David's Anthem Journal

ACE Issue 15: Advocate That A Board Member Not Serve On The Election Committee

It is the strong position of ACE, along with the ACE-supported candidates and most homeowners who have served as Election Committee members during the past several years, that a member of the Association Board of Directors should NOT serve on the Election Committee, and certainly not serve as chairperson of that Committee.

Some background: Nevada Revised Statute 116, which governs the activities of common-interest communities, is silent on the subject of election committees. But NRS 116,31034, Sect. 4, does address the subject of nominating committees, as follows:

Not less than 30 days before preparation of a ballot for the election of members of the executive board, the secretary or other officer specified in the bylaws of the association shall cause notice to be given to each unit’s owner of his eligibility to serve as a member of the executive board. Each unit’s owner who is qualified to serve as a member of the executive board may have his name placed on the ballot along with the names of the nominees selected by the members of the executive board or a nominating committee established by the association.

To understand the full meaning and implications of this NRS 116 section, we must then look to our Association By-Laws. Article III, Sect. A, Subsection 3.4 (a) reads (in part) as follows:

Nomination. – Prior to each election of directors, the Board shall prescribe the opening and closing date of a reasonable filing period in which all eligible persons who have an interest in serving as a director may file as a candidate for such positions. The Board shall establish such other rules and regulations as it deems appropriate to conduct the nomination of directors in a fair, efficient, and cost-effective manner.

Except with respect to directors appointed by the Declarant during the Declarant Control Period, nominations for election to the Board also shall be made by a nominating committee. The nominating committee shall consist of three or more Persons and a chairperson, who shall be a Board member. The remaining members of the nominating committee shall be Members.

The nominating committee may make as many nominations for election to the Board as it shall in its discretion determine. In making its nominations, the nominating committee shall use reasonable efforts to nominate candidates representing the diversity which exists within the pool of potential candidates.

Numerous experts have told me that the primary reason NRS 116 addresses the matter of nominating committees is to accommodate the needs of those homeowner associations, usually smaller ones, in which not enough candidates come forward to fill the available board seats as the result of an election. This provision allows boards to seek out and encourage candidates the boards believe will be good board members.

Based on the By-Laws language quoted above, Sun City Anthem could do this if we wanted to. We could establish a nominating committee to place candidates on the ballot. But since we have always had enough candidates running to fill our available Board seats, the Association has wisely refrained from nominating additional homeowners to run as candidates. After all, who would want to run with the possible stigma of being the favored candidate(s) of the Board? If there were already enough candidates who self-filed to run, then such an act by the Board could easily be viewed as an attempt by entrenched Board members to retain control of the Board.

Though I’ve heard some say that our Election Committee is really an Election/Nominating Committee, I have never seen it referred to as such, nor has it ever performed the described duties of a nominating committee. Rather, our Election Committee has performed the proper function of managing the election process in its many aspects, with no involvement in putting candidate names into nomination.

Might we need a nominating committee at some point in the future? Perhaps, but history so far has shown us that in a community as large as Sun City Anthem, we have never lacked more than enough candidates to have a competitive election.

So how do we address the fact that we need a group to manage our election process, and might one day need to make nominations, but not for the foreseeable future? What is the solution to this dilemma?

The solution is very simple: We continue with the current Election Committee and we establish a separate Nominating Committee in the event it might be eventually needed. We appoint a Board member as chair of the Nominating Committee, but we keep that Committee dormant until and unless it is needed, at which point we appoint other homeowners to fill out the Nominating Committee and charge that committee with nominating Board candidates. And we do this only if there are fewer candidates than there are seats to be filled.

With the issue of providing for a nominating committee cleared up, we can now address the matter of not having a Board member serve on the Election Committee in any capacity.

Here are the reasons why the Election Committee should have no Board members on it:

1. The election process doesn’t need Board participation and oversight because the Election Committee has no latitude in the way it operates. The Election Committee must comply with statute and our governing documents, including the Sun City Anthem Election Manual, in the conduct of its business.

2. Current procedure provides that the Election Committee Chairperson, who must be a Board member, can serve only a one-year term and may not serve during the 12-month period in which that Board member will be eligible to run for reelection. This leads to the type of situation we have had in the current election cycle, during which the Election Committee Chairperson, lacking experience with the process, violated several rules of procedure and allowed for a sloppy process due to her casual approach to the running of the election.

3. Because the Election Committee and its Chairperson must be above reproach at all times, prohibiting a Board member from serving on the Committee, and especially as its chair, will help to assure that there will no personal bias on the part of a Board member interested in the election of specific candidates to further the interests of that Board member.

