October 6, 2025 • 36 mins
Today we hear from HOA Board Hero Michelle who dealt with a 2-alarm fire that affected 32 units at her community.
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Robert spotlights HOA Board Hero Michelle Mansour from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Michelle shares her journey of serving on an HOA board through a catastrophic 2-alarm fire that affected 32 units, lawsuits, management changes, and community challenges. Hear how her board built transparency, improved communication, supported neighbors in crisis, and kept their community united!
Chapters from Today's Episode:
00:00 How did an HOA board handle a devastating fire?
01:07 Who is Michelle Mansour and what is her board experience?
04:09 What makes serving on an HOA board challenging and humbling?
05:14 How do management company changes impact boards?
08:09 Why did Michelle decide to run for the HOA board?
09:28 What problems come with condo conversions and reserves?
11:00 How did the board rebuild trust and communication?
15:18 How does transparency help homeowners feel secure?
17:12 What strengths do different board members bring?
18:54 How much time does serving on an HOA board really take?
20:18 Ad Break - HOA Invest
21:17 What happened during the two-alarm fire emergency?
23:57 How did the community unite to support displaced neighbors?
27:14 How do volunteer committees strengthen an HOA board?
29:27 What makes a productive and well-run HOA board meeting?
32:09 How can clear communication prevent panic during lawsuits?
33:36 What lessons has Michelle learned from serving on the board?
The views & opinions expressed in this program are those of the Hosts & Guests, intended to provide general education about the community association industry. The content is not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or organization. Please seek advice from licensed professionals.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Michelle Mansour (00:00):
We had a fire start and one unit at about 1am
(00:07):
in the morning. It was probablyevery Association's worst
nightmare is something like thatis dealing with insurance claims
and human the human aspect. ButI took over as president the
community insurance worktogether to re, you know,
rebuild someone's home, but itwas definitely, probably the
(00:28):
most challenging thing I've beenthrough, definitely on the
board, but maybe been as aperson.
Announcer (00:38):
A regular highlight of the HOA insights podcast is
our board heroes feature, wherewe dedicate one episode each
month to celebrate theremarkable efforts of HOA board
members to us a board hero isone of the 2 million elected
volunteers who deserverecognition for excelling in a
role that often goes unnoticed.
Today, we're excited tospotlight one of these
exceptional board heroes andshare their inspiring story. If
you match our definition of aboard hero, or know someone who
(01:00):
does, please reach out to us.
Our contact details and those ofour sponsors are provided in the
show notes.
Robert Nordlund (01:07):
Welcome back to HOA Insights
Common Areas. I'm RobertNordlund, and I'm here today for
episode 126 with another one ofour board heroes. We're proud to
celebrate. Michelle Mansour isan eight year board member at
her condominium association inMount Pleasant, South Carolina,
and professionally, she's anintellectual property paralegal.
She volunteers for the town ofMount Pleasant Planning
(01:30):
Commission, and she's an usherwith a local minor league
baseball team, the Charlestonriver dogs. And when she's not
doing all these work relatedtasks, and remember, she's also
a board member for Association.
She tells me she enjoysknitting, paddle boarding, yoga,
reading and sunrise dog walks onthe beach, and she makes me
wonder what the heck I've beendoing with all my spare time.
(01:51):
And so we'll hear from Michellein just a minute. But first, I
hope you enjoyed last week'sepisode number 125, with regular
co host and insurance expertKevin Davis, seeing the world
through his eyes as a leadingDNO insurance provider. And it's
because of that that when he waslistening to Episode 110 about
how to read financial reports,his brain immediately clicked to
(02:13):
Well, what about the boards whodon't understand their financial
reports? What's the cost, orwhat's the problem with that? So
last week, we talked about thecost to the community when all
the board members don't have aworking understanding of their
associations financial position.
If you missed that episode orany other prior episode, you can
find them on our podcastwebsite, Hoa insights.org, on
(02:37):
your favorite podcast platform,or on our YouTube channel, but
better yet, subscribe to thepodcast in order to get every
episode delivered right to yourphone or mobile device. Well,
those of you watching on YouTubecan see the mug I have here, my
HOA insights mug. It's one of myfavorites with a deteriorated
property and board memberstalking about skimping on their
(03:00):
reserves. I got that from ourmerch store, which you can
browse through from our Hoa, Hoainsights.org website, or the
show notes, and you'll find wehave plenty of free items there,
like board member zoombackgrounds and some specialty
items for sale, like the mug,but I like to give you a mug for
free, so go the merch store,download a free zoom background.
(03:22):
While you're there, look around,find the mug you'd like, and if
you're the 10th person to emailme at podcast@reserves.com
mentioning episode 126 muggiveaway, we'll ship that mug to
you free of charge. Well, weenjoy hearing from you, and most
episodes are in response to atopic that you've recommend
recommended. So stay in contact,letting us know what questions
(03:46):
you have or topics that you'dlike to hear more about. Leave
us a voicemail at 805-203-3130,leave a comment on the YouTube
video or send us an email atpodcast at reserve city.com,
back to today's episode. SoMichelle, let's start out by
telling our audience the threewords you use to describe being
(04:09):
a
Michelle Mansour (04:09):
board member, challenging, educational and
humbling. Why is that? In acondo regime, the hardest thing
is running a business andlearning how to run a business
when you do not have a businessbackground. So I think that's
where the challenge andeducational combines together,
(04:29):
learning how to read financials,learning what you know, what
needs to be done to upkeep aaging community and keep your
neighbors happy at the same timeand and it is very humbling to
realize that it is in thelearning you're going to feel
(04:51):
like you fail more often thanyou succeed, how much it does
cost, and how much work isinvolved, and how much. You have
to rely on on other people tohelp you through that, whether
it's property management orother board members.
Robert Nordlund (05:07):
That's interesting. So tell us more
about your association. Yousaid, 62 units. How old is it?
You said, aging Association.
Michelle Mansour (05:14):
The buildings are 40 years old. They converted
to condos in 2006 so we'recoming up on 20 years of being a
comp regime
Robert Nordlund (05:24):
got it and professionally managed. Yes,
okay, and let me ask a carefulquestion. Does that make life
easier or harder? Do you have amanagement company that's
helpful or one that youcontinually have to encourage
and correct and wait for how'sthat fit in at your association,
(05:46):
we
Michelle Mansour (05:47):
changed to a new property management company
at the beginning of the year, sothere's been some growing pains.
They are not as hands on as ourlast management company, so
there's a lot left up to theboard, which has become a
learning experience for theboard, stuff that we're not
(06:08):
normally used to doing, we'vehad to take on. But overall, I
would say their their softwareplatform is amazing. Our
neighbors really love it. It'svery user friendly. I like the
way they do their financialreports. It's more of working
with vendors and speeding upthat process that I think is our
(06:34):
has been our hardest with thiscurrent property management
company.
Robert Nordlund (06:38):
When you first said that it's requiring more of
you. I was thinking, well, why'dyou make the change? But it
sounds like there's, like, withso many other issues, there's
trade offs. This one has abetter technology, we can say,
but it's requiring a little bitmore of the board.
Michelle Mansour (06:54):
I think it was a partly financial decision to
change, okay? And in, you know,in part, we were like, you know,
the technology and the financialaspect, making that easier and
easier for neighbors to accessinformation was important to
Robert Nordlund (07:13):
us to find out what's going on with their
account or with the association.
