126 | HOA Board Heroes: Dealing With Community Emergencies!

126 | HOA Board Heroes: Dealing With Community Emergencies! hoa-podcast
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Summary

Today we hear from HOA Board Hero Michelle who dealt with a 2-alarm fire that affected 32 units at her community.

126 | HOA Board Heroes: Dealing With Community Emergencies!

SPEAKERS

Michelle Mansour, Announcer, Robert Nordlund, HOA Invest

Michelle Mansour 00:00

We had a fire start and one unit at about 1am in the morning. It was probably every Association’s worst nightmare is something like that is dealing with insurance claims and human the human aspect. But I took over as president the community insurance work together to re, you know, rebuild someone’s home, but it was definitely, probably the most challenging thing I’ve been through, definitely on the board, but maybe been as a person.

Announcer 00:38

A regular highlight of the HOA insights podcast is our board heroes feature, where we dedicate one episode each month to celebrate the remarkable efforts of HOA board members to us a board hero is one of the 2 million elected volunteers who deserve recognition for excelling in a role that often goes unnoticed. Today, we’re excited to spotlight one of these exceptional board heroes and share their inspiring story. If you match our definition of a board hero, or know someone who does, please reach out to us. Our contact details and those of our sponsors are provided in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund 01:07

Welcome back to HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas. I’m Robert Nordlund, and I’m here today for episode 126 with another one of our board heroes. We’re proud to celebrate. Michelle Mansour is an eight year board member at her condominium association in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and professionally, she’s an intellectual property paralegal. She volunteers for the town of Mount Pleasant Planning Commission, and she’s an usher with a local minor league baseball team, the Charleston river dogs. And when she’s not doing all these work related tasks, and remember, she’s also a board member for Association. She tells me she enjoys knitting, paddle boarding, yoga, reading and sunrise dog walks on the beach, and she makes me wonder what the heck I’ve been doing with all my spare time. And so we’ll hear from Michelle in just a minute. But first, I hope you enjoyed last week’s episode number 125, with regular co host and insurance expert Kevin Davis, seeing the world through his eyes as a leading DNO insurance provider. And it’s because of that that when he was listening to Episode 110 about how to read financial reports, his brain immediately clicked to Well, what about the boards who don’t understand their financial reports? What’s the cost, or what’s the problem with that? So last week, we talked about the cost to the community when all the board members don’t have a working understanding of their associations financial position. If you missed that episode or any other prior episode, you can find them on our podcast website, Hoa insights.org, on your favorite podcast platform, or on our YouTube channel, but better yet, subscribe to the podcast in order to get every episode delivered right to your phone or mobile device. Well, those of you watching on YouTube can see the mug I have here, my HOA insights mug. It’s one of my favorites with a deteriorated property and board members talking about skimping on their reserves. I got that from our merch store, which you can browse through from our Hoa, Hoa insights.org website, or the show notes, and you’ll find we have plenty of free items there, like board member zoom backgrounds and some specialty items for sale, like the mug, but I like to give you a mug for free, so go the merch store, download a free zoom background. While you’re there, look around, find the mug you’d like, and if you’re the 10th person to email me at podcast@reserves.com mentioning episode 126 mug giveaway, we’ll ship that mug to you free of charge. Well, we enjoy hearing from you, and most episodes are in response to a topic that you’ve recommend recommended. So stay in contact, letting us know what questions you have or topics that you’d like to hear more about. Leave us a voicemail at 805-203-3130, leave a comment on the YouTube video or send us an email at podcast at reserve city.com, back to today’s episode. So Michelle, let’s start out by telling our audience the three words you use to describe being a

Michelle Mansour 04:09

board member, challenging, educational and humbling. Why is that? In a condo regime, the hardest thing is running a business and learning how to run a business when you do not have a business background. So I think that’s where the challenge and educational combines together, learning how to read financials, learning what you know, what needs to be done to upkeep a aging community and keep your neighbors happy at the same time and and it is very humbling to realize that it is in the learning you’re going to feel like you fail more often than you succeed, how much it does cost, and how much work is involved, and how much. You have to rely on on other people to help you through that, whether it’s property management or other board members.

Robert Nordlund 05:07

That’s interesting. So tell us more about your association. You said, 62 units. How old is it? You said, aging Association.