4. Having a non-Board member serving as Chairperson of the Election Committee for more than one year will help to assure that the Chairperson brings a continuity of knowledge and experience to the job.

An additional issue with respect to the Election Committee is the need to reform the process for handling election complaints. The current process does not permit notification to a complainant of the outcome of a complaint investigation. Based on the weak argument that the privacy of the alleged violator must be protected, those who file complaints are usually told that the result of investigating the complaint is that “appropriate action has been taken.”

A complainant deserves to know whether his complaint had merit and what action resulted. With the support of the Board of Directors, the Election Committee needs to institute a complaint-handling process that provides some form of closure to both complainant and the alleged offender, even if it means bringing the two parties together in a room and explaining the outcome to both of them.

ACE Issue 14: Improve Board-Meeting Procedures

One of the most disappointing –even disheartening- aspects of watching our Association governance at work is seeing the opportunities the current Board of Directors misses to use the regular monthly Board meetings as a device to inform and educate our residents.

For starters, the Board President, and by implication the rest of the Board, broke the law when they discontinued the open-microphone period at the beginning of each Board meeting. Any argument that reading questions and comments from “blue cards” and allowing resident comment on agenda items meets the statutory requirement is hollow when we take a look at what Nevada Revised Statute (NRS) 116 says about this subject:

“The notice (of Board meetings) must include notification of the right of a unit’s owner to speak to the Association or executive board, unless the board is meeting in executive session.”

The reading of written comment cards is not provided for in NRS 116. Though the statute references “a period devoted to comments by units’ owners and discussion of those comments,” it seems clear that such language refers back to the requirement that meeting notices must allow for a period to SPEAK to the executive board.

Not only has the current Board illegally eliminated the member oral comment period, but it has also abused the blue-card system, which it claims to offer as an alternative. All too frequently, the Board ignores blue cards it does not want to address at the Board meeting, paraphrases the content on selected cards, and misrepresents some of the comments on the cards.

ACE firmly advocates bringing our Association into legal compliance by restoring the open-microphone period at Board meetings and reviewing the blue-card policy to determine if it truly has merit.

Another area that must be dramatically overhauled is the Board-meeting agenda itself. Our recent agendas have been notable for their absence of descriptive detail, and often for their misleading wording that gives little clue about the actual agenda topics. When there is even the slightest ambiguity about the nature of an agenda item, there must be an appropriate amount of language to describe or explain what the item is about.

Without doubt, the most ludicrous aspect of managing the agenda is the Board President’s practice of inviting public comment on an agenda item BEFORE it has been explained to the audience and BEFORE the item has been discussed by the Board. When combined with an inadequate or non-existent description of the item on the printed agenda, this leaves residents to wrestle with the often impossible challenge of trying to understand an item they have been invited to comment on. It is understandable, therefore, that many attendees at Board meetings feel as if they have been transported through the looking glass into a surreal world that defies comprehension.

The ACE proposals in this regard are simple and straightforward. The Board must produce agendas that adequately describe items that merit clarification or explanation, and audience members must be invited to comment on action items AFTER the items have been explained and the Board has held an open discussion of them, but BEFORE the Board takes a vote on the items.

After assuming his position nearly a year ago, the Board President instituted a consent agenda as part of what he described as an effort to improve the efficiency of Board meetings. Consent agendas, in and of themselves, are not a bad thing when properly used. BoardSource, a non-profit organization devoted to increasing the effectiveness of non-profit boards of directors by promoting board “best practices,” advocates use of consent agendas under controlled circumstances. “A consent agenda,” the organization notes, “can turn a board meeting into a meeting of the minds around the things that matter most.”

A consent agenda is a bundle of items that is voted on, without discussion, as a package, It differentiates between routine matters not needing explanation and more complex issues needing examination. And it requires a fair amount of discipline to manage.

The problem with our consent agendas is that they are a hodge-podge of items that can be properly handled that way and other items that should be fully discussed in front of the attending audience. Unfortunately, the consent agenda also offers the opportunity to deliberately conceal from residents the details of potentially controversial issues that should be openly discussed.

ACE advocates that the consent agenda be studied in great detail and, if continued, that careful, thoughtful decisions be made as to whether specific items really do belong on the consent agenda.

Financial summaries are an important element of Board meetings. Traditionally, these financial overviews have been recited by a representative of RMI, our management company. ACE believes that this information should be presented at Board meetings not by an RMI representative, but by the Board treasurer, whose job it is to understand and articulate our financial information to the community.

