Paula DiPaola: 0:00

But if you're going to run for a board, you're there to you're there to work. People who run for a board because they're going to get a free meal, are they going to get a free stay? Are they going to get a free trip to Arda or tbma? Shame on you. You know it's that's not what it's about. If you're running for a board, you're running to help.

Jennifer Johnson: 0:20

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. Welcome

Robert Nordlund: 0:50

back to Hoa insights, common sense for common areas. I'm Robert Nordlund, and I'm here to share the story of an unsung board hero named Paula DiPaola. This is episode number 87 and as you'll soon learn, Paula is a volunteer board member for a type of property that we haven't yet featured in any previous episode of the podcast. As such, we felt that she was the perfect candidate to kick off the new year. If you missed meeting any of our other board heroes, you can find them easily on our website, Hoa insights.org on our YouTube channel, or by subscribing to Hoa insights on your favorite podcast platform. Now, let's hear a little bit about Paula and her story. My

Paula DiPaola: 1:33

name is Paula de Paula. I have served as a volunteer on the board of Magic Tree resort for 24 years when I'm not wearing my board member hat, I'm a grandmother and a somewhat kitchen expert. Two words I would use to describe the job of being a board member are satisfying and difficult. The main story I'd like to tell is that we haven't raised our maintenance fees in 24 years.

Robert Nordlund: 1:59

Magic Tree resort is a 92 unit timeshare resort property in Kissimmee, Florida, two miles away from Walt Disney World. The property is 42 years old, has an annual budget of $700,000 and it has approximately 3 million in reserves. Unlike most of the community associations featured in our board hero episodes, Magic tree is a resort property, not a residential property, and as you just heard, Paula made the bold claim that the association hasn't raised their maintenance fees in the 24 years that she served as a volunteer on the board. Now, while we normally like to start these interviews by getting to know the board, Hero a little bit more, we were so impressed or distracted by this fact that we had to know more about how she achieved it.

Paula DiPaola: 2:48

It's very simple. I basically buy everything. I buy the toilet paper. I buy the paper towels. I don't just call a restaurant supply or a resort supply or a towel supply house. I shop three or four or five different vendors for each thing that we buy. I make sure I'm getting the best deal possible. I make sure I'm getting a military discount. I'm a disabled veteran, so I get military discounts at Lowe's Home Depot, you know, places like that. This Labor Day Past Labor Day, Lowe's had a sale for Labor Day, and they had $400 grills for 299. Being a military member, they gave me an additional $100 off. So I was getting $400 char broil grills for 199 I purchased 10 because we're going to use grills forever. We love grills at Magic trade. So at 199 How can you leave something like that? You take advantage of when there's a sale, and that's what I do. My girls, my housekeeping team, they, most of the time, don't even have to say to me, we need toilet paper. We need paper towel. Because I walk through the housekeeping department, I check how many boxes, how many cases are there, and if I see that it's running low, I go and buy some more. And I again, find Costco or Sam's Club or BJs or Amazon, and I shopped the finest prices I can find. We have been under budget, probably for the past 20 years, every single year, and we take what we're under budget and add that to our reserve account. So Magic Tree runs like a very fine tuned company. What was

Robert Nordlund: 4:43

great about Paula's solution was that nothing came at the expense of the amenities or common area components at the resort, maintaining the same fees year after year came down to being thrifty and hands on with her devotion towards staying full. Far enough under budget that they could transfer their budget surplus to their reserve account. We were surprised to learn that Paula actually received some pushback about this during her Association board meetings, despite the fact that she was clearly delivering value to the community at large. Here's what Paula had to say about that. We used

Paula DiPaola: 5:21

to go to the tbma meetings, the timeshare board members, association meetings, and probably four to six years ago, each meeting, twice a year, would have a managers. Let's see. How would you call it? It would be a sharing of ideas. And Michael, my husband, who's the general manager of magistrate, would be the moderator of that. I would be the moderator of the board members that were attending the meeting when I would talk about not raising maintenance fees for X amount of years, I would get a lot of disdain, to be quite blunt, it would be that they would say, you know, if you're hurting the resort, it's not good. What you're doing, you're making an expectation that isn't good. And boy, I really, I would, I would defend it, because I feel what I'm doing is a wonderful way of running the resort, and I worked very hard to keep those fees down.