Michelle Mansour 05:14

The buildings are 40 years old. They converted to condos in 2006 so we’re coming up on 20 years of being a comp regime

Robert Nordlund 05:24

got it and professionally managed. Yes, okay, and let me ask a careful question. Does that make life easier or harder? Do you have a management company that’s helpful or one that you continually have to encourage and correct and wait for how’s that fit in at your association, we

Michelle Mansour 05:47

changed to a new property management company at the beginning of the year, so there’s been some growing pains. They are not as hands on as our last management company, so there’s a lot left up to the board, which has become a learning experience for the board, stuff that we’re not normally used to doing, we’ve had to take on. But overall, I would say their their software platform is amazing. Our neighbors really love it. It’s very user friendly. I like the way they do their financial reports. It’s more of working with vendors and speeding up that process that I think is our has been our hardest with this current property management company.

Robert Nordlund 06:38

When you first said that it’s requiring more of you. I was thinking, well, why’d you make the change? But it sounds like there’s, like, with so many other issues, there’s trade offs. This one has a better technology, we can say, but it’s requiring a little bit more of the board.

Michelle Mansour 06:54

I think it was a partly financial decision to change, okay? And in, you know, in part, we were like, you know, the technology and the financial aspect, making that easier and easier for neighbors to access information was important to

Robert Nordlund 07:13

us to find out what’s going on with their account or with the association.

Michelle Mansour 07:17

Overall honor, with all of our meeting minutes, all of the governing documents are easily available to them just making requests, being able to monitor when they make a request the process. We’ve not had that before, so it’s nice that they can just log in and see, okay, my request was received, and it’s at this stage,

Robert Nordlund 07:38

excellent, so they can see that nothing to stop

Michelle Mansour 07:41

us when we walk out our doors. Hey, did you see this?

Robert Nordlund 07:45

I emailed the management company last Tuesday. Have they told you about is it happening or not? That’s good. That’s good. Well, tell me about your role at the association. How long were you there at the association before you became a board member?

Michelle Mansour 08:01

I lived here for about a year and a half before I became a board member.

Robert Nordlund 08:07

And why did you become a board member?

Michelle Mansour 08:09

I wanted to see some changes when I moved in. The board at the time, and the property management company, third property management company since I’ve lived here, but there was no communication. I didn’t get, didn’t receive a welcome packet. Didn’t know when, like, even simple things like when pressure washing was happening. It’s like, oh, surprise, it’s happening today, because there wasn’t a lot of communication.

Robert Nordlund 08:39

All of a sudden it’s noisy outside, yeah.

Michelle Mansour 08:43

And I felt like this is stuff. If this is affecting me, it’s got to be affecting everyone else. And was like, I want to know what’s going on. I want to you know, there’s ways that this can improve. And that was really my reasoning for for joining the board, is, if I’m having this issue, other people are having this issue, so somebody’s got to step up and

Robert Nordlund 09:07

fix it. Was that perhaps a problem of you said it was converted to condos in you say, 2016 or 2006 2006 Okay, I got my I got a decade wrong. I was thinking that maybe they were just, you know, the brand new just about 10 years and 10 years doing it okay.

Michelle Mansour 09:28

And the first board also was not preparing for the future. They did not increase what they were saving in reserves, not thinking about this is, eventually you’re gonna have problems. You’re gonna have problems with 40 year old buildings. You’re gonna have infrastructure problems with your roads. Because we are a private road. They weren’t, you know, we have a pool. There’s lots of stuff that they weren’t, that they didn’t think about, because it’s, it’s new, right as just flipped them. It’s new converted. And you don’t have to, you know, you think, you don’t have to worry about these things and everything’s brand. New. You don’t think about what happens when it gets old.

Robert Nordlund 10:03

Yeah, well, that was the kind of association I bought into. I My background is I started, I got started in this industry because I was a board member and President to my association, and it was a condo conversion. And condo conversions have the problems of an older building, even though they are newer as an association, and there’s some additional bumps in the road. Well, that brings me to, I continue to have this kind of wrestle, or this question in my head about the chicken and the egg. Is it a bad association? That means you have a bad board, or is it a good board that creates a good association? And it sounds like you came in to an association that had some stumbles, but you got onto the board, and you, I’m presuming, that you then provided some additional communications, you provided some additional transparency, you were able to improve things. So how hard of a lift was that,

