HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas

029 | HOA Board Member Job Descriptions

Hosts: Robert Nordlund, Kevin Davis, Julie Adamen Season 1 Episode 29

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Learn vital HOA board member roles & how to lead with honesty. Improve your community with expert tips.
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Today Julie and Robert to take a deep look at HOA board member responsibilities. Explore the significance of truthfulness, commitment, and the power of effective communication in community management. Gain practical advice on how to attract and recruit the right candidates for your board, understanding the intricacies of roles, responsibilities, and the crucial need for transparency. Discover how to navigate personal agendas, promote common sense decision-making, and the importance of moving forward as a united board. This guide is an invaluable resource for current and prospective HOA board members committed to building a thriving, well-managed community.

Chapters from today's episode: HOA Board Member Job Descriptions

00:00 Truthfulness in HOA board member commitment
02:04 How to describe an open a HOA board member position attractively enough
04:50 Leave nothing to hide in your HOA Board member position
08:55 Communication and transparency in homeowners associations
15:55 Bringing common sense and care to your HOA Board
21:48 Ad Break - Kevin Davis Insurance Services
22:17 What’s really the job of a HOA Board Member?
27:35 HOA governance policies and best practices

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Julie Adamen
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Kevin Davis, CIRMS
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Julie Adamen:

People know the truth when they hear it, and they smell untruth when they see it or hear it. So they may not admit it most of the time or a lot of times but they know it so be truthful, they they can look at board members and say this guy's not spending an hour a month. They're spending a lot more time than that. So be truthful about it because it's it's true, it does take some commitment.

Announcer: HOA Insights:

Common Sense for Common Areas exists to help all 2 million volunteer board members nationwide have the right information at the right time to make the right decisions for their future. This podcast is sponsored by four companies that care about Board Members Association insights & Marketplace, Association Reserves, Community Financials, and Kevin Davis Insurance Services. You'll find links to their websites and social media in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund:

Hi, I'm Robert Norland of association reserves.

Julie Adamen:

And I'm Julie Adamen of Adamen Inc. and this is HOA Insights where we promote common sense

Robert Nordlund:

for common areas. Welcome to episode number 29, where we'll be talking about the job description for a board member. How do you describe the task ahead to someone asking about serving on the board. That's what we'll be addressing today in the next few minutes. In case you haven't had the chance to listen, I want to encourage everyone to check out our last episode number 28, which is a great discussion with Tom Conley, a consultant serving associations about the different motivations behind people becoming board members. If you missed any of our other prior episodes, take a moment after this one to subscribe to this podcast on any of the more popular podcast platforms. You can also listen from our podcast website, which is www Hoainsights.org, or watch on our YouTube channel. And if you have a hot topic, a crazy story or a question you'd like us to address, you can contact us at 805-203-3130 or email us at podcast@reservestudy.com. So Julie, as we so often do, let's start our discussion today with an audience question. Ham from Dallas asked how do we describe an open board position attractively enough so people will run for the position, but not too scary. And let me add truthful enough about what time and energy it will require.

Julie Adamen:

As I say Be truthful, if you don't tell the people the truth up front, if you tell them it's an hour a month, they're gonna hate you. And they're going to tell they're going to tell other people that that you guys lied to them and that no one's going to want to be on the board. But what I would say is that, be honest about how much time it takes. But I would emphasize the positives, because there's a lot of positives and being on a board of directors, I mean, you get to be a part of, you know, steering the community in a positive direction, you get to hopefully, and you and you get to have your voice heard and as well as you get to be another conduit between the board and and homeowners. And if you're a new person you to the board, you likely have friends within the community or acquaintances in the community, who maybe never had a board member to socialize with or be around. So they will be able to ask you questions, or they will be able to actually know a live board member and realize that oh my god, they're just regular people trying to do the job. The last thing I would say is that make sure your community has a good experience prepared for this person or as good experience as it can be. Number one is make sure that your board meetings are well run that they don't last three hours when they should last 40 minutes. Make sure they're not full of vitriol. And just if your community is being is positively moving forward, people want to be a part of that they want to be a part of something positive. So all of those things together, but one last time be truthful about how much time it's going to take. But there are positives to and tremendous positives to being on a board. And I emphasize those