Robert Nordlund: 6:25

We were happy to hear that Paula was holding her head up high and defending her method of keeping costs down from her detractors. After all, one only has to look at the numbers to see that she was clearly delivering value to the community and keeping their reserve balance strong. However, it did make us wonder how magic tree resort was keeping their fees down when every other community association is fighting a constant battle with inflation. So we next asked Paul about what she was doing to counteract inflation and price increases. Well,

Paula DiPaola: 6:58

I find different ways to make revenue about four years ago, and this is, this is mind blowing. It really is. And I don't know how many resorts do it, but I decided with my board, not I. I decided with my board that we were going to do a resort fee, and we were only going to do a resort fee for for people who were not on a deed. Now this was double sided. So if, if you're not on a deed, you're paying $150 a week. Well, what do you get for that 150 you get freemium Wi Fi. That is 4999 already per week. You get unlimited supply of all paper goods, unlimited supply of coffee, of tea, of breath, mints, of sunscreen, shampoo, conditioner, chapstick, lots of coupons to different restaurants, and I go out personally and make sure I get to know the people and the managers in the restaurants and ask them for at bonefish, we get a free Bang Bang shrimp. At Coronavirus, you get a free appetizer or a free dessert. At different restaurants, they all have given me perks to give to this resort fee bag. We have a beautiful organza bag, nice colors, and when they check in, they get that organza bag. Now, owners want to send their children, so this is the two sides. Owners want to send their children in, and I tell them, are your children on your deed? No, they're not well. They're going to pay a resort fee. Do you know how many owners all of a sudden want to change their deed and put their children on the deed, which helps Magic Tree sustain in the future? Because if we don't have younger people, then we don't have a future. So these owners that have been there for 40 years are now in their 70s, 80s, 90s, and all of a sudden, we now have 35 to 50 year old children on the deeds. So we don't pay the resort fee. They don't pay the resort fee. So what has this resort fee done for us? Last year, it grossed US$150,000 so that 150,000 extra revenue makes up for the delinquent accounts that people have died or people have passed, you know, passed away or just fallen off because, you know, they're elderly, or, you know, whatever reason that someone just stops paying. And I say, why are we going to take this unit to foreclosure and pay an attorney $1,000 when I can use that for rental or for exchange. We give a lot of inventory to seven across to RCI II. We do that so we have bulk inventory, a bulk bank, excuse me. And then we also collect the resort free from all those people coming in. So I'm not only getting more than a maintenance fee, I'm getting rental income and I'm getting a resort fee on top of it. So it works out really wonderful.

Robert Nordlund: 9:52

We love that Paula's idea of implementing a resort fee had the added benefit of getting future timeshare owners through the door. And onto the deeds of their units. This investment in the future of Magic Tree meant that there would be a constant influx of new owners to both use and fund the maintenance of the community. We next asked Paula where all these great ideas to increase revenue came from. Well,

Paula DiPaola: 10:17

it, I mean, it's very simple, um, my my vice president, who is from Canada, owns, I believe, 14 weeks at Magic Tree. Now, before I moved to Florida, I lived in Boston and Rhode Island, and I would come for at least eight weeks a year. So I of course, owned eight weeks. And then other things happened, and at this point right now, I believe I own about 15 weeks. So 15 weeks. And if you go, if you want, if, if the budget says you have to raise the maintenance fees, $50 to me, that's times 15. So it's very simple. I'm going to find all kinds of way to keep that maintenance fee low. And my owners really, really, really appreciate that. I do the Facebook page. I write on it, maybe not once a day, but I write on it four times a week at least. And I just, I tell them happy Monday. Or I say, here's a picture of the new pool renovation. Or I say, don't forget to send in your proxies and your ballots. Or, you know, Happy Veterans Day. Or almost take this morning was happy Halloween almost. I mean, I don't even know why I did that, because I found a picture of Mickey sitting in a pumpkin, and I couldn't resist but post it. And then my, my, my bottom part was, don't forget to send in your ballots, because we need about 1200 votes by November 2. And this crazy law in the United States or Florida or wherever it is, says you can't send out ballots more than 30 days in advance. Now, you know that's great for an HOA apartment building because everybody lives there, but when you're dealing with people all over the world, that really puts a strain on you. So so I just, I just keep, keep at it, and just just keep talking to them, keeping your owners informed. Isn't that what we talk about at all the conferences, and it's so important. And I probably out of 4692 owners, I probably know 1000

