The 39th Annual Meeting

[davidn]

One of the problems that we're told our condo association faces is convincing people to come to the board meetings, and honestly, after last night I can see why. It's held in the cafeteria/assembly hall of a local primary school, and there's a nice gesture in providing biscuits and soft drinks at the start, but after that they do a decent job of sapping your life force out. It began with the president of the association timidly mumbling into a microphone in an accent nobody could understand, and then Ben Steining her way through the latest village newsletter that we'd already read, competing with the equally monotone hum of a milk refrigerator at the side of the room. Then someone from the finance office got up and honestly... read out a spreadsheet.

There was an election for three board member positions for next year, where everybody who was on the board and has been for the last five hundred years was re-elected again. One of the younger candidates who we liked did quite well - we were the youngest people there and she was the only one who looked like she might have been born in the same century as us - but the village population seem to be too set in their ways to allow someone proposing any new ideas on to the board, and telling the "parking fine" joke during her speech couldn't exactly have helped, either. Nevertheless, getting 88 votes out of the half-dead audience was a fairly admirable result.

Then we won a month's free condo fee at the end in a raffle, which suddenly made it all seem worthwhile. Though honestly they might have more success if they just gave everybody $20 off or so for the month for being present and staying awake throughout.

Comments

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Why does anyone go at all? And what kind of "new ideas" can you propose to a condo board, anyway? ("If you answer the logic puzzle incorrectly before entering the shower...")

[davidn]

You're ruining my reputation ;)

I can't really answer the question of why anyone goes at all after that, though if there were to be one likely candidate I would say it was for the free cake and biscuits. And to put their votes in for the board, and to enter the raffle (which I'm still really pleased about, it made it feel like a half worthwhile evening). I suppose we go to the monthly meetings to feel like we have a say in what the people who govern the village are doing.

A couple of the new ideas proposed were about removing the "no pets" policy, and addressing the shortage of parking. But when she suggested adding a few extra spaces at the last monthly meeting, there was a chorus of rudely undisguised gasps from the senior citizens as if she'd just proposed paving a new car park with the ground-up bones of kittens.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Ah, politics!

[kibet.livejournal.com]

How big is the condo? If the person lost with 88 votes, would that not be a good turnout then?

[davidn]

It's quite large - there are 308 houses, I think, and the elected winners were only about 10 to 20 votes ahead of her (every house gets three votes), so it's only about a third of the population.

[tamakun.livejournal.com]

Man, your corporation sounds so much more forward-thinking than the -- oh geez, "39th Annual" means it's been around just as long as my old condo was.

Seeing that my condo was primarily made up of seniors, it didn't do well when we had to deal with things like locking up the unkept tennis courts which they didn't use anyway. (But, they did manage to change a few visitor parking spots to 15-min spots so said elderly people could get out and not have to walk too far.)

We didn't have any raffles, that definitely would've been a great incentive to get people to show up, since we also had poor turnout despite the event being held around the corner from the building!

Sounds like you've managed to get a decent place with decent people! :)