Robert Nordlund:

right in here focus on the rewards. There are a lot of rewards, it does take time. And I think we've spoken previously about kind of the chemistry or the character of the board and the association that starts at the top with the leadership. And if you're truthful to the other board members and you're truthful to the committee members, and you're truthful to the homeowners and if you do a regularly Rinse, lather, rinse repeat. Then the homeowner is going to be more comfortable. And you're going to have that situation where it is more inviting. You have nothing to hide. And that's an amazing place to be. Wow got talking about nothing to hide. We're talking about job descriptions. Yeah,

Julie Adamen:

exactly. Last about nothing to hide. It's like and I think we had talked about this the last time you and I did a podcast, Robert is that people know the truth when they hear it. and they smell untruth when they see it or hear it. So they may not have been it most of the time, or a lot of times, but they know it. So be truthful, they they can look at board members and say this guy's not spending an hour a month. They're spending a lot more time than that. So be truthful about it. Because it's it's true, it does take some commitment. Yeah.

Robert Nordlund:

But then there's this hole. In addition to that, I think when you think about it, like you talked to, it opens up a circle of friends, the new board member from year number 13. Knows 12 and 14. And the people may be above and below them. And so when they are walking the dog or taking their garbage out, and someone says, Hey, I hear you're on the board, tell me about this. Hold those five minutes and 10 minutes and 15 minutes they add up. And so you are you end up being a point man to communicate and do some incredibly positive things to an entirely new section of the homeowners that the board never had penetration to. I still like this knowing the truth. And we can speak candidly Oh, yes. Yeah, the reason are, we thought we'd have a dog park opened by September and it's not going to happen. It looks like it'll be November a two month delay. But reason is this and this and this. Having the truth there at quick disposal, makes fear go away, eliminates confusion, confusion, insights, distrust, all those kinds of bad things. And so getting a new board member on can be so healthy for the Association for Wow, untold many positive reasons.

Julie Adamen:

Exactly, exactly.

Robert Nordlund:

So what do you say? Do you say hours per month you say this or that? And then How different is it for a 300 unit, twin tower high rise, compared to a little 50 unit quiet plan development that has just an entry monument sign?

Julie Adamen:

Well, that that's a crapshoot. I mean, the way long time ago when I was managing as a portfolio manager low these 30 years ago now, but sometimes the smallest communities were the ones that took the most time. And I think if you ask most people who are in the management side of the industry, the small communities often will take more time. And I don't know why that is, but oftentimes they do. And also, it may depend on whether you have a management company and a manager who is competent at both company and managers competent, who takes a lot of this day to day stuff off of board members. But then again, sometimes there's just a lot to do. And I think so that really comes down to community to community. And whether or not it's busy, or whether or not it's it's less busy, and the board doesn't have so many hours to put into it all usually has to do with number one, what's going on in the community? Are you in litigation? Is there a big, you know, reconstruction project going on? Or are you doing some retrofitting any kind of thing like that, that I account is busy, and that creates a lot of customer service issues or questions, that type of thing. And then it's also how well run, how well administered is the community by the board. And I'm going to come right back to what we always do. Communication. Transparency is everything again, truthfulness. And it's sometimes I believe me, I know board members, you kind of feel like this like that. Like you're there's there's arrows being slung at you all the time. And if I talk more, I'm just gonna get more arrows. Well, yes, and no, I'm it depends on how you're talking. And it depends on what you're communicating. So I will always err on the side of more communication, not less, not less.

Robert Nordlund:

I like that. I think there's so much power in communication that, like you say, it's not that you give people more opportunity to attack you. But I think it's a great shield, where it can deflect so much potential criticism and that confusion and the distrust and uncertainty. What is the board doing with with all our money on paying this man, I remember seeing an interview right after champion tower south, where someone was saying the board has taken my mother's money for all these years, what did they do with it? I was like, well, running an association is expensive. And you need to, you need to be on top of that you need to communicate that. So being a board member is important. It doesn't have the same job descriptions that well if you want to be an attorney, you need to go to law school, you need to pass the bar. If you want to be a firefighter, there's physical fitness requirements. What are the requirements, fundamental requirements for being a board member?