Michelle Mansour 11:00

think for the board members at the time, we started, generally, we meet quarterly. Now, but we were for a long time meeting monthly, sometimes weekly, just to start chipping away and tackling stuff and coming up with ideas. And we’re like, how about a newsletter? How about when we send out the financial packet at the end of the year? Let’s break down what each person, you know, what each building is paying per month. Because a lot of people are like, Where’s my money going? And they just see the big numbers and not like, how does this affect me? Personally? We started looking at, we need to, need to add to reserves. How do we do that and not have sticker shock? And at the time, we needed to go through, I guess, a roof replacement, because you have to do that every 20 years. So we strategically looked at that, and we ended up doing it where we just did, like, seven roofs a year you pulled from reserves to do those and let it reach yes, no, it was. It was a good, a good group that really just strategized and brainstormed how, how we make it better and start preparing for the future. We do live on the coast, so we have a lot we have to think about with insurance and hurricanes and maintenance.

Robert Nordlund 12:23

Got a map on my wall here, and I’m looking at South Carolina and all the stories we hear about Florida. You’re just state and a half away, so lots of big things going on there. I want to come back to something. You said 62 units, but you used to meet weekly, maybe as you’re correcting things, smoothing things out, then monthly, and you’re now have things going pretty stable, and you’re meeting quarterly, correct. That’s That’s amazing. How long did it take to go from you thinking this board is not doing a good job or not good enough, in my mind to I’ve run for the board, and now I’m on the board. We’re meeting weekly, we’re figuring things out, we’re making the changes that we all need to make. And maybe that’s is that what drove your initial comment about what was it humbling? Challenging and humbling. Are two of your three words. It took a while. But how long was that transition to get from where it needed help to where it’s now running somewhat, can I say smoothly?

Michelle Mansour 13:34

About a couple years. Okay. Took a while.

Robert Nordlund 13:38

Okay, so that requires so some persistence and some faithfulness to stick to it and see it through.

Michelle Mansour 13:47

I think teamwork is a big thing too. It’s, you know, important to have other board members. All of you have to be in it together. And, you know, board members cycle off, so new board members coming in, making them feel welcome and appreciating their ideas.

Robert Nordlund 14:05

Tell me about that. How many on the board? How long are the terms? Things like that.

Michelle Mansour 14:10

We have five board members with three year terms. I am actually in my third term. I’ll find choice.

Robert Nordlund 14:18

Are they? Are they staggered terms? So you don’t translate. That’s good

Michelle Mansour 14:22

cycles. It’s two, two in one. So cycle off to this coming year and then, and some people run for multiple years. Sometimes we just don’t have interest. That’s the hardest part is nobody wants to sit in the cheap seats.

Robert Nordlund 14:39

So well, in the cheap seats, in the hot seat, I would say, when you’re walking around the association, do you feel like you have a red shirt on that you’re branded? And people say there’s Michelle, let me ask her a question, like, are you known as a board member, or are you just you? Yes, one of the people, no.

Michelle Mansour 15:02

I think all of us, board member I probably get, receive the most feedback from neighbors, but other board members do too, and report back to the board. They know exactly who all of us are, where we live. Sometimes they show up on your doorstep.

Robert Nordlund 15:18

Knock, knock, knock. Well, that’s actually good and bad, because I would imagine, when you first felt a need to run for the board, that was probably a board that you didn’t know who they were. They were mysterious. What decisions were they making? What were they doing with my money? And now you’re part of a team, and I want to follow up on that, that you are the board, you’re running the association. There’s an increased transparency. You’ve got things going smoothly enough. Tell me how you Well, yeah, two things. Tell me how you are communicating to the homeowners at this point in time, and how often

Michelle Mansour 15:50

we do our quarterly newsletter. We do do emails in between, not just from property management, which is your normal e blast, that something’s coming up. But we do try to fill them in if, if something’s happening that’s a big deal. Like, you know, we had a very rare snowfall in January. We don’t usually get snow in Charleston. And we had, like, a winter main break so, and of course, it was on a Saturday. Of course, property management’s not there, so the board, you know, I’ll do up a letter and have the other board members proofread it and email it to everybody. So we try to be like, This is what’s going on. Don’t panic. We got it under control. So we try to tell, like, try to be immediate, responsive.