Robert Nordlund: 12:12

of them. At this point, we felt like we had a good idea of the type of person Paula was and what had motivated her to serve the community at Magic Tree resort. We next decided to ask her what initially influenced or motivated her to join the timeshare board of directors at Magic Tree. Well,

Paula DiPaola: 12:30

that's that's an easy it's an easy question. My mom and my dad both loved Magic Tree. My my sister bought magic tree in 1982 but she was stationed in Hawaii. Her husband and herself were both in the Navy, so they kept calling my mom and saying, you know, we have a week at Magic Tree. And my mother, of course, would take my two girls, my husband and I, and she paid the maintenance fees every time we went. My mother would be in the sales office and should say, Oh, guess what, I just bought a week. And I'd be like, Oh, great, Oh, guess what, I just bought a week. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now my mom, her last five years, was handicapped. She was in a wheelchair, and she would never want the door closed to the suite. And we always owned a two bedroom. We have two bedrooms and one bedrooms. I would say, Why? Why are we leaving the door open. And she would say, because I don't want to be closed in, I want to feel like I am enjoying the outside. And she would grab every person that walked by our door and talk to them and teach them how to crochet or give them a recipe. You know, I would walk back to the suite, and there'd be three or four people in there talking to her. After my dad died, we went to Magic tree every Christmas, and at Christmas time, it was it was wonderful, and it was beautiful, and it made you not think of what you left home, you know, what you didn't have at home? Blah, blah, blah. And so we went this this Christmas. It was 1997 and we got home on the 28th of December, and she wasn't doing well. Her eyes were really bloodshot, and her hair had turned white and and she was diabetic, and she called Chip and Dale over to her when we were at Hollywood studios to take a picture. Now, my mother never wanted a picture. I think the only picture I have of her is in her wedding gown, so that was long before I was even born. But she never wanted pictures. She called Chip and Dale over and said, take my picture and then go buy me an ice cream. We got home on the 28th and on the 20 on the 30th, she said, My last wish is I want to go back to Magic tree. And I'm like, What do you mean? Your last wish? We just left that. I kind of lost my patients. She said, I'll pay. And I said, I don't care who's paying. January 5, we went back. January 12, we came home in january 22 she passed away. So it was her favorite place in the world. And for about two to three years, I couldn't go to Magic tree because I would walk down the stairs look at the unit that she would be in, and I would just, you know, I. Was very sad, buying anyway. Couple years later, I we were building our home. We live only two miles from Magic tree. We were building our home. My husband was working in California. He was he was at the Palm Springs tennis club being the manager over there. I was over here, and we had sold our house in Rhode Island, so I needed a place to live. The company put me up in at Magic Tree. I lived there for a year and a half, and I never had my door closed ever. My door was open all the time, and people would visit me, and I would cook for the team, and I would cook for the people, and I would would have sing alongs around the fire pits, and it was just wonderful. So, um, it's, it's just a family, family resort, and there's lots of stories like that from all the owners. Paula's love

Robert Nordlund: 15:45

for the same community that her mother took part in and cherished was very evident in her answer. We wanted to know more about how she continues to foster that community atmosphere. But first, let's take a quick break to hear from one of our generous sponsors, tired

Unknown: 16:01

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Robert Nordlund: 16:38

And we're back before the break, we heard Paula explain how her love for the community atmosphere at Magic Tree was what motivated her to run for president of the board of directors. We next asked Paula how she has continued to foster that same community spirit in others during her time as a board member.

