Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Evaluating Boards?

[Katie Henry (katie-henry]

Wow, that's a loaded question. A few quick thoughts, since I'm on my way out:
If you're going to evaluate the board, you also need to evaluate the community 
on whether it did a good job of choosing the board and defining its 
responsibilities. In my former community, especially in the early years, the 
focus was on selecting nice people who wouldn't offend anyone, as opposed to 
finding members with relevant skills (finance, bookkeeping, building 
maintenance), or project management skills, or just the ability to make 
decisions and get things done. These boards would get bogged down in community 
controversies and lose track of the legal, financial, and infrastructure 
aspects of board duty.
If the board is not doing a good job, is the community going to know? If 
expenses are not being tracked and money is being wasted, is a non-board member 
going to pore over the books and figure that out? If non-obvious maintenance or 
inspections were deferred, how will you know? The board members themselves may 
not even know if they're not paying attention. I am aware of several condos 
where the management company didn't pay the utility bills for several years and 
then went out of business, taking all their money. The board didn't know, and 
the residents are facing huge past-due bills and imminent shut-off.
So what are your standards for evaluation? A lot of boards are considered to be 
successful if there is no legal action and no huge special assessments on their 
watch. Not a high bar.
Katie Henry 
-----------------------------
Evaluating Boards?  From: Sue STIGLEMAN (sstiglemanbellsouth.net)Date: Wed, 15 
Apr 2015 13:24:19 -0700 (PDT)Hi from Westwood in Asheville, NC.  
Does anyone have experience with doing a formal evaluation of your Board?  
Formats? Forms? Questions?  
I have a general HOA Board evaluation form, but I'm wondering if anyone has a 
cohousing specific form or process.Thanks!--sue Sue Stiglemansstigleman [at] 
bellsouth.net828-989-9373