Robert Nordlund 16:42

I like that. Well, I like so many times you’ve used the word we, and I think that’s one of the hallmarks of an effective board, is that they are a we. It’s in the bigger sense, it’s our association. And then we as the board are working together on this. Michelle, can do this? I’ll do this. All proof it. You draft it. What do we need to say? How much do we need to want to overwhelm it with information, all this kind of stuff that it’s it’s a we together. And I think, well, let’s go with that. What are in your mind the hallmarks of a

Michelle Mansour 17:12

well functioning board? Definitely, the communication. If you know, using your your abilities. We have a board member who works in construction. She’s an invaluable asset. She knows like, if we’re pricing, fixing a fence or some what the what the cost of lumber is, whether we’re getting a good deal. We have an educator. He’s the best mediator in the world. He’s been teaching high school for a very long time. So it’s like, I’m like, if we have a neighbor dispute, I’m like, you know Tom, can you please?

Robert Nordlund 17:52

Yeah, good. Do

Michelle Mansour 17:53

this for me. And know, we have a newer board member, and he’s, he’s all in. If I have to meet with a vendor. I can call he works from home too. I can call him, and he comes out and meets with me. I’m like, I’d prefer two of us so nothing’s lost and misinterpreted, or, you know, he might understand better what what the problem is. And I do so we try to have, you know, all hands on deck, good and use your strengths. You know we have, like a realtor on the board. She knows curb appeal and what we should focus on making look nice, because that is important, keeping property values up.

Robert Nordlund 18:36

So how much time per week does this all take? You’re down to quarterly board meetings, but you are communicating in between ongoing relationships with vendors that stay on top of the management company, looking at the financial reports. What’s this boil down to on a weekly basis or a monthly basis?

Michelle Mansour 18:54

It depends. This year has been busier than normal when you switch management companies. It does take a lot more time, generally, like this month, I might put in 10 hours at, you know, bad month it might be I’ve gone up to 30 hours. I try to as a paralegal, I keep track of time for my job. So good for you, time for everything. But yeah, so it just really depends on the month and the type of meetings, if we’re playing, if we’re getting ready for annual meeting or budget meeting. Of course, we spend a lot more time that month, then in July, where there’s not much going on, and I do have other like another, we have a different officers on the board so the Financial Officer, he’ll review all the finances and then

Michelle Mansour 19:48

send me questions. I look at them too, but trust him to do them more in depth,

Robert Nordlund 19:56

yeah, it’s one thing to have a understanding. It’s another thing to. Uh, double check the math and those kinds of things. Michelle, I have a long list of questions that I still want to get to, but it’s time to now take a break to hear from one of our generous sponsors, after again, which we’ll hear much more from Michelle about her association and her experience as a board member.

HOA Invest 20:18

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Robert Nordlund 20:55

And we’re back. Well, we’re here with Michelle, board member from South Carolina, and I want to hear more from Michelle. Specifically, she tempted me with a story earlier about one of the big challenges that she faced right when she got on the board. So Michelle, tell me about what was going on with the association when you became a board member.

Michelle Mansour 21:17

Oh, I guess I had been on the board about a year. Well, not quite at that point, but we had a two alarm fire, 32 buildings, so 61 units. So they’re built like duplexes. So we had a fire start and one unit at about 1am in the morning, and it ended up taking out one full building and another half of a building beside it. The firewall stood and protected the other side. Fire response was really quick. They’re right down the street, but I had never witnessed a fire like that before, where a whole building

Robert Nordlund 22:04

like whoosh gone

Michelle Mansour 22:07

old wood and just, you know, dry conditions, it was probably every Association’s worst nightmare is something like that is dealing with insurance claims and Human, the human aspect. But I took over as president about halfway through that, because our current our president at the time, relocated, so I dealt with a lot of the hardest thing is human emotion. At that point, people who lost their homes, the people, even you know, the entire community, is affected by something like that. It’s very small community. We’re very close so but it’s and rebuilding. I learned a whole lot about the codes and construction and and building something back to the way it was, and how your master deed works, how, how ho six and the community insurance work together to re, you know, rebuild someone’s home, but it was definitely, probably the most challenging thing I’ve been through, definitely on the board, but maybe been as a person, wow.

