When I started this website in 2007, a year after a few of us formed the Owners Group, I posted my very first blog introducing the Owners Group to the World Wide Web. I thought it might be interesting to look at again. Rather than flipping back through all those pages, here is a link to it:
That’s OK, just click and read it. I’ll wait. (It’s the last one on the page.)
http://www.hawksnestowners.org/hawkblog/?cat=17&paged=8
All done? That’s all right, I probably wouldn’t have read it all either. You’ll get the point.
How times have changed. First, our membership now represents nearly 600 unit weeks, over 40% of the total. The communication among us, the owners, has improved exponentially, at least judging from the postings on this site, as well as the literally hundreds of emails I received during the most recent election campaign, especially with regard to the anonymous letter. I have many new friends, most of whom I’ve never met face to face.
Communication from the leadership and management has improved as well, I’m sure that many more owners are more familiar with the members of the board than they were just three years ago, and the new Hawks Nest website has a tremendous amount of potential. Of course, you can’t spend potential, so to speak.
So what about this website? I can tell you that if the state of the board and the “Official” website had been in 2006 what they are today, I most likely wouldn’t have been involved in starting the Owners Group, nor would I have spent the countless hours and not insignificant number of dollars to put this website on the internet.
So. Should we just fold up our tent and declare victory? I don’t think so. We’ve heard promises before. We’ve been optimistic before. While the new website holds a great amount of promise, it’s not the solution to our problems, it’s only the mechanism by which the board and management communicate with us.
The solution to our problems lies partially with the people we have elected to look after our interests. To make the solution complete, we, the owners, need to look after them, and that’s where the Owners Group comes in.
If minutes aren’t posted, we need to ask, “where are they?” If we aren’t getting timely and complete financial information, we need to ask, “why not?” If the property starts sliding back into disrepair, we need to ask, “what’s going on?” There’s plenty for us to do.
So keep asking those questions, call or write the members of the board or the manager. If you have a concern, SAY SO. If you have an idea, SHARE IT. If you have a complaint, VOICE IT. If you have a compliment, PAT SOMEBODY ON THE BACK.
I think most of us are optimistic for the future, and justifiably so. But the people who we entrust to take care of our investment, and it IS an investment, need to know we’re paying attention, that we care about what’s going on.