Grants...

I don't know whether this is the type of thing that you were thinking about but Fairfax County has a hefty manual that they produce and also a TV program on CAs where you can also catch the latest one they did - i.e. you don't have to watch real time. Both are referred to in this page:
http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/consumer/hoa.htm

When I first started out in HOAs our local CAI chapter was a wonderful resource of conferences, seminars, etc. Somehow when they standardized their education through the ABCs course they dropped out of the excellent educational programs they had -- at least in my opinion. I think they took the educational expense line item off of our budget as it was no longer used and hadn't been for so long. Of course now everyone knows everything just by sitting at the board table so they don't need classes or reading (tongue in cheek there, but it seems like their attitude).

You could buy books and have them checked out through your secretary. They tend to walk off otherwise. I have found it very hard to get board members to read, most don't even read their own documents, much less "lessons learned" types of information that have been done. I knew of one hoa president that had a notebook that she set up that was just loaded with info. She finally gave up on that as no one was reading it. It can be frustrating.

Hi:

Why not budget funds, either for books each year, or for board training through your local/nearest CAI chapter? This would be a valuable and wise use of assessments, because the investment in board training could pay off tremendously. Alternately, there may be some training that your PM company, or another one in the area, could provide, or a local PM would could do a board retreat each year...or (in the case of the HOA I work for) hire someone from the outside to fly in to do a board retreat. There is a lot of widsom out there from experienced managers!

J. Patrick Moore, CMCA

Joe, I will start right off by displaying my ignorance -- what is CAN?

Okay, that being said I went to the site you referenced, and the POAA is "as of 2003". Sounds like probably it has not been updated since you did the site (which is quite lovely). I had poked around once before to see what was being done with those grants sponsored by our cash. I had just been to the DPOR site to see if they had posted the new POAA -- no.

Now, I can put the current POAA together from the changes listed on the legislative site, but it sure would be nice to find it all updated so I would know for sure I had caught everything. Very frustrating -- Va. passes these laws, does nothing to enforce them, and don't even make it easy to find out about them.

When I worked on the HOA committee of our local chapter I got tapes from some of the Fairfax shows for the chapter office. That was a great idea to put them in libraries, I'll see if my local one has it. Of course there was the recent story about them tossing out such classics as Moby Dick because it wasn't read often enough, so I am not sure how an HOA tape would survive! Did you think about putting the tapes on the internet?

Thanks Joe, I had seen Community Association Network on the site, but from your post thought you had some ongoing CAN that you were involved in. Actual networks of Associations are good ideas, IMO. Now to look for the videos -- I got sidetracked by the POAA.