Paula DiPaola: 16:57

Well, a few things that we've done differently is we had a we had a tennis court, and we decided, well, you know, I'm really big. And then I kicked myself after I do it, but I'm really big on putting things out on Facebook and taking a vote. Well, that's kind of kicked me in the rear end a couple times. So of course, when I put out, what should we do with the tennis court? Most of the the middle age people so ages 45 to 60, let's say they all wanted pickleball. Okay, everybody wanted pickleball. So I and I wasn't very popular then, because what I kept saying to everybody was very simple, I want something that a two year old and a 92 year old can enjoy together. And that was a nine hole miniature pot, pot. And we took the whole tennis court and we put a beautiful, old fashioned pot pot on it. We have very antique looking metal animals and fake palm trees, even though we have plenty of real palm trees, just little things that our landscaper found at different who knows different? You know, flea markets for all I know. And he did a beautiful job. Put some beautiful planters out. We have beautiful foliage. We also bought a brand new playground. It's one piece. It's all that high grade plastic. And I was going to match the resort and see I go to other people for advice. I was buying one that was forest green and beige. Now I'm not a forest green or beige person, but I was trying to match the landscape. And my front desk supervisor, whose name is Savannah, she said, No, go with the primary colors. That's what will attract a child, because she had, at that time, a four year old. So I went with the bright red and the bright orange and the bright blue and the bright yellow. And the place is beautiful. If you go to our Magic Tree website, that picture is art and Facebook too. That picture of the putt putt in the playground is right there. And it's just beautiful. Just beautiful.

Robert Nordlund: 19:00

We often ask our board heroes if they have any practical advice to share with the many HOA board members that tune into this program, and Paula certainly had some to share. However, Paula's passion for the community at Magic Tree was so infectious that we first decided to ask her if she had any words of wisdom to share that would help other board members reach that same level of passion and dedication to their own communities. Here's what Paula shared with us. What I

Paula DiPaola: 19:28

feel is, I'm sure board members don't have the time to give that I give, but if you're going to run for a board, you're there to you're there to work. People who run for a board because they're going to get a free meal or they're going to get a free stay, are they going to get a free trip to Arda or tbma? Shame on you. You know it's that's not what it's about. If you're running for a board, you're running to help, it's just like running, well, it's just like running for office. I don't want to get political, but you know, if you're just going to get the title and say, Oh. A, you know, a city council, or I'm a school committee, or I'm a Senator. You know, if you're not doing work, you know, what are you doing there? So if you're not going to work on a board, why are you there? Now, I am the board president, and I have been for 24 years. Paula doesn't know anything. Paula knows that she has a vice president who's HR and legal. Paul has a treasurer who's been in the the the IT field, in the in business for the past 3540 years. I have a contractor who tells me everything I need to know about paving and elevators and roofing. I have a nurse who tells me things about safety and ADA and items like that. And there's also another woman that recently has come on, and she owns three or four businesses in Cincinnati, so she has the business sense. So I always say a board president is only as good as the people that surround her, and I take all of their knowledge and I make it work.

Robert Nordlund: 21:07

Paula displayed an attribute that frequently comes up in my conversations with my co hosts, Julie Adelman and Kevin Davis, and that's the willingness to listen and learn from the expertise of not only your fellow board members, but the expertise of the people outside your community that your board interacts with, such as the legal counsel, landscapers and insurance experts, it appeared that she was also invested in maintaining long, lasting relationships with these outside vendors. So we next asked her to tell us more about her vendor relationships. Well,

Paula DiPaola: 21:40

my landscaper. He is a gym His name is John Kling. He owns H M farms, and he has been our landscaper. And he'll they'll see this, and he'll go, wow, I didn't even realize this. He hasn't raised our monthly cost or our yearly cost in over 12 years. He has free reign on the resort. He, he, he charges us a very fair price. He comes in and takes care of the whole resort and and lot of our reviews say that the landscaping is absolutely gorgeous, which it is, he's also a GC, which is, which is a general contractor. And he's the one who built the putt, putt. He's the one who did the playground. He gives me advice on everything. I'll give you a real good one which he had. This one, our water bill was $10,000 a month. And every single month, I would be like, Why is this water bill so high? Well, come to find out, we had old drainage, old pipes, you know, spouting water, rusted water under the ground, and we could go on and on and on. John came to me, and he said, the$17,000 we're going to drill and we're going to build and put in a well, and the well will be for all the irrigation, for the landscaping, the well cost us about 17,000 our bill dropped to 2000 a month immediately. So after what eight and a half months, the return on investment was done, and our bill has stayed at about 2000 per month ever since.