The written minutes of Board meetings have tended to be overly superficial, often depriving residents who read the minutes of the opportunity to really understand what transpired at the meetings. While we acknowledge that meeting minutes should not be lengthy essays, our process for producing minutes must be examined carefully so that improvements in the writing of minutes can be made. The test should be this: A year or two after any Board meeting, a resident should be able to access a copy of the minutes of that meeting and fully understand what happened at the meeting.

A “Board Book” is produced prior to each Board meeting. This book is supposed to contain all the reports, supporting data and motions that are to be considered at the Board meeting that week. The Board Book for a Board meeting is available for homeowners to review in the Association offices during the week of the meeting. Most recently, a great deal of material is being omitted from the Board Book at the time it is made available for homeowner review. This practice must be ended, and a “full” Board Book containing all information related to that week’s Board meeting must be available.

Last but not least, it is not acceptable that under the current Board President, the Board held no regularly scheduled public meetings during July and August last year. A Board responsible for a $7 million budget cannot afford to take the summer off. We don’t elect the Board to go from June until September without a public meeting, so the ACE-supported candidates are committed to maintaining a monthly meeting schedule, with the possible exception of the holiday season in December when even the staff can enjoy more time with their families.

ACE Issue 13: Bring Professional Contracts Management to Sun City Anthem

There are two primary types of contracts –including leases- common to a community such as Sun City Anthem: those that produce income for the Association, and those that require the expenditure of funds.

Examples of income-producing contracts would be these: the Trumpets lease; the Serenity Spa lease; the contract for sale of advertisements in the Resident Handbook & Phone Directory; contracts for advertising in the Spirit.

Examples of contracts requiring us to spend money include: the landscaping-maintenance contract with Valley Crest; contract for pest extermination; contracts for Association catered events; various insurance contracts.

Anthem Citizens for Excellence and the Board candidates it supports believe we must manage our contracts in the most professional manner possible. One way to assure community knowledge of our contracts will be to require the annual publication of a complete list of all our contracts, with summary descriptions of each one.

ACE advocates Finance Committee oversight of all Association contracts, with emphasis on those that generate income for the community. At the very least, there should be a semi-annual review of the contracts, at a public meeting, to assure that all terms are being complied with by the parties to the agreements.

In addition, RMI must be charged with careful administration of all our contracts, with Board of Directors oversight but without interference with enforcement of the contracts, as we have seen when the Board took away the responsibility of management to enforce the Trumpets lease.

Our contracts-management procedures must also incorporate a proper calendaring system so that all contracts expiring or up for renewal will be thoroughly reviewed 60 to 90 days prior to the expiration or renewal dates, unless otherwise stated in particular contracts.

Finally, copies of all Association contracts must be maintained in a format readily and easily accessible by residents. Possible formats could include three-ring binders or storage on a CD to be viewed via computer.

ACE Issue 12: Advocate Specific Programs To Improve The Community's Safety And Security

There is probably no issue more important to Sun City Anthem than the personal safety and security of our residents. While police statistics tell us that we are among the safest areas of Henderson, the reality of our changing demographics, especially the large Inspirada project that will bring in nearly 30,000 new residents, suggests that concerns such as those about crime and speeding will be a growing challenge for us.

Anthem Citizens for Excellence advocates a comprehensive approach to dealing with issues of health and safety, issues that have been mostly dealt with on a piecemeal basis so far.

ACE-supported candidates Bob Frank and Mike Dixon, along with Security Patrol Chief Dave Servello (an ACE member) have been out front in addressing some important security issues. For instance, they have held talks with the Henderson Police Department, with the result that Bob and Dave submitted a proposal to the Association to use the former information building at our main entrance as a joint Police-Security Patrol facility.

They are also working on a comprehensive plan to establish a Neighborhood Watch program in every Sun City Anthem village, again with the blessing and assistance of the Henderson P.D.

ACE and its candidates are also committed to investigate every possible option to construct a bathroom facility in the Community Service Building, to meet the needs expressed by the Security Patrol and other users of that building.

Concerns over the speed limits on our roadways continue to be expressed by many, and we will work closely with Henderson Police and traffic authorities to assure that proper speed limits have been established, revisiting prior decisions if necessary.

ACE advocates creation of a team to study adding amenities that will encourage walking and bicycling to enhance our sense of community. This would include more benches and rest areas for sitting and relaxation. Other areas for study would include strategic placement of attractive trash containers; bike paths and golf-cart paths; safety signage at our community entrances; additional safety signage alerting drivers to dangerous intersections; additional crosswalks, electronically controlled and pedestrian-activated.

