Organizing the owners

“The sense of justice, like the sense of honor, is the exclusive possession of a small and usually miserable minority of men.”
—H. L. Mencken

To make meaningful change in a condominium community, your reform group has to gain control of the board of directors. You don't need to control all five positions on the board, just the majority.

To become the majority of the board, your reform group needs the majority of owners to vote your candidates into office and to continue to vote for them so they stay in office.

To get the owners to vote for you, they must believe that your group will do a better job that the incumbents and that it is worth their while to work at getting the reform candidates into office.

Simple, right?

It is not easy
Too many times, an owner will see that the present board is either inadequate or is working for their own personal best interests rather than in the best interests of the rest of the owners. They talk to their neighbours and try to get them interested in electing a new board but they find that their follow unit owners are not interested in knowing what is going on or getting involved.

Getting the owners interested, informed and wanting to get involved is called community organizing. Concerned owners find that organizing is not easy.

Herding cats


In fact, community organization can resemble herding cats, every owner interested just in themselves. This should be expected: after all didn't everyone buy into the "just pay one monthly cheque and the professionals will do all the worrying?"

Your goal is to make the owners aware that by purchasing a unit in your condo corporation, they bought into a democratic organization that needs informed unit owners if it is to work in their best interests.

Getting started
Start by talking with your neighbours informally, one on one,  in the elevators, lobby, mail room, at the garbage chute and at the swimming pool and the exercise room.

Find out what are their concerns and if they have any issues with the present management and if they share your worries. What concerns do you have in common and what are your differences? Most importantly see if they are interested in doing anything about it.

Attend the AGM. Listen and watch what is going on. This is where owners vent their problems. You will learn what problems other owners have and as they get up to speak they state their names and unit numbers, have a pen in hand and write this information down.

When you see them later on, introduce yourself and ask them about their issues and find out what the manager has been doing to help them.

Starting a small group
At first, you get together a small group of three to six owners and find out who is interested in getting together regularly to work at replacing the board. This group should meet about twice a month.

Build a database
You need to make a database of unit owners. A computer spreadsheet program works well. This list contains several columns:

1.	A list of all the units by unit # and floor.
2.	The names of the owner-residents.
3.	Telephone numbers and best times to call.
4.	E-mail addresses. (This is very important.)
5.	A list of all units that are leased out and the contact number for all the absentee-owners. (Many of the renters will give you that information.)
6.	How long have the owners lived here.
7.	Do the owners support us or do they support the existing board. How strong is this support, either way.
8.	Are they willing to get involved. If so, what tasks are they able and are willing to to do?

Meet with your group bi-weekly, keep every one informed on new developments and gather together all the information about the owners and their concerns that you can.


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