Michelle Mansour (07:17):
Overall honor, with all of our meeting minutes,
all of the governing documentsare easily available to them
just making requests, being ableto monitor when they make a
request the process. We've nothad that before, so it's nice
that they can just log in andsee, okay, my request was
received, and it's at thisstage,
Robert Nordlund (07:38):
excellent, so they can see that nothing to
stop
Michelle Mansour (07:41):
us when we walk out our doors. Hey, did you
see this?
Robert Nordlund (07:45):
I emailed the management company last Tuesday.
Have they told you about is ithappening or not? That's good.
That's good. Well, tell me aboutyour role at the association.
How long were you there at theassociation before you became a
board member?
Michelle Mansour (08:01):
I lived here for about a year and a half
before I became a board member.
Robert Nordlund (08:07):
And why did you become a board member?
Michelle Mansour (08:09):
I wanted to see some changes when I moved
in. The board at the time, andthe property management company,
third property managementcompany since I've lived here,
but there was no communication.
I didn't get, didn't receive awelcome packet. Didn't know
when, like, even simple thingslike when pressure washing was
(08:33):
happening. It's like, oh,surprise, it's happening today,
because there wasn't a lot ofcommunication.
Robert Nordlund (08:39):
All of a sudden it's noisy outside, yeah.
Michelle Mansour (08:43):
And I felt like this is stuff. If this is
affecting me, it's got to beaffecting everyone else. And was
like, I want to know what'sgoing on. I want to you know,
there's ways that this canimprove. And that was really my
reasoning for for joining theboard, is, if I'm having this
issue, other people are havingthis issue, so somebody's got to
(09:05):
step up and
Robert Nordlund (09:07):
fix it. Was that perhaps a problem of you
said it was converted to condosin you say, 2016 or 2006 2006
Okay, I got my I got a decadewrong. I was thinking that maybe
they were just, you know, thebrand new just about 10 years
and 10 years doing it okay.
Michelle Mansour (09:28):
And the first board also was not preparing for
the future. They did notincrease what they were saving
in reserves, not thinking aboutthis is, eventually you're gonna
have problems. You're gonna haveproblems with 40 year old
buildings. You're gonna haveinfrastructure problems with
your roads. Because we are aprivate road. They weren't, you
know, we have a pool. There'slots of stuff that they weren't,
(09:50):
that they didn't think about,because it's, it's new, right as
just flipped them. It's newconverted. And you don't have
to, you know, you think, youdon't have to worry about these
things and everything's brand.
New. You don't think about whathappens when it gets old.
Robert Nordlund (10:03):
Yeah, well, that was the kind of association
I bought into. I My backgroundis I started, I got started in
this industry because I was aboard member and President to my
association, and it was a condoconversion. And condo
conversions have the problems ofan older building, even though
they are newer as anassociation, and there's some
additional bumps in the road.
Well, that brings me to, Icontinue to have this kind of
(10:26):
wrestle, or this question in myhead about the chicken and the
egg. Is it a bad association?
That means you have a bad board,or is it a good board that
creates a good association? Andit sounds like you came in to an
association that had somestumbles, but you got onto the
(10:46):
board, and you, I'm presuming,that you then provided some
additional communications, youprovided some additional
transparency, you were able toimprove things. So how hard of a
lift was that,
Michelle Mansour (11:00):
think for the board members at the time, we
started, generally, we meetquarterly. Now, but we were for
a long time meeting monthly,sometimes weekly, just to start
chipping away and tackling stuffand coming up with ideas. And
we're like, how about anewsletter? How about when we
(11:21):
send out the financial packet atthe end of the year? Let's break
down what each person, you know,what each building is paying per
month. Because a lot of peopleare like, Where's my money
going? And they just see the bignumbers and not like, how does
this affect me? Personally? Westarted looking at, we need to,
need to add to reserves. How dowe do that and not have sticker
(11:43):
shock? And at the time, weneeded to go through, I guess, a
roof replacement, because youhave to do that every 20 years.
So we strategically looked atthat, and we ended up doing it
where we just did, like, sevenroofs a year you pulled from
reserves to do those and let itreach yes, no, it was. It was a
(12:06):
good, a good group that reallyjust strategized and
brainstormed how, how we make itbetter and start preparing for
the future. We do live on thecoast, so we have a lot we have
to think about with insuranceand hurricanes and maintenance.
Robert Nordlund (12:23):
Got a map on my wall here, and I'm looking at
South Carolina and all thestories we hear about Florida.
You're just state and a halfaway, so lots of big things
going on there. I want to comeback to something. You said 62
units, but you used to meetweekly, maybe as you're
correcting things, smoothingthings out, then monthly, and
(12:47):
you're now have things goingpretty stable, and you're
meeting quarterly, correct.
That's That's amazing. How longdid it take to go from you
thinking this board is not doinga good job or not good enough,
in my mind to I've run for theboard, and now I'm on the board.
We're meeting weekly, we'refiguring things out, we're
(13:07):
making the changes that we allneed to make. And maybe that's
is that what drove your initialcomment about what was it
humbling? Challenging andhumbling. Are two of your three
words. It took a while. But howlong was that transition to get
from where it needed help towhere it's now running somewhat,
(13:30):
can I say smoothly?
Michelle Mansour (13:34):
About a couple years. Okay. Took a while.
Robert Nordlund (13:38):
Okay, so that requires so some persistence and
some faithfulness to stick to itand see it through.
Michelle Mansour (13:47):
I think teamwork is a big thing too.
It's, you know, important tohave other board members. All of
you have to be in it together.
And, you know, board memberscycle off, so new board members
coming in, making them feelwelcome and appreciating their
ideas.
Robert Nordlund (14:05):
Tell me about that. How many on the board? How
long are the terms? Things likethat.
Michelle Mansour (14:10):
We have five board members with three year
terms. I am actually in my thirdterm. I'll find choice.
Robert Nordlund (14:18):
Are they? Are they staggered terms? So you
don't translate. That's good
Michelle Mansour (14:22):
cycles. It's two, two in one. So cycle off to
this coming year and then, andsome people run for multiple
years. Sometimes we just don'thave interest. That's the
hardest part is nobody wants tosit in the cheap seats.
Robert Nordlund (14:39):
So well, in the cheap seats, in the hot seat, I
would say, when you're walkingaround the association, do you
feel like you have a red shirton that you're branded? And
people say there's Michelle, letme ask her a question, like, are
you known as a board member, orare you just you? Yes, one of
(15:01):
the people, no.
Michelle Mansour (15:02):
I think all of us, board member I probably get,
receive the most feedback fromneighbors, but other board
members do too, and report backto the board. They know exactly
who all of us are, where welive. Sometimes they show up on
your doorstep.
Robert Nordlund (15:18):
Knock, knock, knock. Well, that's actually
good and bad, because I wouldimagine, when you first felt a
need to run for the board, thatwas probably a board that you
didn't know who they were. Theywere mysterious. What decisions
were they making? What were theydoing with my money? And now
you're part of a team, and Iwant to follow up on that, that
you are the board, you'rerunning the association. There's
(15:39):
an increased transparency.