ACE Issue 11: Advocate Greater Interaction Between The Board and Residents

Is it any wonder that so many residents think the SCA Board of Directors is more interested in keeping secrets and denying us information than in genuinely interacting with the community? Notices of meetings are given on short notice and barely publicized. Public participation of residents is severely limited. There is virtually no outreach by the Board and individual Board members into the community. When  Board members try to hold a meeting on SCA premises to hear what is on residents' minds, they are told that it cannot be done without a vote of the full Board to permit it.

The ACE-supported candidates are committed to changing this myopic view, and here are just a few of the ways these changes would be implemented:

• Informal "town meetings" with residents, perhaps two weeks before each Board meeting, to learn what is on YOUR mind and discuss upcoming actions that are contemplated.
• No restrictions on any Board member(s) scheduling use of a room in our recreation centers for purposes of community outreach. Board members might take turns doing this, but there would always be at least two Board members in attendance.
• A Board members question-and-answer column in the community newspaper, the Sun City Anthem Clarion, if the newspaper should be established.
• Frequent prominent notice of each Board member's phone number and e-mail address.
• Round table discussions with residents on Channel 99.
• REAL meetings, properly noticed, with balanced presentations of pros and cons, when there are issues of such importance that the consensus of the community must be obtained.
• A regular schedule of in-home visits/coffees by Board members who are invited by residents who can get a group together to express their concerns and ask questions.

The current Board President takes umbrage when the word "constituent" is used by anyone in the community, including Board candidates. "We have no constituents," he says. Well, he's wrong. The dictionary says a constituent is "a citizen who is represented in a government by officials for whom he or she votes."

If that doesn't describe Sun City Anthem homeowners, I don't know what does. You are all constituents of every Board member, and perhaps part of the problem we are having with our leaadership these days is that you are not properly recognized as constituents, for whom constituent service is a necessary part of our governance. The ACE-supported candidates will bring a personal level of service back to you on a level that will make you glad to be living here.

ACE Issue 10: Encourage Interaction Between RMI Management And Residents

The world is full of artificial barriers that inhibit creation of a sense of family, that lead to unnecessary dividing lines and an "us vs. them" mentality.

One of the most disappointing aspects of the relationship between Sun City Anthem residents and our management entities is that in many cases there IS no relationship.

Consider, if you will, the RMI staff responsible for the day-to-day professional management of our community. At the top of the on-site staff is Community Manager (CAM) Arnie Snow, along with Assistant Community Manager Terry DaSilva. Below them is an excellent support staff that includes a Communications Manager; Activities Manager; Enforcement Managers; Fitness Managers; Building Maintenance Manager; and a number of associates handling such duties as assisting the managers, performing accounting and bookkeeping services, greeting and assisting office visitors, working as monitors, etc.

While we pay RMI to professionally manage our Association, there is much that can and should be done to encourage RMI personnel to interact with our residents much more than is currently done. Only when our managers and staff "connect" with us can we get to know them on a personal level, to understand the conditions and restraints they work under, and to appreciate the difficult jobs and challenges they face almost every day.

Have you ever personally met the CAM or had a conversation with him? Excluding the infrequent New Member breakfasts, he has never participated in any public event or forum where he could meet and greet our residents, has never appeared with his staff in a setting where we could get to know them. He has never held a resident question-and-answer session, has never appeared on a recurring basis on Channel 99 to make a report to residents or answer questions they have submitted. He has never set aside time to sit informally with residents in the gallery over coffee. Etc., etc.

I am sure we would have had these types of interactions with the CAM and his staff if the Board had chosen to encourage it. This has probably not occurred because the Board has actually prevented Arnie from doing anything in this direction.

Whether it is true or not that Board policy has prevented the RMI staff from interacting with us, and thus preventing the evolution of a true family feeling in our community, ACE and its supported candidates are committed to addressing this issue so that we can all have confidence in our management and can truly believe we are all in this together for the betterment of Sun City Anthem.

ACE Issue 9: Mandate Improvement Of The Community Website

You probably know that Sun City Anthem has a community Website, whose address is www.sca-hoa.org. The site has enormous potential, and even now it is a wealth of valuable information that many may not even know can be found there. But sadly, I am told that fewer than 800 out of perhaps 12,000 residents have registered to use the site. It is certainly disappointing that after several years of existence, the community site's registered member list is about the same in numbers as my 10-month-old blog.