Robert Nordlund: 23:13

That last anecdote was another example of Paula finding a way to proactively act in the best interest of the association and deliver savings directly to the other owners in the community. For most other associations, this would have resulted in a costly special assessment. On that same note, we next decided to ask Paula if magic tree had ever tried to pass a special assessment in the past.

Paula DiPaola: 23:37

I've been an owner for 41 years, and we did have one special assessment. Don't fall off your chair. It was $125 we did quarterly billing then, which I got rid of, because that was a waste of postage. But anyway, we had quarterly billing then, and we had to pay $25 for five quarters, and that was to repave the parking lot. So that's the only, only special assessment we've ever had. Paul

Robert Nordlund: 24:05

had already spoken very positively about the skills and experiences that her fellow board members at Magic Tree brought to the table. However, we wanted to know more about the culture at Magic trees board. So naturally, we asked Paula if there was anything specific that she and the other board members do to ensure that their board culture stays positive and productive while they continue the hard work of maintaining their association.

Paula DiPaola: 24:31

I'm very lucky my vice president. I don't know how I could do it without her. She's phenomenal. She is on property now, and it's just it's a joy when she's there, because she appreciates everything she sees. She appreciates the financials, like when, when the financials come out, there's nothing better than for one of your board members to send you an email and say, good job. And there's some board members that don't do that, and shame on them. Shame on them. This is, this is hard work. This isn't, um. So, you know, this isn't me trying to, you know, look good. I do it because it's what's right for magic tree. And I think every owner appreciates, I appreciates that because, you know, it, it's their checkbook, and they can write the same amount of check year after year after year. We have to be doing something right.

Robert Nordlund: 25:21

Finally, we decided to close out this interview, as we often do, by asking Paula if she had any advice to share with the board members that tune into this program, stay

Paula DiPaola: 25:30

in communication with your owners as much as you can. You know an informed owner pays dues. Okay? Have a really good collection company, because we do, and the collection company will come back to me, and I feel very strongly about this, the collection company will come back to me and say, well, this owner, Jen, is an owner, and she owes $2,000 and she wants to pay 1000 and say, let's start all over again. And I absolutely 100% say no every time I say no, because it's not fair to other owners. Why should someone who hasn't paid their bills all of a sudden get a 50% discount? What we do is very simple. We have our budget meeting in June, we put put out all our bills in July, which gives every owner six months to pay their maintenance fee. We tell them, pay $100 a month. Pay 50 every two weeks, whatever fits your budget. That's how you should pay your maintenance fee. And it works. It works. I just don't think giving people a discount is it's not fair to the other 4691 owners. So I in the collection company keeps sending me emails, will you take this? And I say, No, no, I'll take off all the late fees. I'll take off all the interest. I'll take off all that, but the maintenance fee must be paid in full, because that's the only fair thing to do. We

Robert Nordlund: 26:56

want to publicly acknowledge Paula for performing a thankless job well and compliment the entire board of directors at Magic Tree resort for taking their responsibility seriously to act in the best interests of their association. We hope you gain some HOA insights from Paula's story, and that it helps you bring common sense to your common area. Thank you for joining us, and we look forward to another great episode next week. And remember, if you match our definition of a bored hero, or know someone who does, please reach out to us. Our contact details are provided in the show notes

Jennifer Johnson: 27:34

you've been listening to Hoa insights, common sense for common areas. If you like the show and want to support the work that we do. You can do so in a number of ways. The most important thing that you can do is engage in the conversation. Leave a question in the comments section on our YouTube videos. You can also email your questions or voice memos to podcast@reservestudy.com or leave us a voicemail at 805-203-3130, if you gain any insights from the show, please do us a HUGE favor by sharing the show with other board members that you know. You can also support us by supporting the brands that sponsor this program. Please remember that the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the hosts and guests with the goal of providing general education about the Community Association industry, you'll want to consult licensed professionals before making any important decisions. Finally, this podcast was expertly mixed and mastered by Stoke Light. Video and marketing with Stoke Light on your team, you'll reach more customers with marketing expertise that inspires action. See the show notes to connect with Stoke Light. You