Condo Living

July 17, 2024 Published by Grand River Chapter - By John Hayes

Connecting With Directors & It’s Value

So, you put your name forward and got elected to the Board of your condo. Now what?

So, you put your name forward and got elected to the Board of your condo. Now what?

For many condo owners, participating as a director of their condo corporation is their first experience on a board or having anything to do with managing a large property with multiple owners (and expectations!). As board members in Ontario, we must complete basic training on how Ontario condo corporations work and our legal responsibilities as directors.

But what about all the other stuff? The range of demands on a director can be daunting: dealing with property managers, many different vendors, huge budgets, security, building-wide mechanical systems, owners, tenants, legal challenges, and more.

One solution is to network with other board members in your area and learn from them. CCI education events are a great way to meet other board members interested in a specific topic, but those opportunities can be fleeting. Another approach is to build your own networking group.

Two years ago, a Kitchener woman, Penny, was newly elected to the board of her condo and heard of another woman who was also a new board member. After a quick introduction, they met up for coffee to discuss their experiences as new condo board members. The conversation quickly shifted to sharing challenges and solutions to various issues they had experienced in their buildings. The nuggets of value and the number of unanswered questions led them to want to include more local board members to meet informally over coffee.

It might have ended there, except that Penny isn’t one to sit around waiting for somebody else to take the reins. She decided to organize a monthly “coffee club” meeting to discuss the challenges of sitting on condo boards in our area. Word of mouth quickly grew, and before we knew it, the group had a representative from over a dozen buildings in Kitchener-Waterloo. The group has a virtual early morning meeting once a month. The agenda is based on whatever topics members bring forward, although costs, condo fees, security, property managers, and mechanical systems tend to be the most heavily discussed topics. Tours of member buildings have also been organized from time to time.

The properties represented in our coffee club range from 60 to 350 units and 2 to 36 years old. Every building is unique, but we all share many of the same challenges and rely on the same pool of local vendors. If one of us is faced with the prospect of replacing a boiler, a cooling tower, or water softeners, somebody in the group has done it recently. If there is a need to up your game regarding security systems or your building access and package drop systems and procedures, somebody has done that too. If you feel you should be adding EV charging, there is experience in the group. What worked down the street may not be the appropriate solution for your building, but they’ve probably already done a load of research they can share that can be immensely valuable.

Touring other properties has brought up topics nobody in the group thought to ask about. These have included bike storage solutions and management approaches, waste/recycling/compost management practices, resident committees that tend to patio herb and flower gardens, and more.

Our group no longer accepts new buildings as the current size is optimal. However, Penny has proved that all it takes is one person willing to organize and hold monthly meetings to make it happen. It Is easy to connect with boards in other buildings close to yours. If word of mouth doesn’t work in your situation, another approach is to find out who the property manager of buildings close to yours is and start there. They can’t (shouldn’t!) give you contact information for directors of other buildings, but they should be willing to forward your email to the board explaining your plan, the benefits, and an invitation to join your own condo coffee club. If you decide to start a group like this and have questions about how to do it, Penny has offered to discuss it with any interested board member to share her insights and experience. She can be reached at pjstantoine@gmail.com.

John Hayes,
Business Analyst (Retired),
Mergatroyd Systems INC.