Volunteer resident Chuck Davis, the father of resident online services, and Communications Manager Scott Fewell deserve our thanks for working as hard as they do to keep the site going and updated.

What can you find on the community Website?

An address book listing contact information for our residents and for management/staff.

A calendar of events.

Channel 99 streaming video broadcasts.

A message board, increasingly active due to some of the controversial issues under discussion in SCA.

A version of the Spirit magazine in pdf format.

Various documents related to Association business, such as meeting agendas and minutes, copies of leases such as the Trumpets lease, by-laws, guidelines and committee manuals; and so much more.

ACE wants to see the community Website grow into a much more valuable asset that will attract users in far greater numbers than it does today. There are a number of things that need fixing, and the steps to accomplish this are not that difficult to achieve.

One of the things that must be done to encourage site traffic is to assure that the documents accessible to us on the site are the most current available. For example:

In the area for Committee Charters, the only charter on the site is that of the Editorial Content Committee.

The only contracts on the site are for the Website itself and the Trumpets lease.

The most recent summary of monthly Association financial highlights is for September, 2006.

There are no Election Committee minutes available after August 8, 2006.

There are no Finance Committee minutes after July 18, 2006.

The most recent set of Lifestyle Committee minutes is for January 10, 2006.

The most recent Properties & Grounds Committee minutes are for July 11, 2006.

In the Resolutions section, no resolutions are available.

The most recent Chartered Club Guidelines are for 2005.

These are just a few of the many cases of out-of-date documents being available on the site while up-to-date versions are not to be found there.

The ACE-supported candidates will, if elected, make it a priority to assure that the most recent, up-to-date documents are available on the site so that residents can be confident of what they will find there. This has been a constant frustration of Chuck Davis himself, who has said on many occasions that the immediacy and relevance of the site requires that those responsible for producing the documents, along with management staff, provide the content on a timely basis.

The community Website also lacks visual appeal, and it is important that the design be updated in a way that it will be graphically attractive and not present the visitor with a hodge-podge of text that must be navigated in order to find what one is looking for.

We also want to see the site marketed to residents more effectively. There are many tools and techniques that can be used to encourage patronage of the site, and these will be fully explored.

It is a treasure to have a place on the Internet that SCA residents can call our own. Our supported candidates are committed to taking all necessary steps to make the Community Website all that it can be. 

ACE Issue 8: Open Up The Channel 99 Airwaves To More Resident Participation And Advocate That Channel 99 Develop A Plan To Report Hard News, Even If Controversial In Nature, To The Community

Few communities have the luxury of operating a cable television channel for the exclusive use and benefit of their residents. Through the generosity of Cox Communications, Sun City Anthem has such a channel, staffed by one of the most dedicated crews of resident volunteers you could ever wish for. Whether writers, reporters, camera operators, on-air personalities or editors, these talented folks bring us, week after week, a steady stream of content to inform and entertain us.

Despite these wonderful accomplishments, our Channel 99 volunteers, under the direction of Communications Manager Scott Fewell, are prevented from being all that they could be ...or want to be. And they are not happy about it.

The problem is that one person, the Board President, has placed himself in de facto control of Channel 99. He is the only one who is not subject to pre-broadcast review of his on-air reports by the Editorial Content Committee, and he apparently has exercised veto authority over who appears on the channel and what stories are off-limits for coverage. His restrictions on who can appear go beyond simply disallowing access to topics and people he considers adverse to his personal agenda; he doesn't even provide opportunities for the Community Manager or most of his own Board members to appear on screen.

The Channel 99 staff have a number of exciting ideas for expanding coverage, including actual news broadcasts to complement the superb lifestyle features appearing every week on the "Anthem Alive" program. The key to achieving this goal is removing Board of Directors control over the channel and establishing a policy that will allow the Communications Department and the Channel 99 volunteers to assume their proper roles in running the station.

The Board, of course, should always retain the right of access to the airwaves as needed for community benefit, and ACE understands that the Board has the legal authority to do so. But the Communications Manager should take his directions only from the Community Manager, and the Board, especially its President, should work through the Community Manager on communications issues, as required by our management contract with RMI.

ACE believes that the next Board of Directors, no matter who serves on it, will be willing and eager to free up the Channel 99 volunteers to help them bring the station to its full potential. Hang on, everyone, better days are coming.

