Community Association

We're new to the community. Tonight was my first registration for fall programming. They schedule registration immediately following the annual general meeting. The meeting where they elect new board members. The meeting where they beg and beg and then beg some more for people to volunteer for vacant board positions. I've never lived in a city before with young children so this community association thing is new to me. This group plans children and adult programs for the year. For a very small registration fee ($10) your family can join, and then you can enroll your children or yourselves for different activities, mostly sports. The fees for the sports and activities are very minimal. For example 6 weeks of jazz class is $25. However in order for the programs to run, they have to have a board. And to have a board they have to have volunteers.

I had no idea it would be so crazy at the registration. I arrived early to get my registration form and then waited for the meeting to start. There were hundreds of people there and half of them sat at the back of the gym and couldn't even keep their mouths shut for more than 5 minutes while the meeting was going on and they visited with their neighbors. Come on people.

So it's 'election' time. Do you think 10 positions could be filled in less than 45 minutes? It was like pulling teeth for the poor board president to get anyone to volunteer. Sure, I wasn't a volunteer, but I've lived here for all of 2 weeks, I'm not quite ready for that. We saw the financial report for last year, this association has a lot, I mean A LOT of money. Most of the vacant positions were simply people needed to take charge of an area and get contracts on the work that needed to be done. The money is there, there is no fundraising needed. In fact each year the association has to decide what to do with their excess funds as they are a non-profit. This year they bought defibrillators for the schools and bought some community signs for the schools at the cost of over $10,000 each! The money is there.

I admittedly live in quite a wealthy area of the city. Our kids already have many more opportunities than the kids in some of the other areas of the city. Our community association does not have the trouble with funds that some of the other associations do (hmmmm....maybe somewhere to spend the money next year?), so why can't the parents be grateful for what is being offered at very realistic prices? Volunteer for a position, if you can't do it alone, get a friend and volunteer together. It shouldn't be so hard for them to fill the positions. Again, I know I didn't volunteer, and I do feel some guilt for that, but many of these people have been enjoying these activities for years, and not only couldn't bring themselves to volunteer they couldn't even shut up long enough for the interested people to hear the meeting.

It was a zoo.

And then the meeting was over and the actual registration began. It was worse than a zoo. Luckily I had arrived early and they called people in to register in the order they got their registration forms. My number was called within 20 minutes and I was able to get in and out quite quickly as I only registered one child for one activity. And the best part...I get to do it all again in a couple months, well sans the meeting and volunteer extraction.