Condo Living

May 18, 2023 Published by Manitoba Chapter - By Duane Rohne

Why Should A Condo Corporation Join CCI?

From the CCI Manitoba Spring 2023 Condominium News and Views Magazine

We get asked this a lot. Quite often the question is posed to us as “If our Property Manager is already a CCI member, why should we have to join?"

As a unit owner in a Condominium Corporation (CC), you are a part of a cooperative. Management of that cooperative, typically your largest asset, is crucial to your financial and mental health. Cooperatives provide economic leverage and community not available in other living arrangements. In this article I’ll explore why a CC Board of Directors and their unit owners should be members of the Canadian Condominium Institute (CCI).

As a Director you make the generous offer of your time and talent to be a board member of your CC. Your decisions are impactful upon the whole community and will affect your community for years to come. If your CC is a member of CCI Manitoba, you will have access to some of the best curated information, resources and networking to help you become an exemplary Director.

As a new CC Director you will want to take advantage of the CCI MB Introductory Course. Most CC’s cover the cost of the course for Directors. The course is online and can be taken at your own pace and schedule and takes less than 4 hours to complete. CCI’s in-house experts designed the course with 14 videos and reference documents presented in four sections:

• Getting Started as a Director
• The Director’s Responsibilities and Governance
• Planning, Financial and Other Responsibilities
• Property Management

If you are a Director or Unit Owner of a professionally managed CC, your management company is an important part of day to day and long term management decisions. As a Director or Unit Owner of a self managed CC, it is crucial that everyone involved in your CC decisions is knowledgeable.

Whether your CC is professionally managed or self managed, as a Director, ultimate responsibility lies with you. You have to govern and manage all the affairs of your CC. Wise CC Directors and Unit Owners continually improve their knowledge and understanding of CC management. The best way to expand and improve your knowledge and networking is to attend CCI events, educational sessions, and reading CCI’s informative newsletter articles.

As a CCI Member you will have access to these invaluable resources:

• CCI MB Guidebook
• CCI MB Magazine
• CCI MB Online Courses
• CCI MB Podcasts and Webinars
• CCI MB Risk Management Articles
• CCI National Resource Centre

As a member of CCI MB, either as a Director or Unit Owner you will be better able to:

• Learn how to update and reasonably enforce your bylaws and rules.
• Understand what your Property Manager is doing and ask informed questions.
• Better inform yourself about the decision making process.
• Engage and manage contractors.
• Stay up to date on arising issues within the condominium industry.
• Become an effective succession planner for new board members.

CCI Manitoba’s Volunteer Board of Directors, is your single point of contact to a network of 18 Regional, Provincial and National Chapters, that is the Canadian Condominium Institute. Being a member of this national network of volunteers and professionals provides you access to resources far greater that any one chapter could offer.

In addition to other chapter and national CCI resources, CCI Manitoba has provided over 25 educational opportunities over the past three years. The topics are diverse, including; Mental Health, Insurance, Electric Vehicle Charging, Condominium Finance and Covid Protocols. Over the next few months CCI MB will host several more events that as a member you can access in person or online.

As a member of the CCI Manitoba Chapter, you are able to enroll, sometimes free of charge, webinars hosted by any of the other 18 Chapters of CCI. For example, earlier this year I attended a webinar hosted by the CCI Golden Horseshoe Chapter, (Burlington Ontario) about Short Term Rentals (STR’s) in Condominiums. Two of the speakers were experienced legal professionals that offered specific and general observations about STR’s in Condo’s.

In January of 2023 the CCI Huronia Chapter (Barrie Ontario) posted a blog called “Resilient Communities Rise Above the Rest” written by an experienced property manager detailing resilient condominium communities.

In April 2023, the CCI Northern Alberta Chapter (Edmonton Alberta) produced a webinar about Dealing With Difficult People. The webinar offered best practices for

• How to identify common behaviours that lead to a feeling of disruption, or that one could be seen as ‘difficult’
• Solutions for difficult board members
• What support systems and services condo boards and condo managers can access when conflict moves from constructive to destructive.

If your Condo Corporation is already a member, by virtue of being a unit owner, you are a member too. If your CC is not a member, but you want to join CCI MB, we offer individual memberships for $50 per year. CCI Manitoba offers several categories of membership. If you're a member or a small CC, access to curated knowledge and expertise is essential to the management of your CC. We recently restructured our membership fees to attract smaller CC’s and individual members.

CCI Manitoba’s Website is your best local portal to Condominium Management and Condominium Community living. As a Unit Owner or a CC Director, you are part of a community that must be well managed. As a CCI member, you will have access to the best curated knowledge base, professionals, and volunteers in Manitoba. Consider contacting CCI about membership at ccimanitoba@cci.ca.

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Duane Rohne
Chair, Membership Committee
CCI Manitoba