ACE Issue 7: Advocate And Work For Creation Of A Community Newspaper, The Sun City Anthem Clarion

Nothing is more vital to the welfare of a sprawling community such as Sun City Anthem than effective channels of communication. During the planning stages for the 2005 transition from the developer to resident control, the Print Media Team of the Transition Communications Task Force proposed creation of a newspaper, to be called the Sun City Anthem Clarion. The image at left (click for larger picture) shows the front page of a prototype issue of the newspaper that we produced. The Clarion proposal was unanimously approved by the Board of Directors.

The Print Media Team, which I headed, conducted thorough research into the viability of a newspaper. The team learned, for example, that the vast majority of seniors communities around the nation have such newspapers. In the course of doing our research, which included surveying residents about their wants and needs, we identified more than 60 unique types of information that would be suitable for the Clarion,  most of which are not suitable for the Spirit or would not be allowed in that publication.

Imagine a newspaper that reports the news, including journalistically sound reports on Board and committee meetings; centerfold photo layouts; expanded club news; death notices; letters to the editor; Community Manager's Q&A column; financial and budget information; village happenings; stories about interesting residents; and so much more.

When the sample issue of the newspaper was shown at a well-attended public meeting, the reaction of residents was immediate enthusiasm.

Under the direction of Communications Manager Scott Fewell, a team of nearly 40 volunteers was all set to make the Clarion a reality. But despite his awareness of a guarantee that no issue would be published unless fully paid for in advance by advertising, the Board President single-handedly killed the project, claiming, without any documentation whatsoever, that the Clarion would place the Association at great financial risk.

Our primary print publication, the Spirit magazine, does not fill our constant need to be fully informed on a timely basis. It is useful as a planning calendar, but its requirement that material for the Spirit be submitted about six weeks before publication virtually assures that much of the "news" will be stale by the time it reaches us. The Clarion, in contrast, would have only a 10-day to two-week advance deadline.

We need the Clarion, and we look forward to seeing the ACE-supported Board candidates make every effort, if elected, to bring the newspaper to fruition in a sound and prudent manner that creates no financial risk.

ACE Issue 6: Advocate Changes In The Current Committee Selection Process

I know more than one person who has had the disheartening experience of applying several times to join a standing committee, only to be told each time that s/he was found qualified but lost out to another candidate.

Each time this happens, the applicant must go through a brand-new application process, submitting a resume or other summary of experience and qualifications, undergoing personal interviews, and then being told again that s/he was qualified but someone else was selected.

In many cases, qualified residents simply give up and stop applying for committee service after being told multiple times that they were qualified but were not picked.

In the best of cases, this situation eventually discourages the volunteerism our leaders constantly say is badly needed in our community. In the worst of cases, it has the potential of allowing committees to slant the selection process toward favored applicants by making it seem the process was conducted on a fair and level playing field.

There is an elegant way to fix this. The first step is to require that a committee certify an applicant as “qualified” if the only reason the candidate is not selected is because a supposedly better-qualified candidate came out on top.

The second step is to place the application of the “qualified but not selected” resident(s) in a “preferred applicant” file.

If an opening on the committee comes up within the following 12 months, the opening will not be posted to the entire resident population. Instead, the opening MUST be filled from among those residents who previously applied for an opening and were found “qualified.”

This is a fair and equitable method that can go a long way toward soothing the feelings of committee applicants who would like to serve the community and are considered qualified, but are not selected.

The Finance Committee is one committee that has, in the past, drawn on a pool of previously interviewed and “found qualified” applicants to fill a subsequent committee opening. The committee tells such applicants that they were not selected but will be first in line, all things being equal, for the next committee opening.

Another consideration in making the recommended program work is that we must do a better job of reaching out to potential committee volunteers in order to benefit from their skills and experience. As one resident said during a presentation to the community several years ago, “You can’t afford to wait for volunteers to come to you. You must go out and get them.”

What this means is that we can and must do a better job of identifying residents who can contribute to our betterment by volunteering for committees, special projects, consultancies, etc. There are many residents out there who have special skills and experience and who would be willing to share their talents with us, but they just don’t know how to get “plugged in.”

There are ways to identify and motivate these future volunteers. One of our proposals is to send each resident a form describing our volunteer opportunities and asking interested residents to use the form to tell us about their skills and their interest in serving. We should also gather the same type of information from new homeowners visiting the Administration Office to obtain their Member ID Cards.

Using the information provided by interested residents, we can then build a skills database that will help us find qualified volunteers when opportunities arise. By bringing “new blood” into community service we will help solve our volunteer shortage, provide interesting assignments to willing residents, and enhance the sense of family that so many of us believe can be much improved.