AGM 2008 (november 8th)

Hi all,

The agenda is not yet definite, but the date is getting close so I want to open this thread to focus on the AGM. This way people who want to attend can prepare in advance and for those who will give proxies it's a good chance to know what will be at stake.

The points which will almost certainly be discussed are:

1) Approval of the last minutes
2) Current state of the community affairs and the legal proceedings
3) Explanation and decisions abouth the common areas of phase I and II, the distribution of costs and the legal framework to work together
4) Approval of accounts of last year
5) Aprroval of budget for next year. Critical look at the companies currently hired. Renewal of contracts on a quarterly basis. Discussion about committee membership for suppliers
6) Approval of legal actions against people who didn't comply with the regulations about the exterior of their property.
7) Approval of the community rules / internal regime
8) A request by a penthouse owner for erecting a structure for his awnings
9) A firm date for next AGM
10) Appointment of committee members, president and vice-president

In my opinion 3 and 5 are extremely important, 7 will be next to impossible without proper preparation so I guess the new committee will get this task, 6 could be a lengthy issue if offenders try to discuss their own case and the chair doesn't avoid this and 10 will be critical for next year.

Remember this is not the final agenda; just my best guess based on drafts etc.

Max

I had expected the meeting papers to be issued by now. Although GICS inefficiency is at least partly to blame for this more work is going on to get the agenda right. They have gone from ignoring the issues we raised to including the vague discussion points on Max's "best guess" agenda to where we are now where specific proposals to exclude a supplier from being a member of the committee and setting up a quarterly review of suppliers are now included.
All of the current committee, except Hernan, are dissatisfied with the administrator. We need improved communication to and from owners, as well as improved efficiency. I believe the only way to achieve this is to search the market for a new administrator taking into account cost and recommendations from communities who have good administrators
All of the current committee, except Hernan and Toni herself are dissatisfied with the cleaner. There is almost certainly room for a significant reduction in cost and an improvement in service.
It is up to the meeting to approve these proposals and decide who gets elected but I remain hopeful that a committee will be formed that with the authority of the community will sort these issues. 
There is no reason why 2009 can't be a good year for Don Juan with an effective community doing what the owners want and a little more harmony and good neighbourlyness than has recently been the case.

test to check if I can still post. 
Apparently I can, but not in the chit-chat topic. I always get an error there.
I wanted to post an answer to Westport. Maybe someone else can try to post there to see if there is a problem with the topic?

Max


p.s. Thanks Michelle. I will report the error I get to the EOS people.


This message was last edited by max! on 10/15/2008.

This message was last edited by max! on 10/15/2008.

Hi Max,
I've managed a post, but I don't show as last poster on the thread 'list' if you know what I mean! Maybe a bit of a bug somewhere.
Michelle

To all.

Point 5 of the AGM.
Aprroval of budget for next year. Critical look at the companies currently hired. Renewal of contracts on a quarterly basis. Discussion about committee membership for suppliers.

I am not satisfied about the cleaning of DJ, all galeries, garages, entrances contain still dirt from last years delivery date.
While watching the cleaning done I have notice several times that at most 2-3 hours per day cleaning took place by 2 persons.
Quality / Prize is for sure not in balance.
Action is nessecary!

To avoid problems, suppliers and contrators schouldn't be holding a membership in the commitee
Lets keep things transparant and clear to avoid multiple interests

About the gardening company.
Maintenance for them fine.
But in my opinion the plan for the gardens should be on a project basis with a clear plan with a beginning and an end including timelines to contruct a real garden
Lets make a plan or ask for a plan how the gardens of DJ should look like in 2010
Find the cheapest company to construct the plan within the time lines and let the maintenance company run the maintenance.
Ofcourse the current mantenance company could also be in the race for the garden plan but on project base as explained with begin and end and a certain amount of money.

Point 4
It is wise to learn from the accounts and expenses of last year and to look carefully what we got for it in return.
Quality / Prize should be in balance.
If not Immediate measures should be taken. 

I hope Professional decisions can be taken at the AGM
Unfortunately I cannot be there

Best regards to All
René







This message was last edited by Rene35 on 10/16/2008.

Some of us (owners) have no idea what the agenda for the AGM is yet . It is indeed no surprise to discover that non-resident owners have not been sent their papers!

Talking about improving things, communications included, is simply not enough - ACTION must be taken to ensure all owners have the right to play their part in their community.

Hi Jenx, the official agenda and accompanying papers are still not distributed so nobody got these. I assume Rene’s comments are based on my ‘draft’ agenda below. The official agenda should go out tomorrow.

