Online HOA Committee Meeting
One of the biggest challenges and costs to an HOA Board is keeping homeowners informed and getting quality feedback on HOA business and new issues. SCM's solution to this difficult problem is Webhall Meeting, an interactive web forum developed specifically for HOA members. It is expensive to hold excessive meetings and meetings can be the biggest consumer of HOA Board time. To avoid these problems, Boards typically schedule as few meetings as possible, the homeowners don't get informed in a timely manor and very little interactive comment is held on HOA business. This is not a best practice and results in alienation of the homeowners and potentially costly community conflict. Email is one solution but it is cumbersome to manage and if not handled correctly, may result in important messages being missed and potentially sensitive information getting forwarded to the wrong people.
SCM's solution is Webhall Meeting. This simple application allows board members and homeowners to see issues for comment in the privacy of their home or office, allows them to thoughtfully think through the issue and place comments or questions on the Webhall Meeting forum. This is a great alternative to developing an agenda, sending out meeting notices, getting a meeting facility, driving to a meeting, holding a meeting that likely will spin off topic, then develop and distribute meeting minutes. The worse case alternative is to have no interaction with homeowners at all.
The Webhall Meeting message board works like this:
- Access the Webhall Meeting forum from your community web site
- Different forums can be created for different applications
- General HOA issues
forum - Private HOA Board forum
- Private Design Review Committee forum
- Select the topic you wish to review and all current comments are displayed
- Existing votes by board, committee members or homeowner poll standings are also displayed
- Click on the link to view any relevant documents like a design review request
- If topic has a time limit, remaining days will be displayed
- Review comments and leave your own, an email will be sent to other members that a new comment has been left
- Statistics are available about how many homeowners have reviewed the request or commented
- Access to non-public meetings are password protected. SCM only gives access to the people you want on a specific Webhall Meeting message board
The Design Review Committee is a great Webhall Meeting application. A Webhall Meeting board is created with access for DRC members. A design review request is posted in Webhall Meeting and each DRC member gets an email a new request has been submitted. The DRC members go to the Webhall Meeting forum and see the new request on a list of all open request. The new message or meeting will show the date submitted, the address of the request, a link to the documents, an email link to the homeowner, the due date and the existing vote of the other DRC members. By clicking on the meeting, the comments or questions on the request will open below. Posted comments are easy to follow, new comments are easy to post and are date stamped. When a comment is posted, the other members get a brief email that new comments are available on the request. The original meeting entry turns yellow and a tickler email is sent if the due date is approaching. The status of the request is changed from in process to approved/disapproved when completed. The completed request is then sent back to the homeowner with any necessary comment or clarification.
There is a poll feature to solicit specific positions from homeowners on a topic. Webhall Meeting can be used to prepare for HOA Board meetings as well. Topics and board issues can be put into a Webhall Meeting, then board members can comment and develop alternatives. The board members just need to have an official vote at their regular meeting. This makes meetings much shorter, more business is conducted and higher quality decisions are made. Webhall Meeting can even be used for official HOA Board votes on specific resolutions that need rapid response.
HOA Boards that use Webhall Meeting realize better interaction between HOA Board members and homeowners. Faster response to issues, more response to issues, and more community development at a lower cost than physical meetings. Stillwater Community Management's exclusive Webhall Meeting could be the most effective HOA management and community development tool in existence.