Cultivate Community

Earlier this week we examined how to get ready to be on the board. Now we will look at what the roles of the board of directors are. Linda A. Bartel explores these roles in The Role of Today's HOA Board of Directors. Here a few of the roles the board is responsible for:

• Enforce the documents.
• Develop a workable budget, keeping in mind the needs, requirements and expectations of the community.
• Review local laws before passing rules or sending bylaws to membership for approval.
• Appoint committees and delegate authority to them.

Ten Commandments for Board Members

1. Thou shall be consistent in all thy dealings.
2. Thou shall be faithful in attendance at board meetings.
3. Thou shall allow the professional manager to manage.
4. Thou shall insist that professional management be responsible to the board of directors.
5. Thou shall keep a watchful eye on the financial reports.
6. Thou shall communicate with your fellow board members and homeowners.
7. Thou shall deal honestly with all thy fellows.
8. Thou shall resist using thy position for personal gain.
9. Thou shall remember that you are a board member of a business.
10. Thou shall encourage the association to be members of CAI.

--Terrence P. Crawford, 1981

I found this at Community Associations Network.

Scared your main mover and shaker on the board may retire? Is the president looking a little burned out? Christine Evans has a plan for teamwork that will make sure the work load is spread out, and no one person is shouldering most of the burden.

The individual team members each have certain duties that they must perform in order to bring a project to closure. The Property Manager is usually the advisor and researcher and is assisted administratively by support staff that may type, copy, and distribute information on the manager's behalf, to the members of the association. The Board is the decision maker and enforcer. After reviewing the research done and the documentation created by the Property Manager and the support staff at the management company, the Board makes decisions on the owners' behalf. Once decisions are made, the Property Manager and support staff implement the decisions made by the Board.

Getting volunteers doesn't have to be like pulling teeth. Richard Thompson says it takes more than posting notices: your community membership needs to be wooed over time. Here are some of his wooing techniques.

• Communicate Regularly. A frequent complaint of members is not being kept informed. To draw out volunteers, it's critical that they know there is an ongoing need. Also, some members develop a suspicious nature about board motives when kept in the dark and use it as an excuse not to be involved. Let them know what you're up to early and often! Repeated pleas for help will have their effect. A newsletter and flyer distribution box (the kind used by real estate agents) is an inexpensive and convenient way to get the word out.
• Socialize the Membership. People tend to want to help those that they know personally. However, many are shy and don't make friends easily. The HOA can promote several socials annually to facilitate the process. Consider a spring clean-up party, pool party or just plain potluck. It will help create a real "community."
• 24/7 recruiting. The month prior to the annual meeting is not the only time to look for board candidates and volunteers. New members often have an interest in getting plugged in and are ripe for the picking at move in. Whenever a special project or event materializes, look outside the board for someone to do it.

So, you've been elected to the board? Then Mark Lewis offers some advice for new board members to be successful in their roles. A few of his pointers include:

• Make sure you have a complete set of the governing documents for your association (articles, bylaws, CC&R's, rules and regulations, fine and collection policy); a set of financial records; and a monthly association calendar.
• New boards should avoid rash, uninformed decisions. New directors can bring change, and change can be good, but decisions should be based on a comprehensive understanding of the issues.
• Don't become a one-issue board member and work collectively with your fellow board members for the betterment of the community.
• Seek out ways to actively involve members in committees, community events, and recreational programs.

Introduce your new homeowners to the community with a welcome packet. Andrew Meyrowich describes the types of information that should be in the packet, which includes:

• A guide that contains information regarding maintenance, association responsibilities, unit owner responsibilities, important phone numbers and answers to frequently asked questions.
• The guide also needs to outline “who” and “how” to contact those responsible for handling homeowner issues. For instance, the name and number of the management company, office hours, and an emergency number are all important. Communities may also provide gatehouse numbers as well as a means to reach the doorman or concierge.

Don't forget to include information about the community's website and forums. You'll want to make sure they have the website address, how to register on the site, and a description of what services and content they will find on the site.

One of the finest lines boards and their members walk is making and enforcing rules. In his series Pearls of Wisdom, Tom Skiba offers some good guidelines for making and enforcing rules:

• Make rules specific and reasonable.
• Never "look the other way."
• Hold public meetings on divisive issues.

Read the rest of his guidelines at Making and Enforcing the Rules Fairly.

Newsletters can be the lifeblood of your community, letting your homeowners know about HOA business, building management, and ways your residents can get together and get to know each other. But you want to make sure your homeowners read the newsletter and not just give it a glance and throw it in the recycle bin. Richard Thompson has some great tips to entice your residents to read their newsletters.

• Write your articles objectively. By its nature, a newsletter should be a "soft" sell and provide useful information to readers. A newsletter that's full of propaganda will get tossed.
• Use front page articles to draw in readers. If the front page doesn't contain interesting articles, most people will glance at it and throw it away without even reading one story.
• Print the newsletter on recycled paper. . . . Or use no paper at all. A large majority of the population has internet access and an email address so newsletters can either emailed or posted on the HOA's website. Save a time and trim your budget.

At some point, whether it's at work, home, on a committee, or at this month's board meeting, we will find ourselves dealing with difficult people. Whether your difficult person is stubborn, the whiner, or the rambler, Marcy L. Kravit has advice in understanding and communicating with difficult people.

• Understand how negatively it impacts relationships and performance.
• Assess a challenging situation and determine an appropriate strategy.
• Identify the reasons for someone’s poor performance and bad attitude.
• Develop potential solutions for resolving the problem.
• Regain your positive attitude about the other person in the situation.
• Manage conflict with confidence resulting in a positive outcome.

Every community has a vision of what it wants to be, but how do you make rules that will reflect this vision without being overbearing? Rob Rosenburg has some guidelines for making and changing the rules to match your vision.

There are several things to consider when trying to evaluate your rule making and whether it is reasonable. First, is a rule even necessary? You don't want rules that aren't ever needed, nor rules that aren't enforceable. Second, does the rule target a particular group?