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Achieving Quorum

At the “unofficial” meeting, you could take a straw ballot of those present to fill vacant board positions or let the majority decide to allow the current directors to continue in their expired/renewed terms until a quorum is finally met. However, if you’re facing the bleak challenge of expending time and money reconvening meetings until the magic number of those present in person or by proxy is reached, perhaps some of the following suggestions will help you go over to top of your minimum quorum requirement the first time around.

·         Vote with I Ballot or another electronic voting system. (if allowed in your state)

·         Place yard signs at each entrance the day of the meeting detailing location and time of the meeting. (courtesy officer may be necessary if community will look abandoned).

·         Conduct a raffle to encourage proxy submission and state that it’s not necessary to be present to win.

·         Award door prized solicited from area or Internet merchants.

·         Distribute coupons for free services from area retailers.

·         Ask area merchant to sponsor the meeting/party.

·         Distribute awards (plaques, certificates, plant, gift certificate) to recognize volunteers

·         Invite an interesting speaker – politician, police officer, contractor

·         Make the meeting a celebration of another successful year or of another “Birthday of the Association.”   The actual meeting becomes incidental to the festivity to look to the future.

·         Establish annual theme holidays, cities, countries, travel, Texas, games.

·         Provide entertainment a magician, comedian.

·         Provide babysitting service

·         Provide food (soda, snacks, sandwiches)

·         Broaden meeting to be a pool party & barbecue.

·         Hold a potluck dinner.

·         Send multiple mailings & reminders – detail the cost of each mailing and room rental to encourage proxy. submission – use flyers, postcards, newsletters, and bulletin board/mail cluster postings.

·         Send postage-paid postcard proxies, including option for quorum purposes only.

·         Form an Annual Meeting Committee charged with achieving a quorum.

·         Have the Annual Meeting Committee call owners who have not returned proxies.

·         Hold meeting in a convenient/”cool” location a restaurant? Neighboring community’s clubhouse?

·         Provide transportation to offsite meeting location.

·         Include a serious/controversial issue on the agenda.

·         Announce that attendees will be able to sign important petition to City/County/State/Federal Government/Agency/Department/whomever.

·         Ask attendees to bring donation for charity (canned goods, clothing).

      If you implement one or more of the above, you’ve got a better chance of encouraging enough homeowners to either mail in their proxy or attend the meeting to reach that magic quorum number. When that happens, as the song says, “don’t worry — be happy”. You achieved quorum and, hopefully, the meeting went off without a hitch because it was such a positive experience. Now it’s time to start preparing for next year . . .