046 AGM

…And, I’m back.  It’s still a little painful to type, but it’s a whole lot better than it was, even yesterday.  Just got in from my latest physio treatment and it has made a big difference.  Then again, I may pay for this later, when everything in my hand and wrist stiffens up again.  But, I digress from the point, I’m going to try and catch up from the 4 to 6 articles that have been buzzing around in my head for the last couple of weeks.

For every club, organization, or townhouse (this is my second) there is a wee little thing called the Annual General Meeting.  AGM for short.  They are to conduct the business aspects of running your organizations, and are usually lengthy, boring, drawn out affairs.  They can usually be made longer by the one disagreeable person who has an opinion about everything.

Sometimes the organizers are disorganized and things deteriorate from there.  The worst AGM I ever attended was a long winded affair that lasted 5 hours.  My god it was mind numbingly boring to the point that watching paint dry, soccer or a Canucks game would be more exciting.  Even the camera club meetings I attended lasted 2 hours.

You discuss new business, rehash old business, make rules, get rid of rules and elect council members.  It’s all necessary and in fact is required by law, so it’s not like you can just arbitrarily decide not to have one.  Some people choose not to attend and send voting proxies with other members.  It’s bad practice in that you don’t get a true input into the workings of your organization, nor do you get to hear all of the side nots that don’t get reported in the minutes of the meeting.

That being said, we got notice and an agenda of our first AGM since moving into the new complex.  It was only for phase 1 and phase 2 residents as we are the only ones complete and essentially filled to capacity.  When the whole complex is done there will be 8 phases and I believe 114 units.  I think that because it is the highest unit number I can find to date.  For some reason they started with the highest numbers and are counting down to Unit 1.

It’s been fun watching the new arrivals moving in, but even more fun watching and meeting the people who come and visit with their new houses to be.  A few months ago, I was one of those people, only there wasn’t a whole lot of residents around to chat with when I was doing it.  Now the soon to be owners find a bunch of us to talk to.  I bring this up, because it was while chatting with one, I discovered that they were not permitted to attend the AGM, because while they are soon to be owners, they haven’t signed final papers yet.

My first meeting although not the first ever AGM for the complex occurred about 2 weeks ago now and was scheduled for 6:30 PM in the library of a local elementary school.  It was quite warm, so I arrived early and scouted around to find a nice shady, cool spot to park and left all the windows almost halfway down.  There was a nice breeze and I knew it would be comfy and safe for Toby.  Plus, there was a baseball game going on for him to watch.

I headed into the meeting, prepared for the usual long winded affair and even brought my iPad for either taking notes or to amuse me during boring parts.  I grabbed the only adult size chair in the place, because if I sat in one of those tiny chairs, one of two things was going to happen.  First it was going to collapse, or second, I would get into it and never be able to stand up again.

There were 12 physical bodies present and one person holding 8 proxies, which was sufficient to give us a quorum and make the meeting official.  That’s 20 representatives out of about 40 units which at a 50% average is pretty amazing.   The meeting was called to order at exactly 6:30 PM and at 6:45 PM the meeting was closed and we were on our way home.  We reinstated the current 3 members of the executive and added a 4^th as they want to have 2 reps from each phase.  That will give us 16 council members when all is said and done.  I bet that’s when the meetings will become the long winded affairs I’m used to.

Everything that needed to get done, got done in those 15 minutes.  I am still amazed by this 2 weeks later.  I have never seen a meeting run so smoothly or finish so quickly in my lifetime.  Many congratulations to the organizers, the management company and the residents who participated.  I even got to meet a few people I haven’t met yet, and some that are becoming regular and friendly.  We are turning into such a nice and friendly community so far.