making the association president's job easier..

What makes the job easier??? Attitude. I learned to say "It is not a thankless job but a thankFULL" job. You live and breath the job. Do not be disgruntle or treat it as a burden. Own it and be it. Not to mean you can not hang your hat up and be you. It means you have to realize that you are viewed as the President. People will criticisize what that means. So lead by example and do it your best way you know how... Or atleast fake it till you make it...:-)

Sorry I had to laugh... My reason I was President was because the ex President was a con man scumbag. Who was my Vice President for a year... NO he did NOT make my job easier. He was the one person I was trying to protect the HOA from. Always had to stay one step ahead...

However,my goal was beyond him....

I also continue to be on the board is some way or another because we are trying to keep another resident off. I love doing what I do because I know the neighborhood is better for it but when you have people at your door calling you racist and yelling at you it makes me wonder why I do it. . .I know the majority of my residents are happy I do what I do but sometimes it can be hard. Depending on who is on our board at the time it can be easier, our management company is a wonderful!!!

Perhaps along the same lines as what's already been said . . .
- Distribute workload and responsibility among all Board Members/Officers. Some can do more than others (which should be understood among the Board), but ones who cannot and will not do anything are not needed (and are possibly preventing another willing and able homeowner from joining the Board and helping out).
- Along with the above, other Board Members/Officers actively participating, stepping in where they can to assist, and seeking opportunities to share workload.
- Other Board Members/Officers actually fulfilling the duties that are required of them . . . VP ready, willing, and able to fill in for President; Treasurer being aware/prepared with all money-related things; Secretary coordinating meetings, taking minutes, keeping official files; Members at Large taking active roles too.
- For the President him/herself . . . not trying to bite off more than you can chew. If you aspire to have the Board actively do a lot of things, then you need to determine if you have a Board that is willing to help out. If you don't, either expect to do much of the work yourself or lower your expectations on what is actually achievable.

Excellent ideas and thinking here. Thanks sooo much for all your responses!

oljim, in texas

Excellent advice and resources Tim. I've printed out this entire discussion for future reference - and also bookmarked all the links recommended by Tim.

Awesome...thanks soo much!

oljim, in texas

Yes we are managed by a property management company. I have been on our board with (and without) the services of a property management company - and their presence has helped somewhat; however, not as much as i thought it was going to. Thanks!

oljim, in texas

Appreciate the advice John. And yes, same as you - we are in discussion about what sorts of things need to be passed on to our management company and what sorts of things the board can best do. Some of the issues have to do with the wise expenditure of our money.

Here is an example...

This past year, the time came for our annual insurance quote. This is something that most boards can expect a management company to do (i.e. to get quotes from insurance companies and pass those on to the board for a final decision). I believe our management company did the best they could; however, we are aware that insurance companies need a substantial amount of information to bring about a realistic quote. Because it takes a lot of work to develop specs for an insurance quote, there became a lack of interest in quoting by insurance companies who were contacted, primarily because (i feel) our management company did not have sufficient time to tailor the specs to our specific situation.

To make a long story short, the board ended up making contact with several insurance companies and supplied the specific information needed. We estimate that, because of the board's efforts, we ended up getting a better policy for about $17K less money than the insurance company who had been the primary resource for us. It's my guess that, if we had allowed the management company to do this work, that $17K would have been in the pockets of the insurance companies, instead of ours.

What do ya'll think?

oljim, in texas

Jim, your story doesn’t surprise me and proves some management companies are better than others. We have a great property manager, but she has 15 communities to manage and sometimes she runs into the same problems (that may be another reason yours couldn’t gather the information you needed to request an insurance quote).

For example, our Board had several conversations about locating all the sewer cleanouts in our community, because half of them (including mine) are likely buried under flower beds, weeds and possibly air conditioner units. During our conversations, I wondered if we might be able to locate some of them if we had a utility line map of the community that would show us where the water and sewer lines were. Unfortunately, our property manager didn’t have one and wasn’t sure where to get it.

You would think this would be something a management company would have had since our townhouse community is responsible for utility lines from the point they leave the unit – and the reason all this came up was because we’d had several expensive repairs because of tree root damage. Fortunately a (now former) Board member got hold of one and passed it along to the property manager.

You’re off to a good start if your board is thinking about what the management company should do vs. the Board itself. Generally, the property manager should be handling all the day to day stuff while the board provides the overall direction (NOT MICROMANAGING!) In your example, the management company should have had the information to put together your quote request – you may want to ask why it couldn’t take the time to gather that information (and possibly consider if they even have the necessary resources to manage your community).

On the bright side, your board’s experience with contacting the insurance companies for a quote will work better for the community in the long run because you know what to look for. Get those procedures written down so your successors won’t have to reinvent the wheel. And now that you have detailed information about your community that can be given to the property manager and help with bids for future projects saving time all around.

Which reminds me – consider setting up advisory committees who can do some research and make recommendations to the Board on specific subjects. That’ll provide valuable training to people who may want to join the Board someday and it’ll save time in gathering information. The Board charters the committees to dictate what they should do and all these people who like to criticize you or other Board members about what you should/shouldn’t do will now have an avenue to do the legwork themselves. At best, it’ll keep them busy and perhaps they’ll have a better appreciation on what you have to do – or they’ll shaddup and siddown! Good luck!