Looking for tips on volunteers & committees

And just to clarify, I am not referring to the people who volunteer for the Board or ARC. This pertains to people who want to do landscaping on community property, maintenance work, hold a community event, etc.

Maybe I missed it--are you on the Board Ann? IMO, the best thing about committees is that, at least here, they are our supply line for future Board members. There are members, though, for whom committees are the extent to which they want to involve themselves.

We do have General Guidelines for All Committees and separate ones for each Committee. The General Guidelines state that each Committee must have at least three members, must report to the board every month, and keep meeting minutes.

We permit renters to serve on the Social (SC) and Landscape Committees (LC), but not the Finance Comm. (FC) or ARC--the latter is required by our CC&Rs.

Our bylaws simply state that the Board can form committees, so we follow the CA Corps code concerning the remainder of our authority, e.g., the Board approves committee members and comm. chairs. Directors may serve on and/or chair committees. The Board may dismiss Comm. members or disband a committee. If you're incorporated, Fla may have similar corporations codes re: committees if your bylaws are vague or silent about committees.

Our HOA insurance covers comm. members driving to purchase, for instance, party supplies or flats of plants. It does not cover climbing on ladders or working on equipment of any kind. Our understanding is that even if members signed waivers, we could potentially be liable for injuries, so we do not use waivers.

Only the Soc. Comm. has an annual budget and must submit receipts for all purchases to our Prop. Mgr. Our HOA has an annual budget and the LC may draw from the "plant replacement" line item to purchase flats of flowers using our landscape vendor's discount; they submit receipts to the PM. So long as the flowers are purchased from the vendor-approved nurseries, there's no warrantee issue. The LC chooses the flowers, which saves us 20% on those purchases vs. when the vendor purchases them. The LC Comm chair has authority from the Board to actually direct our vendor's landscaping onsite supervisor. The chair, sup. & PM meet about once a month.

The FC has no decision-making authority but makes recommendations to the Board re: investments and monthly financial report approvals. Our PM attends all of its monthly meetings and the Board president usually does too. The president is an ex officio member of all committees but (vs. Robert's Rules), the president does not have a vote.

While Davis-stirling.com is specifically about CA, its section on Committee is quite generic, thorough, and may be useful to you.

Some who contribute to this Forum don't think that HOAs should fund social activities/committees, but that is NOT your question, Ann, so I hope we can avoid that debate on this thread. If someone wants to hash it out again, perhaps a new thread would be best.

Say, Ann, did I misunderstand your question?

I will add that there is nothing governing our Board about appointing volunteers. Should appointing volunteers be at the Board's discretion or should anyone who wants to volunteer be allowed to do so (as long as they follow established guidelines). Would closing the opportunity to turn Board appointments into a popularity contest be a good thing?

Just mentioning this, but with the George Zimmerman case, I believe the HOA was found culpable because they DID NOT necessarily provide direction to their "volunteer".

All of our committees have a written charter that states their responsibilities and makes clear that they serve only in an advisory capacity to the board. Each committee has a board member designated as the liaison to the committee. The committee chairman is nominated by the liaison and must be approved by vote of the board. Other committee officers (vice chair, secretary) are elected by the committee members. Committee members are appointed by vote of the board based on recommendation of the committee chair and liaison. Each committee must submit minutes of its meetings to the board. All committee meetings are open to all association members to observe (and to participate at the discretion of the chairman).

Our current chartered committees are: Modifications, Covenants, Social, Finance, Landscape and Grounds, Facilities Maintenance and Repair, Communications, and Procurement and Contracts.

We are a 55 and over community of 800 homes. We are essentially self-managed. We have alot of retired professional folks with the skills, time and energy to volunteer for these committees.

Thank you for this information. This seems to be one of the areas where our Association could be improving upon. What would be an instance that a Board may decline to appoint an individual to sit on the committee? How do you avoid "personality conflicts" (for example- ensuring that the Board is sppointing qualified individuals and not letting "the buddy method" come into play? Seems childish but that game seems to be oft mentioned in HOAs). Does the Board stick with a simple checklist to ensure that committee members may serve? Is it better to have blind applications to avoid conflict of interest (for example, if the Board treasurer had some tiff with the applicant). One of my goals is to ensure that the processes are fair to all members of the community.

Consider yourself blessed that your community has members with an interest in volunteering and a Board that encourages it. Our Board refuses to allow the level of participation that your community has. We have an ARC. That's it. If I were to suggest anything more than a social events committee then they would have strokes. Yet they do not seem to realze how easier their jobs would be if they would delegate certain tasks to committees. There is no way they would ever allow committees for covenants, finances, procurement and contracts.

We had a facilities committee years ago but the Boards shot down any ideas from that committee so those volunteers gave up and quit. We have had something along the lines of people volunteering for communications but it never got much support from the Boards and both groups fizzled. This is where it would be great to get something that defines the responsibilities of the Board TO the committees so that nobody feels that they are wasting their time.

Carol, I am keeping my position out of it and looking at it from different perspectives (doing a 360 review if you will) with an open mind. May I ask why you keep inquiring?

Hi Carol, I am trying to put together a proposal that addresses both the Board's needs to offer some direction to volunteers, the volunteers' need to have some direction that allows them to actually get something done in a productive and structured manner, and the Association's need to minimize any liability in the process. So I welcome any advice from any perspective.

As I wrote earlier, we minimize liability by not permitting committee members to use tools, climb ladders, go on our roofs (where a lot of mechanical equipment is in our high rises), etc. Every winter, for instance,15 ft. Christmas trees are erected in our two lobbies. Our asst. engineer climbs the ladders to hang ornaments on the higher branches an sox. comm members decorate the lower branches and some counter surfaces. But, of course, not every HOA has staff with insurance to do these tasks.

The board liaison attends committee meetings and does not have a vote. The liaison's role is to advise committees often in the areas of finance but could, for example, be re: safety.

Our committee chairs sometimes get advice from our PM, but may not direct her.

No other board members may direct committees' members or chairs. Only the board at a meeting may direct committees. Sometimes, we (the board) "kick" topics down to committees and let them do the research often with assistance from our PM.

Like I said, committees are wonderful pipelines for future board service.

I'd avoid individual volunteers unless there's a very special, unique project that the board wants done and there's a particular, qualified owner who wants to do it. Then, the board should assign that person that specific task in wiring, via the meeting minutes would be fine, I think, and give the person authorization to ask the PM questions.

There may be other projects that a committee would like to do. These should be invited to request in writing that the board permit them to form an ad hoc committee to for th pruposes of specifically z, y, & z.

Again, see davis-stirling.com's generic remarks about committees,

I keep feeling like I'm missing something in my attempts to reply to you, Ann. Given the number of views, a lot of folks here seem interested and I have to say I'm surprised that you haven't received a larger number of replies.