Condo Media - December 2010 - 31

of how and when the minutes should be published. Garrett thinks it is important to deliver the minutes to owners as soon as possible after a board meeting. So, he tries to include the minutes of a monthly meeting in the owners’ financial statement for that month, even if the minutes are still in draft form and haven’t yet been approved by the board. Other

industry professionals — mainly association attorneys — think the risk of publishing inaccurate information that must be corrected later outweighs the advantage of speedy communication with owners. To ensure accuracy and avoid potential liability for errors, they advise, the minutes should be published only after the board has reviewed and approved them.

The timing question aside, most industry executives agree that posting the minutes on a website is an efficient and cost-effective means of distributing them to owners, but association attorneys advise limiting access to community residents for two reasons: • Limiting access to owners who have a right to the information may provide

A Guide to “Good” Meetings
Almost anyone who works in an ofﬁce either has, or has seen a cartoon depicting a group of semi-conscious employees sitting around a meeting table, looking as if they have discovered a circle of hell Dante didn’t envision but would have included if he had. At the other extreme, and often on the same desks, are the pictures of meetings in which infuriated participants are hurling epithets — and large objects — at each other. Association board members and managers can probably identify to some extent with both. Although we can’t cite a scientiﬁc survey to support this conclusion, it is probably safe to assume that you won’t ﬁnd many board members who look forward to their meetings and leave them feeling grateful for the opportunity to attend. The problem, or at least one of the problems, industry executives agree, is that good meetings — deﬁned as meetings that are well organized, efﬁcient, and productive — require experience and skills that association board members don’t always possess. While we don’t have a cure for the “bad” meetings that are often the result, we can share some of the key characteristics shared by “good” ones. 1. They have an agenda, distributed in advance, which the board follows closely. 2. They begin and end on time. Board members typically have jobs or other obligations and are tired when they arrive for meetings that usually begin at the end of what has already been a long day. “Nothing meaningful is going to happen after 90 minutes,” according to Lombardi, who thinks that is about as long as most meetings should last. 3. The individual chairing the meeting — usually, though not always, the board president — runs the meeting with a fair but ﬁrm hand, giving every board member a chance to speak, but limiting the time allotted to discuss each topic. 4. The board has procedures, known to and accepted by all, for conducting its meetings. Without a set of rules to guide the discussion, “it goes everywhere,” Garrett says. “The board is in the discussion mode forever” and rarely gets to the action phase. Boards don’t necessarily have to follow Robert’s Rules of Order — the bible for parliamentary procedure; in fact, many industry executives advise otherwise. “There’s nothing simple about Robert’s Rules,” Perkins notes. Boards that try to follow that manual, he says, sometimes become so preoccupied with procedural details that they don’t focus enough (or at all) on the substantive matters before them. Boards only need a few basic guidelines, Perkins and others agree, primary among them: • a formal motion and someone to “second” it before an item is discussed. • Require orderly, civil discussions — no interruptions, respect for other speakers, no personal attacks. • Set a time limit for the meeting as a whole and for discussions on each issue. 5. Board members are prepared. They have reviewed the agenda and the management reports in advance and are prepared to discuss scheduled issues when they arrive. 6. They stick to business. They have refreshments, if at all, after the meeting, not during it. 7. They have attendance requirements for board members to ensure the quorum required to make decisions. Lombardi suggests setting a maximum allowable number of “unexcused” absences — not related to health or other speciﬁed problems. Board members who exceed that limit, he says, should be asked to resign or subject to a formal removal process if they don’t. 8. Board members understand that their “duty of loyalty” to the association requires them to accept and support board decisions, even if they don’t agree with them. Trustees who wander “off the reservation,” bad-mouthing board decisions and even trying to organize owner opposition to them “undermine the morale of the board and the community,” Lombardi says. Trustees who don’t like board decisions have only two options, he suggests: “Resign or toe the line.”

CONDO MEDIA • DECEMBER 2010

Condo Media - December 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Condo Media - December 2010