Robert Nordlund 23:17

Well, I suppose I’ve the stories I’ve heard is that it can go everywhere from just like you say, the devastation of people who have lost everything their home is gone, to people on the other side of the association that don’t want to pay a share of the deductible because their home is just fine and what’s all the fuss about. And then you can have a divided community. But I’m glad to hear that your community kind of stood together and felt that we were all affected. I again, I like that we word so much when we’re talking about community associations. Tell me, if I was to walk through your association today and see the 30 some buildings, would it be obvious to me which ones got rebuilt after the fire, or

Michelle Mansour 23:57

did it they look exactly the same. They’re just better built. They’re built they’re built to withstand a category two hurricane. Now, the rest of us are hard, so it’ll be flip flop. Some of us were a little little jealous,

Robert Nordlund 24:11

interesting. So when there’s a category two hurricane, there’ll be the two buildings standing and, yeah, I hope we don’t have that problem.

Michelle Mansour 24:21

I hope, yeah, I hope we don’t ever have I lived through Hurricane Hugo as a kid, so I never to live through something that devastating again.

Robert Nordlund 24:30

Yeah. Well, tell me what you do to build community, to build that, the compassion that it takes, the team spirit at the association, so that everyone did feel like we were damaged, not them.

Michelle Mansour 24:45

I think it’s just every you know when you’re out, just walking out your door, saying hi to people, getting to know them, asking how they’re doing, and then keeping them informed when something like that does happen. Yeah. It’s like we’re on it. We, you know, this is what’s happening. This is when we expect to start rebuilding. There’s, you know, a lot of guess, hand holding at that point. And I think that was majority of it. Our neighbors seem to all get along really well. So there were neighbors bring in people who lost everything, clothes and and different toiletries and stuff they needed. So I was really impressed with that was the outpouring of support from just neighbors all, all just in our little community.

Robert Nordlund 25:36

Yeah, neighbors being neighbors, yeah. I love that. Well, on the show, every once in a while, we’ll talk about some of the characteristics of a effective board, and we’ll talk about the 4c that they care, they’re curious, they’re courageous, and they communicate. It sounds like you’re doing a lot of those things you care, taking the time to say hello and to chat, communicating. I just, I love that. I think that has so many secondary effects, where people feel like they are being well taken care of. There are no secrets. It’s that clarity, the openness, the transparency that goes a long way. Tell me about what you have, as far as, okay, let’s say you have a good sense of community. At your association, your board is down to operating quarterly. Do you have a pipeline for board members? Do you have committees that are functioning, that are supporting the board

Michelle Mansour 26:30

we do? We have a landscape committee, a capital improvements committee, and what we call the playground committee. They’re kind of like the social committee.

Robert Nordlund 26:43

Do you have a playground? We do have

Michelle Mansour 26:45

a playground, and not figure out how to how to improve upon it, but they do take on, you know, some of the smaller tasks around the neighborhood, like after storms, we organize neighborhood cleanups. Instead of spending the money for the landscaper to come out and do it, we’re like, hey, we’ll buy the debris bags and everybody come out on a Saturday and we’ll all get together and clean up together.

Robert Nordlund 27:14

I like that again, that we It’s Our Community, and you’re not just saying, you know, ABC landscape, and we’ll handle it hopefully a week from Tuesday. It’s us acting, acting like

Michelle Mansour 27:27

neighbors. I think that was what we were doing. We were like, this is going to cost us X amount of dollars if we hired the landscape company because it’s outside of our contract, or we can all get together, do it, go get some pizza and beer afterwards.

Robert Nordlund 27:40

I like that. Now the insurance expert that I’ve heard, they’re all going to say, make sure you have volunteer insurance writers on your policy. So I think there’s something like that out there.

Michelle Mansour 27:53

Tell me more. Yeah, I haven’t checked our insurance for that.

Robert Nordlund 27:57

So you have community building events, you have a board that’s functioning effectively. Tell me about the community itself. Is there age range? It’s like, Do you have a nice blend of people, people from South Carolina, older people, younger people, people from far away, and how does that affect the community spirit there?

Michelle Mansour 28:15

We do. We have, I’d say 40% of the neighbors live here full time and the rest do not. It’s vacation homes, rentals. And the people who live here full time and and they we have everyone from like, you know, single people, young, young professionals, just starting out, faint young families to retirees. So it’s a it’s a very vast demographic.

Robert Nordlund 28:49

It’s a nice mix, nice little, yeah, okay, good. I think that often is very helpful at an association. Some people are afraid that what are we going to do with young kids running around, or we have to make sure the stair railings are good, because we have some elderly people in the association. But I think that just a wonderful blend. You have a nice engagement when there’s people across generations, people with different accents, everything like that. Tell me about your board meetings. What makes for a good board meeting? When you look back and say that was a good one, why would you rate it as a good one?