Julie Adamen:

Well, typically, it's you have to be an owner. That's not 100% though, but you have to be an owner. And the second one is, I don't know upright and breathing. It's willing you're willing to do it. You know, talking about how you get on boards like that i i have a whole program I do about this for board members. What is it? How did you get On the board, well, you left the room and were voted in. There's always the the meeting was around cocktail time, you had one too many and decided to volunteer. There's another one. There's gonna be all do it. Sides crafted that second Margarita. Everything's great. Yeah. So, anyway, that's it. But really, that's it. And I will say that all board members no matter what reason they get on the board, and there's a whole bevy of reasons, many have an agenda, you know, others, you know, are sure the management companies charging too much or, you know, but most were even people who have their own personal agendas, mostly board members want to do the right thing. They, most of them want to many be may be uninformed about what actually is going on in the association or how associations operate. They are business, they were Corporation, nonprofit corporation, typically. And they just don't know. They just they don't know what they don't know. And especially if communication isn't good, you know, when communication isn't good, or there's none or it's conflicting communication. You get all these rumors that start and as I was, once again, they grow exponentially a cocktail time around the pool, and the rumors just can explode it. Look, all you got to do is look at your entire country or locally, look at your own governments. And when any section of our federal government, state government, local government, school boards, whatever, when there comes out either no information or conflicting information, the first thing you all of us as constituents of those organ entities. Go is like, whoa, wait a minute, I don't I have no trust whatsoever in what's going on. And a homeowner's association is just a microcosm. It's just it's a little more it's a true direct democracy, more of a direct Republic. How about that, as opposed to a direct democracy, but it's the same thing. So if you are, again, not truthful, not forthright, not forthcoming, in communication, and have as real strategy for it can be very difficult.

Robert Nordlund:

as you said, in prior conversations that we've had, it's so quick to react. It's like a little petri dish where you can test something and so well, in city, state, federal government, it may take time for a policy to filter out if it even gets to Yeah, it even gets to you. If you raise assessments, or if you close the pool, that's an instant reaction, and you get tremendous feedback. And you haven't made it clear that the water is going to be shut off in building number two, beginning two o'clock on Thursday, this date. Boy, if you haven't made that clear, a couple of weeks in advance with reminder notices a reminder. Yes, yeah, you've got why did that happen? Well, what's going on?

Julie Adamen:

Yeah, and it's everyone, everyone assumes the worst immediately. So that's not everyone, but a good portion of them will assume the worst immediately, for varying reasons we could. That's a whole nother half hour conversation. But and we could talk about this for hours, Robert, but they'll assume the worst. And as a board, you know, I know as board members are like, Oh, my God, I'm a volunteer. Why do why do they assume the worst? I'm just dying, just one of them? Because the truth is, it's human nature and being a part of a board, you're going to have to deal with it and manage it. And by managing it, I mean, what are we going to do to stop or to mitigate that aspect of human nature that they're going to assume the worst? Well, we're going to communicate early, we're going to communicate often, we're going to send out reminders. And then even if the one or two people who didn't get the memo, and know all those seven times you sent it out, that's only one or two people not 25.

Robert Nordlund:

And hopefully when they're walking the dog or taking the garbage out, and they say, and they're grumbling about the board, and that had had, and someone else was like, Whoa, well, didn't you hear that? The reason the gauges not working is because they've ordered a new one. And that's coming next week. Yeah.

Announcer:

Should you get emailed email yesterday? Yeah. At

Robert Nordlund:

all. And I don't read that. And yeah, it was a shame them but I'm sorry, go ahead.

Julie Adamen:

No, no, you're right with Actually you're right. It's not shaming, it's just a matter of emphasizing so if in management world What if someone said if I was the manager of that association and someone said What do you mean my waters off? And you would say, Well, did you receive that notice? No, I didn't receive the notice. And typically in the management world, you can there's software that keeps track of everything that goes to all the owners. So you say but we sent you notices on this date, this date, this date and this date and you and edits it's emphasis that the you guys actually were doing your job, the management on behalf of the board, both were doing their job, and someone just didn't get the memo because they did want to and maybe next time they'll actually read their email more often than once a month. Or, or look at what was sent to them instead of just hit the delete button because it came from the HOA.