You've got things going smoothlyenough. Tell me how you Well,
yeah, two things. Tell me howyou are communicating to the
homeowners at this point intime, and how often
Michelle Mansour (15:50):
we do our quarterly newsletter. We do do
emails in between, not just fromproperty management, which is
your normal e blast, thatsomething's coming up. But we do
try to fill them in if, ifsomething's happening that's a
big deal. Like, you know, we hada very rare snowfall in January.
(16:12):
We don't usually get snow inCharleston. And we had, like, a
winter main break so, and ofcourse, it was on a Saturday. Of
course, property management'snot there, so the board, you
know, I'll do up a letter andhave the other board members
proofread it and email it toeverybody. So we try to be like,
This is what's going on. Don'tpanic. We got it under control.
(16:36):
So we try to tell, like, try tobe immediate, responsive.
Robert Nordlund (16:42):
I like that.
Well, I like so many timesyou've used the word we, and I
think that's one of thehallmarks of an effective board,
is that they are a we. It's inthe bigger sense, it's our
association. And then we as theboard are working together on
this. Michelle, can do this?
I'll do this. All proof it. Youdraft it. What do we need to
say? How much do we need to wantto overwhelm it with
(17:04):
information, all this kind ofstuff that it's it's a we
together. And I think, well,let's go with that. What are in
your mind the hallmarks of a
Michelle Mansour (17:12):
well functioning board? Definitely,
the communication. If you know,using your your abilities. We
have a board member who works inconstruction. She's an
invaluable asset. She knowslike, if we're pricing, fixing a
fence or some what the what thecost of lumber is, whether we're
(17:33):
getting a good deal. We have aneducator. He's the best mediator
in the world. He's been teachinghigh school for a very long
time. So it's like, I'm like, ifwe have a neighbor dispute, I'm
like, you know Tom, can youplease?
Robert Nordlund (17:52):
Yeah, good. Do
Michelle Mansour (17:53):
this for me.
And know, we have a newer boardmember, and he's, he's all in.
If I have to meet with a vendor.
I can call he works from hometoo. I can call him, and he
comes out and meets with me. I'mlike, I'd prefer two of us so
nothing's lost andmisinterpreted, or, you know, he
(18:14):
might understand better whatwhat the problem is. And I do so
we try to have, you know, allhands on deck, good and use your
strengths. You know we have,like a realtor on the board. She
knows curb appeal and what weshould focus on making look
nice, because that is important,keeping property values up.
Robert Nordlund (18:36):
So how much time per week does this all
take? You're down to quarterlyboard meetings, but you are
communicating in between ongoingrelationships with vendors that
stay on top of the managementcompany, looking at the
financial reports. What's thisboil down to on a weekly basis
or a monthly basis?
Michelle Mansour (18:54):
It depends.
This year has been busier thannormal when you switch
management companies. It doestake a lot more time, generally,
like this month, I might put in10 hours at, you know, bad month
it might be I've gone up to 30hours. I try to as a paralegal,
I keep track of time for my job.
(19:15):
So good for you, time foreverything. But yeah, so it just
really depends on the month andthe type of meetings, if we're
playing, if we're getting readyfor annual meeting or budget
meeting. Of course, we spend alot more time that month, then
in July, where there's not muchgoing on, and I do have other
(19:36):
like another, we have adifferent officers on the board
so the Financial Officer, he'llreview all the finances and then
send me questions. I look atthem too, but trust him to do
them more in depth,
Robert Nordlund (19:56):
yeah, it's one thing to have a understanding.
It's another thing to. Uh,double check the math and those
kinds of things. Michelle, Ihave a long list of questions
that I still want to get to, butit's time to now take a break to
hear from one of our generoussponsors, after again, which
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Robert Nordlund (20:55):
And we're back.
Well, we're here with Michelle,board member from South
Carolina, and I want to hearmore from Michelle.
Specifically, she tempted mewith a story earlier about one
of the big challenges that shefaced right when she got on the
board. So Michelle, tell meabout what was going on with the
association when you became aboard member.
Michelle Mansour (21:17):
Oh, I guess I had been on the board about a
year. Well, not quite at thatpoint, but we had a two alarm
fire, 32 buildings, so 61 units.
So they're built like duplexes.
So we had a fire start and oneunit at about 1am in the
(21:40):
morning, and it ended up takingout one full building and
another half of a buildingbeside it. The firewall stood
and protected the other side.
Fire response was really quick.
They're right down the street,but I had never witnessed a fire
(22:00):
like that before, where a wholebuilding
Robert Nordlund (22:04):
like whoosh gone
Michelle Mansour (22:07):
old wood and just, you know, dry conditions,
it was probably everyAssociation's worst nightmare is
something like that is dealingwith insurance claims and Human,
the human aspect. But I tookover as president about halfway
through that, because ourcurrent our president at the
time, relocated, so I dealt witha lot of the hardest thing is
(22:32):
human emotion. At that point,people who lost their homes, the
people, even you know, theentire community, is affected by
something like that. It's verysmall community. We're very
close so but it's andrebuilding. I learned a whole
lot about the codes andconstruction and and building
something back to the way itwas, and how your master deed
(22:56):
works, how, how ho six and thecommunity insurance work
together to re, you know,rebuild someone's home, but it
was definitely, probably themost challenging thing I've been
through, definitely on theboard, but maybe been as a
person, wow.
Robert Nordlund (23:17):
Well, I suppose I've the stories I've heard is
that it can go everywhere fromjust like you say, the
devastation of people who havelost everything their home is
gone, to people on the otherside of the association that
don't want to pay a share of thedeductible because their home is
just fine and what's all thefuss about. And then you can
have a divided community. ButI'm glad to hear that your
(23:39):
community kind of stood togetherand felt that we were all
affected. I again, I like thatwe word so much when we're
talking about communityassociations. Tell me, if I was
to walk through your associationtoday and see the 30 some
buildings, would it be obviousto me which ones got rebuilt
after the fire, or
Michelle Mansour (23:57):
did it they look exactly the same. They're
just better built. They're builtthey're built to withstand a
category two hurricane. Now, therest of us are hard, so it'll be
flip flop. Some of us were alittle little jealous,
Robert Nordlund (24:11):
interesting. So when there's a category two
hurricane, there'll be the twobuildings standing and, yeah, I
hope we don't have that problem.
Michelle Mansour (24:21):
I hope, yeah, I hope we don't ever have I
lived through Hurricane Hugo asa kid, so I never to live
through something thatdevastating again.
Robert Nordlund (24:30):
Yeah. Well, tell me what you do to build
community, to build that, thecompassion that it takes, the
team spirit at the association,so that everyone did feel like
we were damaged, not them.
Michelle Mansour (24:45):
I think it's just every you know when you're
out, just walking out your door,saying hi to people, getting to
know them, asking how they'redoing, and then keeping them
informed when something likethat does happen. Yeah. It's
like we're on it. We, you know,this is what's happening. This
is when we expect to startrebuilding. There's, you know, a
(25:08):
lot of guess, hand holding atthat point. And I think that was
majority of it. Our neighborsseem to all get along really
well. So there were neighborsbring in people who lost
everything, clothes and anddifferent toiletries and stuff
they needed. So I was reallyimpressed with that was the
(25:30):
outpouring of support from justneighbors all, all just in our
little community.