Max

This message was last edited by max! on 10/16/2008.

Hi Rene thanks for your comments. It is useful to know people's opinion. That way those of us who will be there can at least attempt to represent those who cannot.
Your comment about the garden is interesting. In my opinion none of our suppliers has been properly managed. Hernan delegated responsibility for directing the gardening and maintainance company to Toni and she got them to do what she wanted. I agree there needs to be a long term plan.

(continued from the discussion in the chit-chat area)
 
I assume that the swimming pool proposal is based on older minutes. In the first AGM it was decided that the pools would be filled with water all year round (for aesthetic reasons). Out of the summer swimming would be allowed but it would be at  personal risk and not endorsed by the community. At that moment  the prevailing opinion (not mine) was that we would be obliged to use life guards so this made sense. 
  
The proposed opening hours come from our license. The committee once decided that the pools would be closed at eight (and ridiculously enough also during siesta hours). When we finally were able to apply for a license I took the liberty to ask the town hall for a license from 10 to 10. As I explained to the other committee members I thought it would be wise to have a license which allowed us to do more; the committee could always limit the opening hours, but it would be stupid to restrict us unnecessary.
  
Presumably the administrator combined these two facts as a rule proposal.
 
As the internal regime is difficult to establish on an AGM I would be in favour of a limited set now and  an instruction to the new committee to come up with a more extended draft proposal for the next meeting.
 
Max

Hi all,
 
Time is pressing so it’s important to hear people’s opinions about the current agenda. Besides that it is important that possible candidates for the 2009 committee step forward. So far on EOS we have only David’s statement that he is willing to continue his work. From the current committee I’m pretty sure Xavier is willing to be a member (but not the president) for next year as well.
 
The president Hernan will step down, Tonia will probably step down if she has to choose between membership and her cleaning contract. Ana doesn’t want to be involved any more and the only other official member whose name I forgot never showed up after securing a contract for his insurance company. Pepe was quite active in the last few months and my guess is that he will step forward this time. He denies that he wants to be president, but it’s possible that he surprises us. 
 
That leaves me. I made up my mind over these last weeks and don’t want to be vice-president again. It took an enormous amount of time and effort which I cannot afford for a second year. I have considered a smaller role on the committee but I realize that it would never work. People come to me, ask me questions, make suggestions how I could do better, voice their criticism and are sometimes outraged. As a resident with an on-site company who speaks at least some English this won’t change if I took on a smaller role on the committee. It wouldn’t save me time or energy which I clearly need for our business and my family. So although I feel very responsible for the  Don Juan community I made the decision that I won’t be available for another year. 
 
Last year I was willing to do it as I find it important to put in an effort to build up a community and there were no other English speaking volunteers. You can’t improve things if you just stand aside criticizing so I took on the responsibility knowing you can’t please all people all the time. I mostly enjoyed the time spend and think that it helped to get the non-Spanish involved and informed so I can certainly recommend it to others. 
 
Please step forward if you want to sit on the committee. Don’t wait until the meeting itself because the proxy voters have to know in advance. If I can be of assistance next year to any new member I will certainly do so. I will help where I can with information etc.

  
Max

In opinion the president has to be Spanish and it would be lovely to have an English speaker as Vice president.
There are so many benefits when we will have a native President.
There are still a lot of problems to be solved and goals to be achieved where communication and social skills are very important.
Therefore Pepe is for me a good candidate as President.
As a neighbour I know him as an intellgent person who is also capable in my opinion to do the job.
I hope he will step forward!!

Best regards
René

This message was last edited by Rene35 on 10/20/2008.

The main items on the AGM is to approve the budget and the accounts, ( Horizontal Property Act ) . With the Financial year only being into the tenth month, accounts provided up to 31/08/2008 how can annual accounts be passed, approved, and the budget set, with no clear picture, and the basic subject headings changed, and not prepared in a standard format, it makes it hard to compare and update.

There is no background statements (sub budgets) or even a cash flow chart (flujo de caja) to see what the position of the start up 300€ and money paid for the legal action is, instead it is absorbed into the general budget.

In the present statement there is a discrepancy between the listing of

                                       Debtors Total 52700.91€ 
Budget Statement Neighbours Debt 39123.70€
                              Arrohabitage Fees 19573.21€

                                                 Total = 58693.91€

                                              Difference 5996.01€.