Robert Nordlund:

We'll get back to job description we talked about you need to be You actually don't always need to be dependent on the governing documents or resident, you need to be there. Typically an owner, sometimes a spouse is okay. Well,

Julie Adamen:

I'm gonna say so don't forget some you know, during the development phase, the developer typically has some employees that sit on a board. And so if those documents are not they don't specify the developer. I mean, there's things that I could say that has to be developer representative. But sometimes the documents aren't that well written. And so it just is it allows people who are not homeowners to be on the board, this, one of the last boards, I sat on, if you've listened these a few times, you've heard me talk about it. I had resigned because I'm moving out of the area. But that was documents, I could have sat on the board while another year or another six months, because you didn't have to be a homeowner. I declined. But I get out there a couple of years, I'd already backed already put my time in and a lot of work. So

Robert Nordlund:

yeah, well, that's another aspect. Okay. Typically, you want to be committed to the association, Owner, resident, you are moving, you need to be alive and functional. But we go down that path a board member doesn't require the fitness of some physical jobs doesn't require the analytical knowledge of some professions. It requires you to be you, and bringing the common sense that you have to the to the board to the conversation the board's going to have. And I guess my, my bias or my stereotype is there's so many boards, you get focused on the minutia of running the association, this and that. And they forget or neglect where you've stress from a times the communication aspect. And just being a communicator, and that can be spouse of the treasurer, the president, themselves, as you are walking around the association, communicating the as you're putting a notice up somewhere, spreading the good news that we are getting this, you're, as I like seeing on the roadway when I'm slowed by construction. I like seeing the orange highway sign that says your tax dollars at work. Because it's like, Oh,

Julie Adamen:

good, the pine lakes. And finally

Robert Nordlund:

something I can see. Yeah. But being involved at the association, caring enough to want to spend some time and not be in fear that it's going to be a horrible thing. And maybe it's what we're looking for is the people who do care enough and populating the board with people who care. Isn't that gonna do wonderful things for the association?

Julie Adamen:

Yes, typically it does. And I think most people that they do care won't be on a board. I think that that's whatever the document say you have to be a homeowner, resident or homeowner, right. And then you also be be willing to spend the time because again, once we say it's not just an hour, a month or two hours a month, that's not it. So be willing to spend the time have the interest, or as you like to say, Robert, to curiosity, in being a board member, and what actually goes on, it's not just a great place to warm a chair. Because if you're gonna think you're gonna warm a chair, you're going to end up in charge of a committee, it'd be a committee chair, because they're going to need somebody and boom, you're that person. And if you don't want to take on that type of responsibility, I wouldn't bother to be on a board, I think the next thing is you have to play in the sandbox well with others, because everyone on that board is going to be very different from you, you may all be in the same situation in life right now. Maybe you're in an over 55 active adult community, you know, maybe or, or you're not, you're in a community that has lots of kids, and you have you have kids at home, and there's playgrounds, and parks and all that type of thing. You may be in that same station, but I guarantee you, you are absolutely different from those people around you. I think because we've talked about before, if you're a board member and you're an entrepreneur, you're gonna have a very different way of looking at things as opposed to a board member who's an insurance adjuster. One is very risk averse. And the other is a risk taker by nature. So you have to be able to mesh with these people and and understand where they're coming from. I don't mean in this horrible, long drawn out thing, but just understand they're not going to think like you they're going to have different perspectives, but you're still going to have to come together and move forward, move the community forward by moving forward as a board.

Robert Nordlund:

Yeah. Can we add compromise then to that? Because compromise has to be a part of it. Yep. moves forward as a committee.

Julie Adamen:

Move forward as board. Yes, right. Right, right. Yeah. I'm sorry. Would you say that maybe I missed what you said.

Robert Nordlund:

I use the word committee and you're right. The board is a board committees support the board with special projects. Yeah, yeah.

Julie Adamen:

So it Yeah, so that person could have been in charge of a committee. I think I know where you went back to but regard wordless. I mean that yes, there is compromise. And and on that compromise, let me talk about one more thing that happens all the time with boards. So let's just say typically boards have five members, some have seven, some have nine, the biggest I know of has 29 Oh, I would kill myself. What it's a huge Association. But 29 is just way too unwieldy. You can't do it anyway, most have five, thankfully. And so whatever, you're, you're gonna have a divide there somewhere somewhere along the line, the board is not going to agree on a way forward, three are going to think one way two, we're going to take another in a five member board. Okay. And just, just like Patton said, you know, if everyone's thinking, like someone's not thinking, and you're gonna have times where everyone is not thinking of like, you're not in lockstep, and you don't need to be in lockstep. But if you were one of the two, and three decide to move forward on something that you don't agree with, and I'm going to assume here, because 99% of the time, it's not unethical, it's not immoral, it's not illegal. It's just something you disagree with. And the board makes that decision, the vote is three to two and as moving forward on this path that you as one of those two people don't agree with. Don't go off and badmouth that you have to move forward as a unit. I mean, and if people say, Well, did you vote against that? And you said, Yes, I did vote against it. I didn't agree with it. But that's what we're going to do. And I'm going to support it moving forward, because we're already on this path. It does meet or the association no good to bad mouth it or be negative from here on out about that project, or whatever it is. And it doesn't do any good. It doesn't do any good, doesn't you? do you any good? Does it do the community any good at all?

Robert Nordlund:

Yeah, I'm busy writing notes here. And I'm looking forward to more of this. But looking at the time, we need to take a quick break and hear a short message from our sponsors.

Kevin Davis:

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Robert Nordlund:

And we're back. Well, during the break, Julie and I were talking about more and more and more details, but I think we need to focus and get back to kind of the big picture what is really the job of a board member? What are they trying to accomplish? Really,

Julie Adamen:

let you know when that is well. Oh, no, actually, by the time you've seen this, it will have been published already, the September edition of my publication called the HOA Newsline. You can find it on my website. We'll do that at the very end. However, oh no, no, right now. So it's adamen-inc.com. You will look under HOA Newsline, click that tab. And one last thing. I'll tell you that. So well. Do you want to do the board member education? Now? Robert, let me just go with that. Sure. Okay, so also, for all of you board members, who are new board members, even if you're old board members, or as I like to say classic, as I am a board member, I have online courses for board members. And it's four hours worth of material, it's a you can access it through my website, again, which is Adam and dashing.com, click on the learning tab. And that will take you to the educational platform. And it's everything about being a board member that you ever wanted to know. And done in a very practical manner. It's it's kind of the street knowledge of being a board member, how things are set up the language of the industry, the language of being a board member, governing documents, et cetera, et cetera. And it's very entertaining. I will tell you since I did it, and and you will find yourself laughing out loud a few times. Because if you've been around a little bit, you know, this is a funny business. Yeah.

Robert Nordlund:

Yeah, the purpose of this podcast is to encourage and equip and we'll do as much as we can in 30 minutes. But we will point you, either through our conversation or through show notes to other resources that can be of great, really be a big benefit some advantages to your association. But let's get back to the podcast here. Board Member responsibility. Are they jobs description? Yes.

Julie Adamen:

Well, let me just I just because we're not gonna have too much time to get this. But let me take the big picture, look right here. And I have it written down. Sorry, folks, I'm gonna read it here. But at for a board member, the summary of being a board member is this if this was the top of your job description, it's to be an act as a trustee. And a trustee. Listen to this is an individual person, or member of a board, given control or powers of administration of property, with the obligation to do just that. So that's what you have the powers of administration of property, that means hard property, and that means financial property as well. So that's what you are as a trustee. As a board member, you are responsible for money and element and common elements that belong to others, as well as you and The next big picture thing and in our industry, we've been saying this forever, but a lot of board members never hear it. And your job is to ensure the preservation protection, maintenance and enhancement of the common elements of the association. And to manage the association as the governing documents intent, that is your charge. And we can drill down forever on this, there's obviously there's things you need to set policy, and there's good financial management. And I think we'll do another podcast on that. Because obviously, we can take a lot of time talking about that. But in short, as a board member, it's your job to preserve, protect, maintain, and enhance, that doesn't mean to keep assessments as low as possible. So seven more people in the community can afford to live there. I know that sounds harsh, but you know, people do have to move out of places that they can no longer afford or maintain. I mean, I'm moving out of the house I've lived in for 22 years, because at my husband at our stage in life, we've got no kids at home, and we're downsizing and we just don't need this big property and don't want to pay for it anymore. So that's why we're going, life does change. And so if you're maintaining and enhancing and preserving and protecting, it does not mean that you are keeping this always comes to this instant drills down to this every time keeping assessments artificially low, the reality may