Robert Nordlund (25:36):
Yeah, neighbors being neighbors, yeah. I love
that. Well, on the show, everyonce in a while, we'll talk
about some of thecharacteristics of a effective
board, and we'll talk about the4c that they care, they're
curious, they're courageous, andthey communicate. It sounds like
you're doing a lot of thosethings you care, taking the time
(25:57):
to say hello and to chat,communicating. I just, I love
that. I think that has so manysecondary effects, where people
feel like they are being welltaken care of. There are no
secrets. It's that clarity, theopenness, the transparency that
goes a long way. Tell me aboutwhat you have, as far as, okay,
let's say you have a good senseof community. At your
(26:20):
association, your board is downto operating quarterly. Do you
have a pipeline for boardmembers? Do you have committees
that are functioning, that aresupporting the board
Michelle Mansour (26:30):
we do? We have a landscape committee, a capital
improvements committee, and whatwe call the playground
committee. They're kind of likethe social committee.
Robert Nordlund (26:43):
Do you have a playground? We do have
Michelle Mansour (26:45):
a playground, and not figure out how to how to
improve upon it, but they dotake on, you know, some of the
smaller tasks around theneighborhood, like after storms,
we organize neighborhoodcleanups. Instead of spending
the money for the landscaper tocome out and do it, we're like,
(27:06):
hey, we'll buy the debris bagsand everybody come out on a
Saturday and we'll all gettogether and clean up together.
Robert Nordlund (27:14):
I like that again, that we It's Our
Community, and you're not justsaying, you know, ABC landscape,
and we'll handle it hopefully aweek from Tuesday. It's us
acting, acting like
Michelle Mansour (27:27):
neighbors. I think that was what we were
doing. We were like, this isgoing to cost us X amount of
dollars if we hired thelandscape company because it's
outside of our contract, or wecan all get together, do it, go
get some pizza and beerafterwards.
Robert Nordlund (27:40):
I like that.
Now the insurance expert thatI've heard, they're all going to
say, make sure you havevolunteer insurance writers on
your policy. So I think there'ssomething like that out there.
Michelle Mansour (27:53):
Tell me more.
Yeah, I haven't checked ourinsurance for that.
Robert Nordlund (27:57):
So you have community building events, you
have a board that's functioningeffectively. Tell me about the
community itself. Is there agerange? It's like, Do you have a
nice blend of people, peoplefrom South Carolina, older
people, younger people, peoplefrom far away, and how does that
affect the community spiritthere?
Michelle Mansour (28:15):
We do. We have, I'd say 40% of the
neighbors live here full timeand the rest do not. It's
vacation homes, rentals. And thepeople who live here full time
and and they we have everyonefrom like, you know, single
people, young, youngprofessionals, just starting
(28:40):
out, faint young families toretirees. So it's a it's a very
vast demographic.
Robert Nordlund (28:49):
It's a nice mix, nice little, yeah, okay,
good. I think that often is veryhelpful at an association. Some
people are afraid that what arewe going to do with young kids
running around, or we have tomake sure the stair railings are
good, because we have someelderly people in the
association. But I think thatjust a wonderful blend. You have
(29:11):
a nice engagement when there'speople across generations,
people with different accents,everything like that. Tell me
about your board meetings. Whatmakes for a good board meeting?
When you look back and say thatwas a good one, why would you
rate it as a good one?
Michelle Mansour (29:27):
We stick to the agenda. You can you can go
off the rails and make surewhat? Because we have open board
meetings, other than the budgetmeeting, all our board meetings
are open that we make sure wehold the neighbors and check,
even though it's hard, you wantyou want their feedback. We're
(29:48):
like, your feedback comes at theend. We've got to do our job,
because they all want to part.
And I'm like, if you want topart, you got to get on the
board, good, or join acommittee, because the committee
will. Support to the boardduring the meeting. But yeah,
it's it's managing it andkeeping it, you know, keeping
focus and in making sure we youknow who gets assigned what
(30:10):
tasks while we're in themeeting. Follow up after the
meeting.
Robert Nordlund (30:16):
So as you meet quarterly, does meeting less
frequently than monthly. Meanyou have more participation from
homeowners because they want tomake sure they catch up on
what's been going on, or lessparticipation because the
board's got it covered and
Michelle Mansour (30:33):
it's in good hands. I think we probably have
more quarterly than we wouldhave monthly, just because
people would probably get boredor or something. But it also,
yeah, depends on our agenda andwhat's going on at the time, how
much interest? But we usuallyhave a good it averages from
eight to 16 homeowners. It's nota huge to it's not a huge
(30:58):
showing at the annual meeting.
Gets a better showing than andeven then, it's hard to make a
quorum. I assume that's prettystandard with people wanting to
be involved. I always think, ifthere's nobody showing up, we're
doing a good job.
Robert Nordlund (31:13):
Otherwise they're there with what, torches
and pitchforks.
Michelle Mansour (31:18):
Oh yeah, yeah.
After the two alarm fire, wediscussed, we did get sued by a
homeowner, even though it wasn'tour fault. She sued over the
reconstruction. But that waslike that next meeting was like,
everybody's there because youhave to be like, it's no big
deal. Insurance will cover itand the lawyers will figure it
(31:39):
out. It ended up settling, but,but, yeah, she just wasn't happy
with the rebuild. So thinkthere's a lot of human emotion
in that, involved in that too,when you lose everything,
explaining that to theneighbors. That was definitely a
big challenge. Was explaininglike, you know, people see
lawsuit, and I think whole worldArmageddon is coming. You know,
(32:03):
you know, we're going to have topay so much money, and I'm like,
No, it's It's okay.
Robert Nordlund (32:09):
I think two things from that. One is you
confronted it, you communicatedit simply and clearly in a
timely manner, and you were wellprepared, and you had a
reputation of being transparent.
And once you said it's going tobe okay, it's covered by
insurance, nothing new, nothingto see, everything's okay. And
probably your demeanor and evenpresenting that probably gave
people the assurance that it'sgoing to be okay, it's not a big
(32:33):
deal. So that's your payback forall that time of being
transparent, communicating well,that you had built that
political capital oftrustworthiness, which is just
wonderful. Michelle, we want tothank you for taking the time to
join us on today's program. Anyfinal thoughts to share on your
(32:53):
board member experience,
Michelle Mansour (32:57):
just you know other board members you know,
hang in there and do your best.
Always think of Tony Horton. Ilike to work out so Tony Horton
always says, do your best andforget the rest. I think that's
the biggest thing, is, don'ttake it personally. That's the
biggest thing. That was thebiggest lesson I've had to learn
is it's, you know, it's notalways about you, or don't take
(33:22):
it personally, because you can,you can let it eat you alive
when you're when people aredisappointed, or you're not
going fast enough, or you haveto say no to people for whatever
reason.
Robert Nordlund (33:36):
Yeah, I like that you've talked about right
the start. About it beingchallenging, it being
educational and humbling, andyeah, you don't want to take it
personally, because it's avolunteer position. You're not
getting paid enough to take thiskind of garbage. Chin up. Be
clear about what's going on andsmile. Take the time, and you're
going to earn a lot of browniepoints, and a lot of friends,
(33:58):
they're going to probably end uptaking your side, and you feel
supported. And when you say,Hey, can you help? We had a
storm. There's cleanup. Can youhelp? On Saturday, people show
up. It's not like you're theonly one. So you've built
community at your association.
