AGM 2008 (november 8th)

a)       what we are currently spending extrapolated to a full year. Note that this differs completely from the administrators statements. Theirs is a historical balance; I compiled mine by scrutinizing all current expenditures based on the raw accounts of the administrator. The difference is f.i that we didn’t pay security in the first few months, we hired another company for maintenance and required more hours works which is more expensive etc. The other reason is that I added water and lawyer costs as we will have to pay that next year (avoiding extra bills like last year for legal help).

b)      What our real income is. I make a strict distinction between yearly income and the one off funding fees for the community (the 300E everyone had to pay once). In my view we should budget based on yearly income and leave the initial fee (62.400E) as a reserve and buffer for debtors and future repairs etc.

c)       My proposal for next year is based on everything I know of Don Juan. I used a 3% inflation figure, left some companies without inflation correction as they don’t deserve it, used new quotes where I had them and made estimates for costs like electricity, water etc.

Right or wrong I think this the best possible budget if you don’t want to raise the monthly fees and are strict that we shouldn’t spend more than we earn. The administrator will present a much higher budget at the AGM as they took my figures for current expenditures and just extrapolated them for next year. They tell me that they have to do that by law as they can’t use figures which are not based on actual quotes. So f.i. my enormous reduction of the cleaning budget is not accepted by them as there is no existing quote for it. It’s up to the AGM to decide where they want to cut costs; the administrator can’t do that. Well my reasoning is that we have to save money as I don’t want higher fees. One of the expenditures where I put a much lower figure is the cleaning. Although we don’t have a quote for that figure at the moment I’m sure we can find someone who is willing to do the job for 20.000E. This would cover a full time worker five days a week which is more than we currently get.

Sorry that it’s hard to read, but posting is as text screws up the layout so much that in this case a picture is the better solution.

Max

Just a quick summary of the last meeting of the old committee. Hernan, Tonia, Xavier, Pepe, and me met with the administrators. Basically we tried to prepare for an efficient AGM. Small things like the organization, the voting process, streamlining the registration of voters etc. 
 
The end result as you will see it at the meeting is a powerpoint presentation by the administration which covers all the issues on the agenda. We went through it for the last time. There are still some flaws in it, but hopefully they can be sorted out before Saturday. At least we are sure we have a proper translator (Nathalie), a moderator (Pepe) and we made sure all the information is up to date. The English in the presentation is still far from perfect, but David is working with Maximo to get it right. Knowing David it will be proper English before it’s actually presented.
 
Max

Meeting Report

We had a good meeting. Still chaotic but less so than in the past. The interpreter was good. She kept interrupting Maximo to translate what he was saying. She got a bit carried away voicing her opinion but she made the Spanish\English balance a lot better. The meeting was more structured because we followed the PowerPoint presentation. Ken hopes to be able to get the presentation and put it up on his website on Monday. It gives a lot more detail than I can put here.

Arrohabitadge had paid 16500€ which was enough for them to be able to vote but did not repay the community fees misappropriated at the completion meetings. The community has already started legal action to recover this money.

Pepe chaired the meeting and kept everything going at a fast pace. We used a card voting system but as it was a bit slow and at times we were 2 points ahead of what we were voting for which was confusing.

Arrohabitatge sent their lawyer who kept coming up to the front to argue about everything. Very annoying and a waste of time.

The minutes accounts etc were all approved. Arrohabitatge had about 15 votes which Perla and the lawyer used against everything.

The 2 proposals about no conflict of interest and 3 months contracts for suppliers were passed.

The election section started with Ana explaining in Spanish who we were (Pepe me Javier and herself) and what we wanted to do. I spoke briefly (in English!). Then other nominations were invited. Rene’s name was proposed and accepted. Then Perla came up and made a speech proposing that she join the committee. This section was only in Spanish so I may have got it slightly wrong but someone said she wasn’t accepted as part of our team and as she had only paid her fees the day before was hardly the sort of person to be on the committee. Then she proposed herself as president. No other nominations were made so it was a vote between Perla and “Pepe’s team". She got 15 votes and we got 87 so I think no one voted for her except her and the developer’s lawyer.

The man who wants to build a structure on the Atico roof to support a canopy got approval. I thought it would not be pretty and voted against.

The rules were discussed but in the end we decided to come back to another meeting taking into account issues raised at the meeting.

We did not seek authority to take neighbours to court for changing the aesthetics of the buildings preferring instead to talk to our neighbours to try to find mutually acceptable solutions.

The next AGM will be 2nd Saturday on February 2010 with an interim meeting at a date to be decided next summer.

In spite of the effort to keep everything going it still took 5 hours. There were a lot of EOS members at the meeting and I hope they will post what they thought of the meeting.

In the meantime I will do my best to answer any questions

Congrats are in order! Of course to the new committee which funny enough again exists of three Spanish, one Englisman and one Dutch guy. We do well for a small country J

We also should be proud of ourselves. There were at least 110 owners who cared enough about the community to make sure they were represented and lots of them found it important enough to travel a long way to be there themselves. That is a very good sign for a young community: more that 50% of all owners found it important enough to put some time and effort in this meeting.

I’m very sorry that eight votes never made it to the meeting as I couldn’t attend because of a nasty illness of Saskia which required immediate attention by a physician. I couldn’t leave her in so much pain; luckily it wasn’t as bad as we originally thought.

Let’s hope this second year will be the last one where we have to fight the developer so that the committee can concentrate on improving Don Juan. I wish them very well and will support them where possible.

Max

Just back after going over specially to attend the AGM.

This proved to be a marathon affair with proceedings starting around 10.30 am and not finishing until 3 pm. It didn't help that the reading of the minutes and review of past year's events were interrupted by some people notably the lawyer from Arrohabitatge and Perla contesting matters that were not relevent to the subject in hand.

Maximo did a sterling job, presenting his report etc by way of Powerpoint slides split into Spanish & English points which greatly helped our understanding of what was being discussed. This was further amplified by the official translator who added some humour with her colourful comments from time to time. Pepe acted as moderator and was very effective. Most proposals were carried except for that relating to rules which has been referred bach to the new committee for further consideration etc.  The main problem is of course the length of such meetings and the fatigue effect that can set in after some hours although important proposals may still remain to be discussed.  Nevertheless it is important that everyone gets their say and the chance to contribute for or against a proposal and I feel the meeting was a success on this and all counts. Our thanks are due to the outgoing president and committee who worked so hard during the past year on our behalf and congratulations of course to the new president and committee who have agreed to continue the good work. God knows there are enough major problems yet to be sorted out so I don't think they will be short of work.  In fairness to GICS I was impressed also by their presentation and the effort put in to make it a success.

Have published a copy of the AGM presentation (Powerpoint)  which I have converted to a pdf file for residents to view, http://www.carvajal-spain.com/page4.html 

if registerd to sign in

.  Ken

A - Enter e-mail Address

B - Password

C - "Press" - SIGN IN

D - THEN Don Juan ENTER ARROW