Robert Nordlund:

be that it is time from your job is not to maintain Mrs. Johnson, that wonderful, nice old lady in unit 72, your job is not to preserve her in the association, your job is to preserve the association. That means the with inflation and high cost of insurance and everything I got the assessments need

Julie Adamen:

to go up. And it's a double Yes. That was actually perfect. Robert, is it not preserving an individual person or persons ability to stay in the unit that they're in, at whatever stage in life they are yours is to preserve, maintain, protect, and enhance, not just for now, but into the future? And that means for everybody for the corporation as a whole and not just the owners today, the owners in the future? Does it sound like a big responsibility? will actually it is. And I say don't be a board member and take it lightly and think I'm going to only be on two years and I've done my time. It's which actually does happen. But understand that there is some gravity to what you're doing. And it could be again, tremendously satisfying, sat on two boards, what's just recently, tremendously satisfying. And you could do a lot of good, but understand your bigger picture role. And I think we'll end up discussing some of these in a future podcast for you all. Yeah,

Robert Nordlund:

well, hopefully that if the prior boards have done their job, and they have policies that help guide the association forward and have due process for architectural restrictions, architectural guidelines, I mean, reserve policy, investment policy, collections oversee

Julie Adamen:

landscape and policy of jet all of these things. If

Robert Nordlund:

they've done their job, and they have those documents, then you have a framework to work with, in addition to the governing documents, in addition to the bylaws and those kinds of things. And we just did that with National Reserve, say standards, there was a clause and national reserve, say standards that you are at risk of losing your Irish credential for prolonged absence from the office. And overlays. Nowadays, there's a lot of us that don't go into the office. And there's a lot of reserved professionals that work from home and do this. Sometimes it's just being the one to observe that, oh, this needs to be tweaked. Now, with technology, we're doing online meetings, which means that something changes about in person meetings. So looking at it and being the human being the concerned, caring board member that can just say, oh, there's a great policy, we just need to tweak it a little bit. Because now is now we're in 2023.

Julie Adamen:

Yeah, exactly. And now that you brought up that bigger picture part of it and talking about policy, so as trustees, as board members, as trustees, there are a couple of really big picture things that you need to have first and Robert to hit the nail on the head about architectural policies. Let me just go I got a couple things right here. It's one of your main jobs is to set policies because it's the primary method that sets the direction and the tone for now and into the future of the community. So that means you have big picture policies, which are things like well adopting, and this is a whole nother subject, adopting a policy governance model of administration for your community, that would be a big overarching type of policies, and that provides for the board to set those other policies which would be like architectural guidelines, and landscape guidelines or things that come up on a regular basis. So everyone at every one of these issues is treated equitably, now and in the future, not that they can't be tweaked when they need to be but it's so there is some method of organization that is linear, that can be traced and tracked and can be known to be fair to every person who applies or every person who asks about this particular thing. So there's no favoritism, there's no picking on people, that type of thing. And then there's obviously it goes all the way down to financial management policies, reserve study policies, I consider that part of financial management, and that administrative policies like, you know, when will people get their phone calls returned or their emails returned? All of that type of thing. So again, folks, it's it's, it all starts at the top with the big picture, and it drills right down. And each one of these things shows how well your community is governed or not. And it's not hard. You just need the knowledge and you don't know what you don't know. So and that's what we're trying to give you here.

Robert Nordlund:

Yep. Well, Julie, I look at the clock, and we are fit on time here. So want to thank you, it's always great talking with you. We can go so much further on this topic. And so many other we are doing this again to encourage unequip. So I don't want to scare anyone with making it sound like there's so many things to do. Job of a board member for all of you who know, it's just doing your best showing up and helping Association move forward. A duly any closing thoughts? Before we close?

Julie Adamen:

Well, just like just to re emphasize what Robert just said, yes, it's showing up. It's it's wanting to do the best for your community, not for yourself and not for just a small group of people. And if you want more information on it again, let me just tell you head to my website, adamen, and that's a d a m e n - I n c .com Or Google me, you'll find it Julie Ademan, and go to my website, click on the learning. Click on the education page and you will find access to board member courses for yourself or for anyone who's new to the board. I think they'll find it very helpful, and I'd love to hear your feedback.

Robert Nordlund:

Fantastic. Well, we hope you learned some HOA insights from our discussion today that help you bring common sense to your common areas. I look forward to having you join us for another great episode. Next week.

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