Well, we want to publiclyacknowledge Michelle for
performing a thankless job wellin what sounds like a beautiful
(34:20):
place to live, except whenthere's a storm that needs
cleanup. But we're glad she'sthere on the board to keep it
operationally sound, to matchthe property's natural
beachfront beauty, while we hopewe gain some HOA insights and
encouragement from Michelle'sobservations and some experience
that helps you bring commonsense to your common area, and
remember, if you match ourdefinition of a board hero, or
(34:42):
know someone who does, pleasereach out to us. We love having
bored heroes on our program. Ourcontact details are provided in
the show notes. Thank you forjoining us, and we look forward
to another great episode nextweek. You've
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We had a fire start and one unit at about 1am
(00:07):
in the morning. It was probablyevery Association's worst
nightmare is something like thatis dealing with insurance claims
and human the human aspect. ButI took over as president the
community insurance worktogether to re, you know,
rebuild someone's home, but itwas definitely, probably the
(00:28):
most challenging thing I've beenthrough, definitely on the
board, but maybe been as aperson.
Announcer (00:38):
A regular highlight of the HOA insights podcast is
our board heroes feature, wherewe dedicate one episode each
month to celebrate theremarkable efforts of HOA board
members to us a board hero isone of the 2 million elected
volunteers who deserverecognition for excelling in a
role that often goes unnoticed.
Today, we're excited tospotlight one of these
exceptional board heroes andshare their inspiring story. If
you match our definition of aboard hero, or know someone who
(01:00):
does, please reach out to us.
Our contact details and those ofour sponsors are provided in the
show notes.
Robert Nordlund (01:07):
Welcome back to HOA Insights
Common Areas. I'm RobertNordlund, and I'm here today for
episode 126 with another one ofour board heroes. We're proud to
celebrate. Michelle Mansour isan eight year board member at
her condominium association inMount Pleasant, South Carolina,
and professionally, she's anintellectual property paralegal.
She volunteers for the town ofMount Pleasant Planning
(01:30):
Commission, and she's an usherwith a local minor league
baseball team, the Charlestonriver dogs. And when she's not
doing all these work relatedtasks, and remember, she's also
a board member for Association.
She tells me she enjoysknitting, paddle boarding, yoga,
reading and sunrise dog walks onthe beach, and she makes me
wonder what the heck I've beendoing with all my spare time.
(01:51):
And so we'll hear from Michellein just a minute. But first, I
hope you enjoyed last week'sepisode number 125, with regular
co host and insurance expertKevin Davis, seeing the world
through his eyes as a leadingDNO insurance provider. And it's
because of that that when he waslistening to Episode 110 about
how to read financial reports,his brain immediately clicked to
(02:13):
Well, what about the boards whodon't understand their financial
reports? What's the cost, orwhat's the problem with that? So
last week, we talked about thecost to the community when all
the board members don't have aworking understanding of their
associations financial position.
If you missed that episode orany other prior episode, you can
find them on our podcastwebsite, Hoa insights.org, on
(02:37):
your favorite podcast platform,or on our YouTube channel, but
better yet, subscribe to thepodcast in order to get every
episode delivered right to yourphone or mobile device. Well,
those of you watching on YouTubecan see the mug I have here, my
HOA insights mug. It's one of myfavorites with a deteriorated
property and board memberstalking about skimping on their
(03:00):
reserves. I got that from ourmerch store, which you can
browse through from our Hoa, Hoainsights.org website, or the
show notes, and you'll find wehave plenty of free items there,
like board member zoombackgrounds and some specialty
items for sale, like the mug,but I like to give you a mug for
free, so go the merch store,download a free zoom background.
(03:22):
While you're there, look around,find the mug you'd like, and if
you're the 10th person to emailme at podcast@reserves.com
mentioning episode 126 muggiveaway, we'll ship that mug to
you free of charge. Well, weenjoy hearing from you, and most
episodes are in response to atopic that you've recommend
recommended. So stay in contact,letting us know what questions
(03:46):
you have or topics that you'dlike to hear more about. Leave
us a voicemail at 805-203-3130,leave a comment on the YouTube
video or send us an email atpodcast at reserve city.com,
back to today's episode. SoMichelle, let's start out by
telling our audience the threewords you use to describe being
(04:09):
a
Michelle Mansour (04:09):
board member, challenging, educational and
humbling. Why is that? In acondo regime, the hardest thing
is running a business andlearning how to run a business
when you do not have a businessbackground. So I think that's
where the challenge andeducational combines together,
(04:29):
learning how to read financials,learning what you know, what
needs to be done to upkeep aaging community and keep your
neighbors happy at the same timeand and it is very humbling to
realize that it is in thelearning you're going to feel
(04:51):
like you fail more often thanyou succeed, how much it does
cost, and how much work isinvolved, and how much. You have
to rely on on other people tohelp you through that, whether
it's property management orother board members.
Robert Nordlund (05:07):
That's interesting. So tell us more
about your association. Yousaid, 62 units. How old is it?
You said, aging Association.
Michelle Mansour (05:14):
The buildings are 40 years old. They converted
to condos in 2006 so we'recoming up on 20 years of being a
comp regime
Robert Nordlund (05:24):
got it and professionally managed. Yes,
okay, and let me ask a carefulquestion. Does that make life
easier or harder? Do you have amanagement company that's
helpful or one that youcontinually have to encourage
and correct and wait for how'sthat fit in at your association,
(05:46):
we
Michelle Mansour (05:47):
changed to a new property management company
at the beginning of the year, sothere's been some growing pains.
They are not as hands on as ourlast management company, so
there's a lot left up to theboard, which has become a
learning experience for theboard, stuff that we're not
(06:08):
normally used to doing, we'vehad to take on. But overall, I
would say their their softwareplatform is amazing. Our
neighbors really love it. It'svery user friendly. I like the
way they do their financialreports. It's more of working
with vendors and speeding upthat process that I think is our
(06:34):
has been our hardest with thiscurrent property management
company.
Robert Nordlund (06:38):
When you first said that it's requiring more of
you. I was thinking, well, why'dyou make the change? But it
sounds like there's, like, withso many other issues, there's
trade offs. This one has abetter technology, we can say,
but it's requiring a little bitmore of the board.
Michelle Mansour (06:54):
I think it was a partly financial decision to
change, okay? And in, you know,in part, we were like, you know,
the technology and the financialaspect, making that easier and
easier for neighbors to accessinformation was important to
Robert Nordlund (07:13):
us to find out what's going on with their
account or with the association.
Michelle Mansour (07:17):
Overall honor, with all of our meeting minutes,
all of the governing documentsare easily available to them
just making requests, being ableto monitor when they make a
request the process. We've nothad that before, so it's nice
that they can just log in andsee, okay, my request was
received, and it's at thisstage,
Robert Nordlund (07:38):
excellent, so they can see that nothing to
stop
Michelle Mansour (07:41):
us when we walk out our doors. Hey, did you
see this?
Robert Nordlund (07:45):
I emailed the management company last Tuesday.
Have they told you about is ithappening or not? That's good.
That's good. Well, tell me aboutyour role at the association.
How long were you there at theassociation before you became a
board member?
Michelle Mansour (08:01):
I lived here for about a year and a half
before I became a board member.
