November 13, 2007

Last night was the Annual General Meeting for the condo corporation. I had decided that it was time I volunteered to serve on the board, on the basis that being on the board is one of the obligations of ownership and so I put my name on the list for the election that night. At the meeting, I got up and said why I was running for the board and in addition to the "obligations of ownership" line (scintillating I am sure!) I also said that I liked the community that was our condominium association and how I thought I could contribute to it if I was elected.

As it turned out, I was elected and so I'd like to thank all those people who voted for me and who said even before the meeting that they'd like to have me on the board. I hope that for the next two years I will be able to maintain the good works done by previous directors and that maybe I will be able to think of ways to save our association money here and there and make things even a little bit better.

I have been musing about an article I saw in the Citizen of November 3, 2007, where it was reported that condo owners were looking to reduce property taxes because they were already paying for things like snow removal through their condo fees. I'll see if the board has already been looking into this at our first meeting next week, before I go off and reinvent the wheel.

Suggestions were also heard about having a sort of Welcome Wagon for new members and improving communications. The new condo website was unveiled, which I think is an excellent means of getting information out to many members of the association. Of course, there are some folks who do not have computers and who do not access the internet so we still have to think of them. And being welcomed to a new neighbourhood should really come in the form of a personal touch. But this is said with the mindfulness that all work done by not just the board members but everyone else in the community is voluntary and so people should only be doing what they have the means, especially in time, to do.

Another topic of interest at the meeting was the hedge that divides our property from the new construction site next door. This hedge is as old as the subdivision which is to say, about 25 years old. It has grown very tall and apparently, it was supposed to be trimmed fiercely over the last few years to bring it down to a manageable size. On my way home today, I noticed for the first time what a state it was in and took this picture. The shorter hedge belongs to the community at Plunkett Court and ours is the raggedy hedge looming beyond it. I have a feeling that some time in the not-too-distant future, the whole thing may need to be ripped out and replanted. Nothing lasts forever, especially not living things and all that construction right beside this part of the hedge may not be doing it any favours also. It will be a wrench for the people whose property backs on to the hedge, to lose that privacy for a while. But my own property backs on to a chain link fence and we can see right in to the yards of the people who live opposite and yet we manage.