What it's like to be Vice President

I've now been VP for almost a week and I thought I should share some of my experiences. Serous information will be posted in the appropriate place but I will post amusing or trivial info here. The thread is not "exclusive" so please feel free to reply if you wish.

Perla, who lives in my block, has until now done no more then reply "Hola" when we met. This week she seems to want to be my new best friend calling me David and chatting about all sort of things. This is surprising but not unwelcome - I just hope she now stops throwing burning cigarette ends onto my plastic grass as a sign of this new desire for friendship.

I have had a lot of conversations with neighbours and it is useful to understand people's views and perspectives. I am now in the uncomfortable situation where everyone seems to know who I am but I only know some people. Forgive me if I have to ask for your name.

This week Javier and I met with Maximo, Irma and Raphael (boss of maintainance company). We discussed a lot of things and Raphael was given a to do list but no major decisions could be taken - the full committee meets for the first time this weekend and I will have more to report  after that.  

Hi David

Sounds like you got the fluttering eyelashes treatment from Perla :-)

You are not the only one who has the problem with people throwing burning cigarettes over their balconies onto your grass. If I catch the person doing it, they wont like where I will stick it. Haven't these people got any respect for other peoples property.

Has any agreement been reached on the months one of the pools will stay open. I presume it will be April - October. Just so we can let renters know for next year.

Will we be billed for only the water we use, or is it a set fee every month, and is there a standing charge.

How has the road / lake held out over the last few weeks when there was heavy rain. Does it all clear since Max moved the drain cover. Has the road been repaired beside the railway bridge where the rain pours down the hill and creates the deep ridges.

Westport

Hi Westport,

The proposal put to the meeting was for the pool to be open April to October but some residents wanted all year round so they will at least be open April to October. If that is extended I will let you know.

It hasn't rained since we arrived at the end of last week (It's been really nice). I'm told the "lake" did flood during the really heavy rain but it drained away quite quickly. The council smoothed out the ruts caused by the rain running down the hill and cleaned the road up to the tunnel so it is quite passable at the moment.

Part of the barrier beside the "vial provisional" washed away but arrohabitatge were quick to patch it up again.

There is a standing charge for water - if someone knows how much it is please let us know.

People do react differently when you are VP! The maintenance man is the latest person who apparently wants to be my new best friend.

The other day while chatting over the fence to neighbours I was looking at their gate which they had painted. Ours is starting to rust and I was thinking about painting it so I was a bit taken aback when the lady of the house launched into a robust defense of the shade of green. They had done their best to match the shade and it was pretty close which was good enough for me. I am VP not the paint police running round with a shade card issuing fixed penalty notices to anyone who has not achieved an exact match.

Here is my take on paint:

The grey for the grills is a standard shade. There is no exact match in Hammerite or equivalent so if you want to use this type of paint buy some of the ordinary stuff and put it on on top. Our own maintainance company has managed to paint the communal railings etc in a darker shade than the original so we can hardly shout at our neighbours if they do the same!

Green for gates. The fence is plastic coated so get a green as close as you can.

Cream for the terrace ceiling and pillars. This is standard Crème.

Yellow for terrace walls. There is no standard colour close to this. Getting paint mixed costs about 3 times as much as a standard colour but is the only way. It took us 2 attempts to get it right. This is the mix from Pintura Andalucia that we finally used:

Base: Emocril 10 Base 12litres

481: 120

47: 2358.6

461: 78.8

They can adjust for other sizes of tin

Be warned with the walls and ceiling being so powdery painting is a messy job – bits of wet dust go everywhere!

If you change the colour (someone has actually painted their walls in the ceiling colour!) you will be asked to change it but as the community has no budget for painting it will be some time before the whole complex will be painted so some will want to spruce up their terraces.  

Sorry what I tried to put here didn't work. I'll find a solution tomorrow

hi david what went wrong with your post irene

I was trying to post a map showing the division between phases 1 & 2 obtained from the town hall. It was the wrong file type and I had to download a conversion tool. This is now done and the map is under photos.

Whoever devided up the phases didn't put much thought into it. It would be impossible for either to stay within their own borders so it is understandable that the Town Hall want us to come to an agreement with Arrohabitatge. We have asked for a meeting with Ana Mula at the town hall next week.

 I couldn't find the original photo showing the divisions between phase I and II. Are there other people who can point me to it?

Max

I have been asked if there is an alternative way for non resident neighbours to obtain accurate information about the work of the committee and news from Don Juan. For this reason I have decided to provide an e-mail update on a regular basis. If you would like to receive a copy of this e-mail please send me your e-mail address. For security e-mail addresses will be checked against the list registered with GICS so please ensure that the address that you send me is the same.

By the way Justin has now restored the missing photos.

This message was last edited by Janmet on 3/28/2009.

This message was last edited by Janmet on 3/28/2009.

Hi David

My new email adress is aotter@clara.co.uk

Regards Andy

No problem - I will include your names on the list. I plan to send my first message on Monday. If you don't want to put your e-mail address on a public forum just send me a PM

Hi David,

I checked but there are a lot of non-resident people who are not registered with an e-mail address at Gics. I respect that for personal reasons you no longer want  to post on EOS, but that will leave the majority of owners in the dark.. I guess and hope people will repost these e-mails on EOS for the benefit of all the others. After all we want to be one community without artificial segregations.

I know very well from personal experience as vice-president that it's not always fun to be part of EOS. I know what you went through. You get a lot of criticism and people sometimes forget even basic politeness. However it's an important medium by which we can keep in touch and discuss things. Not the only one of course as I can hear heated arguments in the streets, but for people who can't be in Spain as often as they would like this forum is important.  

I would like to keep EOS as a way to communicate with each other instead of the selective mechanism of e-mails or PM's.  As a way to inform people it's fine, but what we need is a community and you can only build that by public discussion. For some people that will be this forum, for others it will be on the streets of Don Juan, but in all cases that's what makes us a community instead of just a bunch of individual owners from different countries.

Max

Hi Max,

I have chosen to step out of the debate on EOS. I don't regret doing so. This forum has, regretable, become like a soap opera except it is worse because they play the same episode every day! However the main reason for offering to communicate by e-mail is security. This is a public forum. We already know it is monitored by "friendly" people who are not neighbours but non of us knows how many "unfriendly" viewers we have.

It is OK to post information about the opening of access to the garden behind block 5 or the swimming pool etc. and I am sure people appreciate that you have done so but by using e-mail I can share other information which is not suitable for a public forum.

 Hi David,

I understand the reason for secrecy in some cases, but don't assume that by using e-mail this will be guaranteed. There are a few cases (like strategies in negotiations) where secrecy is an unfortunate necessity. Last year I have used that argument a few times as it can not always be avoided. 

However in these cases using e-mail is just as vulnerable to leaks as other means. There are f.i. owners who are related to the developer who are properly registered at the administration. Furthermore e-mails get forwarded and you don't have any control over them. 

I would suggest to leave the sensitive parts out of any form of publication. Just inform people that some issues related to point x or y can't revealed in detail. Nobody will blame you for that and the strategy works as proven by last year.

The rest of the information should end up on EOS to maximize the public and make it possible to discuss items. Like I said there are lots of people who still don't have a registered e-mail at GICS.  Your personal preference to stay away from discussions can be easily solved. Just post the regular news letters and refrain from reacting. A bit like the 'official communications from the administrator thread'.

Max