Robert Nordlund (08:07):
And why did you become a board member?
Michelle Mansour (08:09):
I wanted to see some changes when I moved
in. The board at the time, andthe property management company,
third property managementcompany since I've lived here,
but there was no communication.
I didn't get, didn't receive awelcome packet. Didn't know
when, like, even simple thingslike when pressure washing was
(08:33):
happening. It's like, oh,surprise, it's happening today,
because there wasn't a lot ofcommunication.
Robert Nordlund (08:39):
All of a sudden it's noisy outside, yeah.
Michelle Mansour (08:43):
And I felt like this is stuff. If this is
affecting me, it's got to beaffecting everyone else. And was
like, I want to know what'sgoing on. I want to you know,
there's ways that this canimprove. And that was really my
reasoning for for joining theboard, is, if I'm having this
issue, other people are havingthis issue, so somebody's got to
(09:05):
step up and
Robert Nordlund (09:07):
fix it. Was that perhaps a problem of you
said it was converted to condosin you say, 2016 or 2006 2006
Okay, I got my I got a decadewrong. I was thinking that maybe
they were just, you know, thebrand new just about 10 years
and 10 years doing it okay.
Michelle Mansour (09:28):
And the first board also was not preparing for
the future. They did notincrease what they were saving
in reserves, not thinking aboutthis is, eventually you're gonna
have problems. You're gonna haveproblems with 40 year old
buildings. You're gonna haveinfrastructure problems with
your roads. Because we are aprivate road. They weren't, you
know, we have a pool. There'slots of stuff that they weren't,
(09:50):
that they didn't think about,because it's, it's new, right as
just flipped them. It's newconverted. And you don't have
to, you know, you think, youdon't have to worry about these
things and everything's brand.
New. You don't think about whathappens when it gets old.
Robert Nordlund (10:03):
Yeah, well, that was the kind of association
I bought into. I My backgroundis I started, I got started in
this industry because I was aboard member and President to my
association, and it was a condoconversion. And condo
conversions have the problems ofan older building, even though
they are newer as anassociation, and there's some
additional bumps in the road.
Well, that brings me to, Icontinue to have this kind of
(10:26):
wrestle, or this question in myhead about the chicken and the
egg. Is it a bad association?
That means you have a bad board,or is it a good board that
creates a good association? Andit sounds like you came in to an
association that had somestumbles, but you got onto the
(10:46):
board, and you, I'm presuming,that you then provided some
additional communications, youprovided some additional
transparency, you were able toimprove things. So how hard of a
lift was that,
Michelle Mansour (11:00):
think for the board members at the time, we
started, generally, we meetquarterly. Now, but we were for
a long time meeting monthly,sometimes weekly, just to start
chipping away and tackling stuffand coming up with ideas. And
we're like, how about anewsletter? How about when we
(11:21):
send out the financial packet atthe end of the year? Let's break
down what each person, you know,what each building is paying per
month. Because a lot of peopleare like, Where's my money
going? And they just see the bignumbers and not like, how does
this affect me? Personally? Westarted looking at, we need to,
need to add to reserves. How dowe do that and not have sticker
(11:43):
shock? And at the time, weneeded to go through, I guess, a
roof replacement, because youhave to do that every 20 years.
So we strategically looked atthat, and we ended up doing it
where we just did, like, sevenroofs a year you pulled from
reserves to do those and let itreach yes, no, it was. It was a
(12:06):
good, a good group that reallyjust strategized and
brainstormed how, how we make itbetter and start preparing for
the future. We do live on thecoast, so we have a lot we have
to think about with insuranceand hurricanes and maintenance.
Robert Nordlund (12:23):
Got a map on my wall here, and I'm looking at
South Carolina and all thestories we hear about Florida.
You're just state and a halfaway, so lots of big things
going on there. I want to comeback to something. You said 62
units, but you used to meetweekly, maybe as you're
correcting things, smoothingthings out, then monthly, and
(12:47):
you're now have things goingpretty stable, and you're
meeting quarterly, correct.
That's That's amazing. How longdid it take to go from you
thinking this board is not doinga good job or not good enough,
in my mind to I've run for theboard, and now I'm on the board.
We're meeting weekly, we'refiguring things out, we're
(13:07):
making the changes that we allneed to make. And maybe that's
is that what drove your initialcomment about what was it
humbling? Challenging andhumbling. Are two of your three
words. It took a while. But howlong was that transition to get
from where it needed help towhere it's now running somewhat,
(13:30):
can I say smoothly?
Michelle Mansour (13:34):
About a couple years. Okay. Took a while.
Robert Nordlund (13:38):
Okay, so that requires so some persistence and
some faithfulness to stick to itand see it through.
Michelle Mansour (13:47):
I think teamwork is a big thing too.
It's, you know, important tohave other board members. All of
you have to be in it together.
And, you know, board memberscycle off, so new board members
coming in, making them feelwelcome and appreciating their
ideas.
Robert Nordlund (14:05):
Tell me about that. How many on the board? How
long are the terms? Things likethat.
Michelle Mansour (14:10):
We have five board members with three year
terms. I am actually in my thirdterm. I'll find choice.
Robert Nordlund (14:18):
Are they? Are they staggered terms? So you
don't translate. That's good
Michelle Mansour (14:22):
cycles. It's two, two in one. So cycle off to
this coming year and then, andsome people run for multiple
years. Sometimes we just don'thave interest. That's the
hardest part is nobody wants tosit in the cheap seats.
Robert Nordlund (14:39):
So well, in the cheap seats, in the hot seat, I
would say, when you're walkingaround the association, do you
feel like you have a red shirton that you're branded? And
people say there's Michelle, letme ask her a question, like, are
you known as a board member, orare you just you? Yes, one of
(15:01):
the people, no.
Michelle Mansour (15:02):
I think all of us, board member I probably get,
receive the most feedback fromneighbors, but other board
members do too, and report backto the board. They know exactly
who all of us are, where welive. Sometimes they show up on
your doorstep.
Robert Nordlund (15:18):
Knock, knock, knock. Well, that's actually
good and bad, because I wouldimagine, when you first felt a
need to run for the board, thatwas probably a board that you
didn't know who they were. Theywere mysterious. What decisions
were they making? What were theydoing with my money? And now
you're part of a team, and Iwant to follow up on that, that
you are the board, you'rerunning the association. There's
(15:39):
an increased transparency.
You've got things going smoothlyenough. Tell me how you Well,
yeah, two things. Tell me howyou are communicating to the
homeowners at this point intime, and how often
Michelle Mansour (15:50):
we do our quarterly newsletter. We do do
emails in between, not just fromproperty management, which is
your normal e blast, thatsomething's coming up. But we do
try to fill them in if, ifsomething's happening that's a
big deal. Like, you know, we hada very rare snowfall in January.
(16:12):
We don't usually get snow inCharleston. And we had, like, a
winter main break so, and ofcourse, it was on a Saturday. Of
course, property management'snot there, so the board, you
know, I'll do up a letter andhave the other board members
proofread it and email it toeverybody. So we try to be like,
This is what's going on. Don'tpanic. We got it under control.
(16:36):
So we try to tell, like, try tobe immediate, responsive.
Robert Nordlund (16:42):
I like that.
