MINUTES REP-MEETING
DATE Wednesday 11th January 2008
VENUE Community Office 28/1
TIME 1.00 pm
ATTENDANCE
Francisco Domingo Frutos
Emil J. Böttcher - Chaired today
Terry Chapman
Dave Dennis
Colin Gassner
Chris Gatenby
Martin Heppell
Peter Klein
Sandra Miller
Karl-Heinz Schlömer
Hannelore Schmitz
Jane Wilmot
APOLOGIES
Frank van Son
Roger Jay
Jack Taylor
HAPPY NEW YEAR & WISHES
This is the 1st meeting with the committee of elected Representatives, and we wish everyone a happy and prosperous New Year. As a preparation for today's meeting Emil had written some New Year's wishes, which he circulated to all Representatives in advance, and these formed the basis of today's meeting.
First issue was to agree today on the dates for all rep-meetings this year. Suggested and approved dates are:
February Wednesday 6th
March Friday 7th
April Wednesday 2nd
May Friday 9th
June Wednesday 4th
July Friday 4th
August Friday 1st
September Wednesday 3rd
October Friday 3rd
November Wednesday 5th
December Friday 5th
CHAIRMAN
Before proceeding it was stated that now we're having an elected committee it might be correct to start with a discussion about who will chair the meetings of this committee. As Frank was absent it was agreed that today Emil would chair this meeting and next meeting Frank could join that discussion.
AGM
As it’s the Presidents duty to call General Meetings and preside them, we will leave this subject for next meeting, as Frank today is not present.
The general idea is to prepare well upfront the next to be held AGM, so it will be possible that really everyone knows when it will be and what it will be about. If better planned, more people can attend and cheaper tickets can be obtained.
It was stated we could try to investigate which moment of the year would be the best moment to always have the AGM.
ACTION-LIST / AGENDA / MINUTES
The agenda will always be the same starting with “Previous minutes”, then the same subjects in the same order, and at last ‘Matters arising’. This way we intend to improve the readability of the minutes for the owners, actually the only reason we are having these meetings for, as we have been elected by them.
At the moment Wendy Slade is taking the minutes so all representatives are fully able to take part in all discussions. Wendy already informed us, she will do this for now, but only temporarily. The agenda will become more like an action-list with all representatives giving every month an update on their subject.
WISH LIST
The other wishes were about the various subjects the committee should monitor and these were presented as a list of 15 headings with the details of Emil's thoughts on each, to which the committee added a 16th. After discussion some subjects were combined to form a list of the following six.
WEBSITE & NEWSLETTER
These 2 subjects were combined under the heading of COMMUNICATIONS - to the Community. Most things probably will be published on/in both. Colin, Roger, Terry and Hannelore agreed to work with Emil on these to plan a professional facelift of www.mazarron.cc and to improve the MCC Info Newsletters.
OFFICE MANAGER
Both Sandra and Dave had aspirations for this job. Sandra would like to be there as much as possible, which was appreciated by the majority. They will have to talk it over with each other.
Get things coordinated. Make an inventory of things that is needed at the office. Who has the keys, who opens and/or closes the office. What else can we use the office for. Opening hours. Etcetera.
GAS / WATER / ELECTRICITY
Being subject owners always keep asking about at the office, it was decided to try to create an Information File of these and other relevant subjects. All Representatives will help compile this.
GENERAL SERVICES & MAINTENANCE
Though GARDENING & SECURITY were actually mentioned separately it was agreed to put these together with GARBAGE REMOVAL, SITE CLEANING and MAINTENANCE.
Therefore it will need a small team, which will be formed by Jane, Karl-Heinz and Chris.
CORREOS / BUZONES
A large amount of community post keeps being returned by the Post Office as uncollected. This means the postbox-system at the MCC is not working perfect. Or people are just not bothering to collect it from the Post Office when they get a yellow notification slip.
All owners are obligated by law to have an address in Spain, which could perfectly be such a postbox. But there are still several hundred owners, who don't even have a postbox. We have to look into this seriously. A group formed by Emil, Terry, Jane and Chris will look into this.
INTERNAL RULES
We don’t have them. What is the formal status of Internal Rules? Is it desirable to have them. What should we put in them, who will see to it people will live to it? Especially mentioned were dogs. What is the difference between Internal Rules and Statutes. Let’s make a start, so it’s at least obvious in case we will not make them, why at the MCC we don’t have Internal Rules.
It was considered being too important, all representatives will deliver their effort towards this subject.
AUDITORS
Shouldn’t this be done by an independent external Auditor instead of by ‘some’ owners, no matter who they are? What had happened?
During the last EGM the subject was raised by some people in the audience. Like an inevitable immediate reaction was said OK, if 4 people come forward, they can do it. But it wasn’t on the agenda and it was agreed by formal voting.
On the other hand nowhere in Spanish Horizontal Property Law it is stated the Administrator should be audited. It simply is not being done in Spain, but the Administrator said he had no problem of showing the Representatives on a regular basis several figures.
Immediately was asked about the status of the debtor’s list. Will be presented in the next meeting.
COMMERCIAL CENTRE / LEISURE CENTRE / GOLF / COMPLETION OF SITE
A gathering of important subjects all about promises of the past, today’s reality and how the future might be. What will MCC be like?
Dave/Roger/Colin/Jack/Martin/Hannelore/Chris/Peter
ADMINISTRATOR
It was asked if the Administrator would be willing to continue granting his services to our Community. With a natural spontaneous positive reaction it was suggested to come back on that subject next meeting.
HUMA / TOWN HALL
Obviously a lot of things of the Community and the Urbanisation are inextricably connected and depending on HUMA and/or the Town Hall of Mazarrón. Therefore a discussion took place about who would contact who at each because different subjects were affected by different ‘groups’. Being not very practically to continuously have different persons contacting them as this could cause confusion meanwhile we are trying try to achieve the opposite.
Many of the Representatives seemed eager to talk with them, but as the President is the official spokesmen of a Community and the administrator is hired to manage the Community, they both will probably be the ‘key-men’ who should be used for this, even more so considering the credit that has been earned. Of course, depending the subject of the meeting, they would be accompanied by one Representative to increase the committees involvement in these matters.
The main objective is to get rid of rumours as much as possible. We will try to be the information-desk about planning permissions, golf course, shops and all those sorts of things.