Does other board send out minutes and the board emails to the homeowners?

I have been told this is common practice in some HOA's. This is in regard to the agenda items voted upon? I have been told for example one of the past agenda items was a water saving broom of some sort. There was a vote for a 34 in broom and when the purchaser went to obtain it they only had 31 in. There was an email to the hoaboard and they opted via email to get this same size, but smaller due to availability.

Monthly emails in regard to agenda items are sent along with the last months meeting minutes to all to read. Since email is not considered privileged information and it is not an extended branch of the executive session I don't see an issue with this, but I do not know if it is common practice.

Has anyone else heard of this?

By "minutes" are you referring to the "approved minutes" or pre-approved minutes (drafts)? Members can be sent drafts to be reviewed and then the final is approved at the meeting. So all those "drafts" floating around are not official, until approved. The secretary should have the "offical" version filed for the record.

If a motion is approved, and that action changes between the time of the approval of the minutes, the original motion is not "wrong" as stated in the minutes, nor should it be "fixed." That's what happened at that meeting, and it stays in the minutes. The minutes taken for the next meeting can note the adjustment of the quantity purchased.

When a group wants to buy something that MAY change (color, size, quantity, avialability)then the best thing is to approve the amount to be spent, not the actual item. For example: "Motion to spend $100 on brooms was approved." instead of "Motion to approve the purchase of 34 brooms." You don't want to have to amend or recind a motion like that, just because the store didn't have the correct ones.

Why would general members be given "draft" minutes? I can see distributing the "official" minutes after the Board approval, but to distribute a draft is downright counterproductive.

We have maybe 5 to 9 total of homeowners who use email regularly, out of 300 homes.

So, no, we don't use email to distribute meeting minutes.

The reason they chose to do this is to provide prompt communications. When Board meetings are only held quarerly this procedure provides their homeowners information in week rather than 3 months later. Once any changes have been made by email it is only a formality to record their approval at the next meeting.

I fully support RogerB on the point he has made, when it comes to gathering input from association members and the BoD decision making process. We make extensive use of two proven business management tools to aid our Board in making effective decisions.

The first is a decision package, which contains all of the relevant information (in writing) that the BoD has used in making their decision. This assures that everyone is using the same information to base their decision upon.

After the BoD makes their decision, we send it to the association members (via email)for them to "react" to that decision. We only do this when the BoD faces a particularly difficult, expensive, or controversial decision and when it would like to gather the input of Association co-owners before finalizing their decision. This process allows for co-owners to offer their viewpoints, suggestions, and additional information to be considered by the BoD. This process is also used to help gauge the acceptance level for any major changes that are being proposed. When all of the feedback information is received, the BoD may or may not change its original decision.

Once the decision is "finalized", it is entered into the official record, and in our case, it and the decision package is placed on our website. Now, everyone has the benefit of not only the decision that was made, by the information used to make it. Association members have had a chance to offer their input and better decisions by the BoD are made.

If you are interested in learning more about a proven management system and infrastructure, visit www.*********.com and view the Contents section.

JoeK

In our case, everyone has email. We do not send this out by snailmail, as it would be too expensive and time consuming. The object here is not only a quality decision, but also a speedy decision making process. As a point of clarification, there is no requirement in our bylaws requiring that we do this, but it is a sound business management process that keeps everyone "in the loop" and prevents all kinds of problems, due to a lack of information or mis-information. We try to minimize churning of the "rumor mill" and "grapevine", by supplying timely and accurate information to all our members.

If you do not have email, either you could get it from a neigbor, attend a board meeting, or not participate in the feedback process. We try to go as much "electronic" as possible. It is a huge cost-savings mechanism for us.

JoeK