Well, I like so many timesyou've used the word we, and I
think that's one of thehallmarks of an effective board,
is that they are a we. It's inthe bigger sense, it's our
association. And then we as theboard are working together on
this. Michelle, can do this?
I'll do this. All proof it. Youdraft it. What do we need to
say? How much do we need to wantto overwhelm it with
(17:04):
information, all this kind ofstuff that it's it's a we
together. And I think, well,let's go with that. What are in
your mind the hallmarks of a
Michelle Mansour (17:12):
well functioning board? Definitely,
the communication. If you know,using your your abilities. We
have a board member who works inconstruction. She's an
invaluable asset. She knowslike, if we're pricing, fixing a
fence or some what the what thecost of lumber is, whether we're
(17:33):
getting a good deal. We have aneducator. He's the best mediator
in the world. He's been teachinghigh school for a very long
time. So it's like, I'm like, ifwe have a neighbor dispute, I'm
like, you know Tom, can youplease?
Robert Nordlund (17:52):
Yeah, good. Do
Michelle Mansour (17:53):
this for me.
And know, we have a newer boardmember, and he's, he's all in.
If I have to meet with a vendor.
I can call he works from hometoo. I can call him, and he
comes out and meets with me. I'mlike, I'd prefer two of us so
nothing's lost andmisinterpreted, or, you know, he
(18:14):
might understand better whatwhat the problem is. And I do so
we try to have, you know, allhands on deck, good and use your
strengths. You know we have,like a realtor on the board. She
knows curb appeal and what weshould focus on making look
nice, because that is important,keeping property values up.
Robert Nordlund (18:36):
So how much time per week does this all
take? You're down to quarterlyboard meetings, but you are
communicating in between ongoingrelationships with vendors that
stay on top of the managementcompany, looking at the
financial reports. What's thisboil down to on a weekly basis
or a monthly basis?
Michelle Mansour (18:54):
It depends.
This year has been busier thannormal when you switch
management companies. It doestake a lot more time, generally,
like this month, I might put in10 hours at, you know, bad month
it might be I've gone up to 30hours. I try to as a paralegal,
I keep track of time for my job.
(19:15):
So good for you, time foreverything. But yeah, so it just
really depends on the month andthe type of meetings, if we're
playing, if we're getting readyfor annual meeting or budget
meeting. Of course, we spend alot more time that month, then
in July, where there's not muchgoing on, and I do have other
(19:36):
like another, we have adifferent officers on the board
so the Financial Officer, he'llreview all the finances and then
send me questions. I look atthem too, but trust him to do
them more in depth,
Robert Nordlund (19:56):
yeah, it's one thing to have a understanding.
It's another thing to. Uh,double check the math and those
kinds of things. Michelle, Ihave a long list of questions
that I still want to get to, butit's time to now take a break to
hear from one of our generoussponsors, after again, which
we'll hear much more fromMichelle about her association
and her experience as a boardmember.
HOA Invest (20:18):
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Robert Nordlund (20:55):
And we're back.
Well, we're here with Michelle,board member from South
Carolina, and I want to hearmore from Michelle.
Specifically, she tempted mewith a story earlier about one
of the big challenges that shefaced right when she got on the
board. So Michelle, tell meabout what was going on with the
association when you became aboard member.
Michelle Mansour (21:17):
Oh, I guess I had been on the board about a
year. Well, not quite at thatpoint, but we had a two alarm
fire, 32 buildings, so 61 units.
So they're built like duplexes.
So we had a fire start and oneunit at about 1am in the
(21:40):
morning, and it ended up takingout one full building and
another half of a buildingbeside it. The firewall stood
and protected the other side.
Fire response was really quick.
They're right down the street,but I had never witnessed a fire
(22:00):
like that before, where a wholebuilding
Robert Nordlund (22:04):
like whoosh gone
Michelle Mansour (22:07):
old wood and just, you know, dry conditions,
it was probably everyAssociation's worst nightmare is
something like that is dealingwith insurance claims and Human,
the human aspect. But I tookover as president about halfway
through that, because ourcurrent our president at the
time, relocated, so I dealt witha lot of the hardest thing is
(22:32):
human emotion. At that point,people who lost their homes, the
people, even you know, theentire community, is affected by
something like that. It's verysmall community. We're very
close so but it's andrebuilding. I learned a whole
lot about the codes andconstruction and and building
something back to the way itwas, and how your master deed
(22:56):
works, how, how ho six and thecommunity insurance work
together to re, you know,rebuild someone's home, but it
was definitely, probably themost challenging thing I've been
through, definitely on theboard, but maybe been as a
person, wow.
Robert Nordlund (23:17):
Well, I suppose I've the stories I've heard is
that it can go everywhere fromjust like you say, the
devastation of people who havelost everything their home is
gone, to people on the otherside of the association that
don't want to pay a share of thedeductible because their home is
just fine and what's all thefuss about. And then you can
have a divided community. ButI'm glad to hear that your
(23:39):
community kind of stood togetherand felt that we were all
affected. I again, I like thatwe word so much when we're
talking about communityassociations. Tell me, if I was
to walk through your associationtoday and see the 30 some
buildings, would it be obviousto me which ones got rebuilt
after the fire, or
Michelle Mansour (23:57):
did it they look exactly the same. They're
just better built. They're builtthey're built to withstand a
category two hurricane. Now, therest of us are hard, so it'll be
flip flop. Some of us were alittle little jealous,
Robert Nordlund (24:11):
interesting. So when there's a category two
hurricane, there'll be the twobuildings standing and, yeah, I
hope we don't have that problem.
Michelle Mansour (24:21):
I hope, yeah, I hope we don't ever have I
lived through Hurricane Hugo asa kid, so I never to live
through something thatdevastating again.
Robert Nordlund (24:30):
Yeah. Well, tell me what you do to build
community, to build that, thecompassion that it takes, the
team spirit at the association,so that everyone did feel like
we were damaged, not them.
Michelle Mansour (24:45):
I think it's just every you know when you're
out, just walking out your door,saying hi to people, getting to
know them, asking how they'redoing, and then keeping them
informed when something likethat does happen. Yeah. It's
like we're on it. We, you know,this is what's happening. This
is when we expect to startrebuilding. There's, you know, a
(25:08):
lot of guess, hand holding atthat point. And I think that was
majority of it. Our neighborsseem to all get along really
well. So there were neighborsbring in people who lost
everything, clothes and anddifferent toiletries and stuff
they needed. So I was reallyimpressed with that was the
(25:30):
outpouring of support from justneighbors all, all just in our
little community.
Robert Nordlund (25:36):
Yeah, neighbors being neighbors, yeah. I love
that. Well, on the show, everyonce in a while, we'll talk
about some of thecharacteristics of a effective
board, and we'll talk about the4c that they care, they're
curious, they're courageous, andthey communicate. It sounds like
you're doing a lot of thosethings you care, taking the time
(25:57):
to say hello and to chat,communicating. I just, I love
that. I think that has so manysecondary effects, where people
feel like they are being welltaken care of. There are no
secrets. It's that clarity, theopenness, the transparency that
goes a long way. Tell me aboutwhat you have, as far as, okay,
let's say you have a good senseof community. At your
(26:20):
association, your board is downto operating quarterly. Do you
have a pipeline for boardmembers? Do you have committees
that are functioning, that aresupporting the board
Michelle Mansour (26:30):
we do? We have a landscape committee, a capital
improvements committee, and whatwe call the playground
committee. They're kind of likethe social committee.
