ANNUAL MEETING MISPERCEPTION

I apologize.

I was just told by Pam Chandler that the HOA board can choose to hold their/our annual meeting any time they wish - not forced to do so by the end of the closing year. The confusion on that issue, she told me, was that the FIRST meeting was to be held within the first year - after that - on the HOA's own timetable. My frustrations in posts below were obviously a waste of gas.

Terri and I love Spanish Oaks. We searched the country for several years to find the best city and then within the city, the ideal spot to anchor as our last move. Until now, our moves had been work-dictates. My time in radio took me all over North America. I used to joke that we were sharecroppers, working the antenna farms.

When you consider that we don't play golf, and don't have children, this speaks even more strongly to our belief in Spanish Oaks as a great place, even without the golf and club amenities, even without the wonderful school system in which we are placed!

What brought us to Austin was the exceptional mix of people and the incredible town vibe. What brought us to Spanish Oaks was Daniel Porter's vision of a natural beauty. Mark Moulkers designed and built us the home which fit us so well.

I came to feel that what we needed was better communication, especially so after Discovery Land entered the picture. I was a one-man communications committee until I could no longer receive answers in a timely manner. Along the way, this blog was conceived to sort of serve as a very abbreviated town 'newspaper' though there's all too often no news to share, and only a rare 'reporter.' News and opinion - that's the idea. Last time I looked there were in the neighborhood of 40,000 hits to date.

By now you've received your official notice of the annual meeting and attached to it, a letter from Donald Abrams, our HOA rep for several years now. This is exactly the kind of communication which I feel - on a more regular basis - would help pull us together from the odds and ends of our busy lives to help create a growing sense of community.

In some ways, the large geography of the project isolates us all into our cul-de-sacs and interests. Better communication can help us all become more familiar with one another and turn us into even more highly satisfied residents who volunteer the best possible testimony for living here.

There's room to grow.

Examples which come to mind:
Gardening club
Gun club
Car club
Flying club
RV club
R/C club
Jogging group
Biking group
Wine club

Have we reached critical mass?

Reading Donald's letter you'd have to admit that a lot has happened in a year - perhaps most notably the opening and operation of the Lodge - a great amenity.

Challenges for the future will include maintenance of our infrastructure, and then - this one is big - a satisfactory hand off from Discovery to our own self-contained independent HOA (reached at some high percentage of build-out/sales.) I write 'satisfactory' because we need assurance that, at the hand-over, many items are covered completely so that we don't inherit issues beyond those unforeseen.

And so once again I apologize for the windbagian call to arms regarding the late annual meeting. I also invite you to become a part of this blog. Email me your thoughts, news, pictures, etc. I do ask that you include your name. If you wish to post comments anonymously, then use the comment feature.