The statement in its present format leaves more questions than answers, no information on what the Improvements money was spent on (which on the prior budget we had a background to the items), installations maintenance, Repairs, Ornamentation ( Are these the stone clusters in the gardens?) Bureaucratic Expenses (Overheads) then the cost of post - high in this electronic age.

 

Ken

hi ken great post hope your standing for v/p ?if not a committee member ?as no one can add up bye irene

Hi all

I agree with Ken that we have a problem with the statements posted from GICS. The debtors list we received dated the 31.may did not balance with the total debtors in the statement either.  In July/August when I was struggling with GICS about my personal account(which is now sorted out), I did ask them questions about the statements and complained about the lack of budget. We did not know anything about the financial situation, only that no money was avaible in the bank.

In my opinion we need a prober budget showing us how much we are spending annual compared to the annual income. Sofar it is my point of view that we are spending too much. At the moment the initial fee is spend to cover the neighbours who are not paying. Ofcourse, several of them will pay up, especially if they are threathned with the court, but I do not have the confidence with GICS that this will happen in time - before the initial fee is spend.

I hope that the current committee is able to get information from GICS to make an overview of the costs of the community.  The poolmaintance started quite late and also the safetyguard, so we do not actually know the price in an annual period.

It is very difficult to tell other people how to vote - with the information we have been given.

Grethe

Edited to say.:in despite of several mails to GICS I never had any answars to my questions. But maybe Ken will succeed - if they realize that they made mistakes in this statement too.


This message was last edited by solgre on 10/20/2008.

This message was last edited by solgre on 10/20/2008.

 

Hi Ken,

 

Good that you had a critical look. I’m aware of most of the issues and they bothered me as well. A few more specific remarks:

 

The difference between the total amount on the debtors sheet and the summary on the account statement is the result of different dates. As you can see on the attached personal statement for every owner it says ‘fecha 01-10-08’ So the ‘actual situation’ on the account statement is a snapshot at a later date. Both don’t include the October fee’s but they do include the September fees. The actual situation reflects f.i people who claimed their automatic payment back. So the list of debtors is current until mid September and the ‘actual situation’ shows the reality at October 1.

 

(btw: the difference is not 5996,01 (the extra one cent doesn’t add up in your own calculation), but it’s 5993,00. The total of the debtor’s list is 52703.90 iaccording to my calculations.)

 

The ‘Accounts estate’ is an overview of everything spend since the start of the community. So it’s not ten months of this financial year, but it shows all income and expenses over 11,5 historical months (as the actual statement is based on payment until mid September). It’s useful as a tool to see what we actually spend so far, but I totally agree it can’t be the basis for a proper budget for next year. I already have made my own quite accurate estimate of our current cost level, which is a much better indicator of what should be considered for our budget next year.

  

The administrator originally had a budget proposal based on our historic costs and as this would be ridiculous (we switched companies during the year, costs should be normalized on a 12 month period etc) I asked them to withdraw it. I proposed a committee meeting instead to properly discuss the budget and make a better proposal for the AGM. We will have that this week and we will certainly inform you all.

 

Max

I agree it is very difficult to make sense of some of the figures.  Max says the total of the list of Debtors is €52,703.90.  By my calculations Arrohabitatge are responsible for €27,452.70 of this in respect of 25 Apartments plus trasteros etc.  This figure is very different from the €19,573.21 shown under Actual Situation which I realise may be somewhat earlier but surely it's not enough to explain this discrepancy.  As well Arrohabitatge still owe €16,500 in start up fees not passed on to the community. That means their debt to the community is approaching €50k now apart entirely from anything arising from defects in buildings etc.  One has to ask how long this can be sustained either by the community or Arrohabitatge.  Will we end up owning an extra apartment or two in payment of these debts?  Perhaps we should be basing our budgets for the coming year on a more conservative estimate of fee income while pursueing those who are not paying.  I also understood that by law a 5% reserve fund was to be maintained as a contingency reserve, is this still the case and if so how can it be established?

Hi gericom,
First the community is obliged to maintain a reserve fund of no less than 5% of it's last ordinary budget. Our reserve fund is currently funding our debtors. I am not sure if this is legal or if we need to have 5% reserve in cash.
Max Grethe and I spent some time studying the accounts we have been given. Max also had the back up files so we could at least try to understand where the figures came from. There are discrepancies in the accounts and I am not confident in them but they are what GICS have produced and we have to work with what we've got for now.
Because of these difficuties with the accounts I am not sure if we are in a position to keep fees at their current level and balance the books by cutting costs or if we will need to increase them. There is supposed to be a meeting this week when I hope the situation will become clearer. If it does Max or I will report back