Robert Nordlund (26:43):
Do you have a playground? We do have
Michelle Mansour (26:45):
a playground, and not figure out how to how to
improve upon it, but they dotake on, you know, some of the
smaller tasks around theneighborhood, like after storms,
we organize neighborhoodcleanups. Instead of spending
the money for the landscaper tocome out and do it, we're like,
(27:06):
hey, we'll buy the debris bagsand everybody come out on a
Saturday and we'll all gettogether and clean up together.
Robert Nordlund (27:14):
I like that again, that we It's Our
Community, and you're not justsaying, you know, ABC landscape,
and we'll handle it hopefully aweek from Tuesday. It's us
acting, acting like
Michelle Mansour (27:27):
neighbors. I think that was what we were
doing. We were like, this isgoing to cost us X amount of
dollars if we hired thelandscape company because it's
outside of our contract, or wecan all get together, do it, go
get some pizza and beerafterwards.
Robert Nordlund (27:40):
I like that.
Now the insurance expert thatI've heard, they're all going to
say, make sure you havevolunteer insurance writers on
your policy. So I think there'ssomething like that out there.
Michelle Mansour (27:53):
Tell me more.
Yeah, I haven't checked ourinsurance for that.
Robert Nordlund (27:57):
So you have community building events, you
have a board that's functioningeffectively. Tell me about the
community itself. Is there agerange? It's like, Do you have a
nice blend of people, peoplefrom South Carolina, older
people, younger people, peoplefrom far away, and how does that
affect the community spiritthere?
Michelle Mansour (28:15):
We do. We have, I'd say 40% of the
neighbors live here full timeand the rest do not. It's
vacation homes, rentals. And thepeople who live here full time
and and they we have everyonefrom like, you know, single
people, young, youngprofessionals, just starting
(28:40):
out, faint young families toretirees. So it's a it's a very
vast demographic.
Robert Nordlund (28:49):
It's a nice mix, nice little, yeah, okay,
good. I think that often is veryhelpful at an association. Some
people are afraid that what arewe going to do with young kids
running around, or we have tomake sure the stair railings are
good, because we have someelderly people in the
association. But I think thatjust a wonderful blend. You have
(29:11):
a nice engagement when there'speople across generations,
people with different accents,everything like that. Tell me
about your board meetings. Whatmakes for a good board meeting?
When you look back and say thatwas a good one, why would you
rate it as a good one?
Michelle Mansour (29:27):
We stick to the agenda. You can you can go
off the rails and make surewhat? Because we have open board
meetings, other than the budgetmeeting, all our board meetings
are open that we make sure wehold the neighbors and check,
even though it's hard, you wantyou want their feedback. We're
(29:48):
like, your feedback comes at theend. We've got to do our job,
because they all want to part.
And I'm like, if you want topart, you got to get on the
board, good, or join acommittee, because the committee
will. Support to the boardduring the meeting. But yeah,
it's it's managing it andkeeping it, you know, keeping
focus and in making sure we youknow who gets assigned what
(30:10):
tasks while we're in themeeting. Follow up after the
meeting.
Robert Nordlund (30:16):
So as you meet quarterly, does meeting less
frequently than monthly. Meanyou have more participation from
homeowners because they want tomake sure they catch up on
what's been going on, or lessparticipation because the
board's got it covered and
Michelle Mansour (30:33):
it's in good hands. I think we probably have
more quarterly than we wouldhave monthly, just because
people would probably get boredor or something. But it also,
yeah, depends on our agenda andwhat's going on at the time, how
much interest? But we usuallyhave a good it averages from
eight to 16 homeowners. It's nota huge to it's not a huge
(30:58):
showing at the annual meeting.
Gets a better showing than andeven then, it's hard to make a
quorum. I assume that's prettystandard with people wanting to
be involved. I always think, ifthere's nobody showing up, we're
doing a good job.
Robert Nordlund (31:13):
Otherwise they're there with what, torches
and pitchforks.
Michelle Mansour (31:18):
Oh yeah, yeah.
After the two alarm fire, wediscussed, we did get sued by a
homeowner, even though it wasn'tour fault. She sued over the
reconstruction. But that waslike that next meeting was like,
everybody's there because youhave to be like, it's no big
deal. Insurance will cover itand the lawyers will figure it
(31:39):
out. It ended up settling, but,but, yeah, she just wasn't happy
with the rebuild. So thinkthere's a lot of human emotion
in that, involved in that too,when you lose everything,
explaining that to theneighbors. That was definitely a
big challenge. Was explaininglike, you know, people see
lawsuit, and I think whole worldArmageddon is coming. You know,
(32:03):
you know, we're going to have topay so much money, and I'm like,
No, it's It's okay.
Robert Nordlund (32:09):
I think two things from that. One is you
confronted it, you communicatedit simply and clearly in a
timely manner, and you were wellprepared, and you had a
reputation of being transparent.
And once you said it's going tobe okay, it's covered by
insurance, nothing new, nothingto see, everything's okay. And
probably your demeanor and evenpresenting that probably gave
people the assurance that it'sgoing to be okay, it's not a big
(32:33):
deal. So that's your payback forall that time of being
transparent, communicating well,that you had built that
political capital oftrustworthiness, which is just
wonderful. Michelle, we want tothank you for taking the time to
join us on today's program. Anyfinal thoughts to share on your
(32:53):
board member experience,
Michelle Mansour (32:57):
just you know other board members you know,
hang in there and do your best.
Always think of Tony Horton. Ilike to work out so Tony Horton
always says, do your best andforget the rest. I think that's
the biggest thing, is, don'ttake it personally. That's the
biggest thing. That was thebiggest lesson I've had to learn
is it's, you know, it's notalways about you, or don't take
(33:22):
it personally, because you can,you can let it eat you alive
when you're when people aredisappointed, or you're not
going fast enough, or you haveto say no to people for whatever
reason.
Robert Nordlund (33:36):
Yeah, I like that you've talked about right
the start. About it beingchallenging, it being
educational and humbling, andyeah, you don't want to take it
personally, because it's avolunteer position. You're not
getting paid enough to take thiskind of garbage. Chin up. Be
clear about what's going on andsmile. Take the time, and you're
going to earn a lot of browniepoints, and a lot of friends,
(33:58):
they're going to probably end uptaking your side, and you feel
supported. And when you say,Hey, can you help? We had a
storm. There's cleanup. Can youhelp? On Saturday, people show
up. It's not like you're theonly one. So you've built
community at your association.
Well, we want to publiclyacknowledge Michelle for
performing a thankless job wellin what sounds like a beautiful
(34:20):
place to live, except whenthere's a storm that needs
cleanup. But we're glad she'sthere on the board to keep it
operationally sound, to matchthe property's natural
beachfront beauty, while we hopewe gain some HOA insights and
encouragement from Michelle'sobservations and some experience
that helps you bring commonsense to your common area, and
remember, if you match ourdefinition of a board hero, or
(34:42):
know someone who does, pleasereach out to us. We love having
bored heroes on our program. Ourcontact details are provided in
the show notes. Thank you forjoining us, and we look forward
to another great episode nextweek. You've
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(35:22):
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are not intended to providespecific advice or
(35:43):
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