

I did send a letter via US Mail to the newest board member with some information that had been provided to the board of 2018 and which was discussed during the annual meeting. I felt it was appropriate that the new board member be given necessary background information, which included a copy of the letter from the City of Wheaton about our water mains. A copy of that letter was included in the monthly packet given to the board in June, as I recall.