Michelle Mansour 29:27

We stick to the agenda. You can you can go off the rails and make sure what? Because we have open board meetings, other than the budget meeting, all our board meetings are open that we make sure we hold the neighbors and check, even though it’s hard, you want you want their feedback. We’re like, your feedback comes at the end. We’ve got to do our job, because they all want to part. And I’m like, if you want to part, you got to get on the board, good, or join a committee, because the committee will. Support to the board during the meeting. But yeah, it’s it’s managing it and keeping it, you know, keeping focus and in making sure we you know who gets assigned what tasks while we’re in the meeting. Follow up after the meeting.

Robert Nordlund 30:16

So as you meet quarterly, does meeting less frequently than monthly. Mean you have more participation from homeowners because they want to make sure they catch up on what’s been going on, or less participation because the board’s got it covered and

Michelle Mansour 30:33

it’s in good hands. I think we probably have more quarterly than we would have monthly, just because people would probably get bored or or something. But it also, yeah, depends on our agenda and what’s going on at the time, how much interest? But we usually have a good it averages from eight to 16 homeowners. It’s not a huge to it’s not a huge showing at the annual meeting. Gets a better showing than and even then, it’s hard to make a quorum. I assume that’s pretty standard with people wanting to be involved. I always think, if there’s nobody showing up, we’re doing a good job.

Robert Nordlund 31:13

Otherwise they’re there with what, torches and pitchforks.

Michelle Mansour 31:18

Oh yeah, yeah. After the two alarm fire, we discussed, we did get sued by a homeowner, even though it wasn’t our fault. She sued over the reconstruction. But that was like that next meeting was like, everybody’s there because you have to be like, it’s no big deal. Insurance will cover it and the lawyers will figure it out. It ended up settling, but, but, yeah, she just wasn’t happy with the rebuild. So think there’s a lot of human emotion in that, involved in that too, when you lose everything, explaining that to the neighbors. That was definitely a big challenge. Was explaining like, you know, people see lawsuit, and I think whole world Armageddon is coming. You know, you know, we’re going to have to pay so much money, and I’m like, No, it’s It’s okay.

Robert Nordlund 32:09

I think two things from that. One is you confronted it, you communicated it simply and clearly in a timely manner, and you were well prepared, and you had a reputation of being transparent. And once you said it’s going to be okay, it’s covered by insurance, nothing new, nothing to see, everything’s okay. And probably your demeanor and even presenting that probably gave people the assurance that it’s going to be okay, it’s not a big deal. So that’s your payback for all that time of being transparent, communicating well, that you had built that political capital of trustworthiness, which is just wonderful. Michelle, we want to thank you for taking the time to join us on today’s program. Any final thoughts to share on your board member experience,

Michelle Mansour 32:57

just you know other board members you know, hang in there and do your best. Always think of Tony Horton. I like to work out so Tony Horton always says, do your best and forget the rest. I think that’s the biggest thing, is, don’t take it personally. That’s the biggest thing. That was the biggest lesson I’ve had to learn is it’s, you know, it’s not always about you, or don’t take it personally, because you can, you can let it eat you alive when you’re when people are disappointed, or you’re not going fast enough, or you have to say no to people for whatever reason.

Robert Nordlund 33:36

Yeah, I like that you’ve talked about right the start. About it being challenging, it being educational and humbling, and yeah, you don’t want to take it personally, because it’s a volunteer position. You’re not getting paid enough to take this kind of garbage. Chin up. Be clear about what’s going on and smile. Take the time, and you’re going to earn a lot of brownie points, and a lot of friends, they’re going to probably end up taking your side, and you feel supported. And when you say, Hey, can you help? We had a storm. There’s cleanup. Can you help? On Saturday, people show up. It’s not like you’re the only one. So you’ve built community at your association. Well, we want to publicly acknowledge Michelle for performing a thankless job well in what sounds like a beautiful place to live, except when there’s a storm that needs cleanup. But we’re glad she’s there on the board to keep it operationally sound, to match the property’s natural beachfront beauty, while we hope we gain some HOA insights and encouragement from Michelle’s observations and some experience that helps you bring common sense to your common area, and remember, if you match our definition of a board hero, or know someone who does, please reach out to us. We love having bored heroes on our program. Our contact details are provided in the show notes. Thank you for joining us, and we look forward to another great episode next week. You’ve

Announcer 34:55

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