To all Phase Presidents,
Hacienda Riquelme Golf Resort: Jan 2012
Resort Presidency
It is, by now, common knowledge that I have put my
name forward for consideration as the next Resort President. I am conscious
that it may be seen that I have been in the background during the last year so
I want to take some time to advise you of what I can and cannot bring to the
presidency and my thinking for the forthcoming year. If this sits well with
your thinking then I will welcome your support but if you believe that it is
not right for the resort then I will perfectly well understand and make way for
somebody else and give them my unreserved support.
To start with the positives:
Rachel and I are totally committed to HR having
placed the order for our apartment before the first sod had been turned. We
plan to become permanent HR residents in November 2012 although the fact that
my employer is still trying to retain my full time services and the health of
aged parents may affect the timing.
We welcome the concept of adopting Spanish culture
and would wish to integrate the various nationalities represented within HR
into a semblance of “Spanishness”. We are not interested in being in a little
bit of England in Spain and will do all we can to avoid anglicising our resort.
I have already been in contact with some of the Spanish community in an effort
to establish relationships for the future.
We bought in to the concept of a 5* complex and
although, like so many, are deeply disappointed that PW did not deliver on
their promises, intend to do our best to ensure that we improve the quality and
standards of our resort so that the value of all our properties will increase
and that those who need rental income will have first class facilities to sell.
Professionally, I am a Chartered Management Accountant who works for a food logistics
company as its Finance Director and
Company Secretary. My remit includes Accountancy, Computer Services and
Human Resources. In the past I spent three years as deputy chair of the
governors of our local college of further education. I believe these skills and
experiences will be very relevant to HR’s needs.
There has been a lot of recent activity on the
owners forum relating to costs and standards so I will lay out my position in
relation to these:
Debtors
Professionally, when
it comes to debtor management, I could be described as a hard-liner.
I expect to have fully annotated debt
lists on my desk by the 2nd of each month and my credit controller
knows what to expect if she
cannot answer any questions. I expect our resort administration to adopt
the same standard and will be pressurising Resortalia to improve on their
performance if they are to have any chance of being retained in to the future.
The policy
on debtors has been clearly stated and was cascaded through the Phase and
Block President on the 20th May 2011. It is tough but fair and I do not see any reason to change it.
I understand that some owners may have temporary
(or even not so temporary) difficulties in meeting their responsibilities to
the community but the responsibility remains with the owner and any delay is
simply not fair on the rest of the owners.
Despite examples of bank and Resortalia errors,
most payments are made properly and most direct debit failures have one simple
cause. Our procedures allow time for the correction of errors but,
fundamentally, late payments will be liable to penalty charges.
Obtaining payment by direct debit is by far the
most efficient and cost effective method of collecting community fees and I
will not advocate any change.
Contracts
I will not be a party to any breach of contracts.
Michael and his negotiating team have performed minor miracles in managing to reduce contract costs on all
our contracted services so I would intend that these should all be
allowed to run through to their completion. It goes without saying that all the
contractors will be performance monitored and any failings brought to the
attention of the committee for discussion and, if necessary, action.
In house
services
There has been a lot of discussion regarding self administration and direct employment
of services such as gardening and resort
administration. My intention would be to use the time afforded by having
the existing contracts in place to thoroughly research the cost
effectiveness of taking specific services in house. I have no
pre-conceived ideas as to the viability of these but intend to bring to the
discussions whatever skills and experience we have within the resort. I would expect to prepare a paper on each
service and present options and recommendations to the owners at the
appropriate time.
Resort
Administration
I am not a
great fan of Resortalia as there are aspects of their performance which are
frustrating and, despite Michael’s constant efforts, still needs to be improved.
That said, their quote for the next 12
months is competitive so, on the basis of better the devil you know, I
would recommend retaining their services for the next 12 months. As stated in
the previous paragraph, I would expect to be considering
options well before the next renewal.
Gardens
One of our biggest quandaries is that PW has left
us with a legacy of manicured lawns.
To British eyes, these lawns look marvellous but, in Spain, they are an alien
species. They are high maintenance and
cost a fortune to irrigate. If
memory serves, the lawns were designed as a feature of the resort at the time
when PW were intending to build a desalination plant which would have provided
relatively cheap and plentiful irrigation water. Unfortunately, like so many PW
promises, the desalination plant has failed to materialise so we have a legacy
of thirsty lawns demanding increasingly expensive and scarce resource.
The current committee has already prepared some
groundwork with STV (the gardening contractor) with a view to replacing some of
the lawned areas with less high maintenance plants and have quotes for some
proposals. There appears to be scope for investment in other types of ground
cover which would have varying pay-back periods. It would be my intent to have a gardens committee to
study these proposals and make recommendations for any further action.
General
facilities
I am not in favour of stripping amenities simply on
the basis of cost cutting. That said I
expect to review the cost effectiveness of each facility with the aim of
ensuring we get proper value for money for them. During the last twelve months,
we have identified examples of suspect costings which means that I intend to continue to verify numbers
before making any hasty decisions.
Constitution
The original constitution, which currently remains
in place was prepared by PW and, understandably, was written to best suit them.
What was best fit for PW is very likely not to be the best fit for our
community and our constitution has been the subject of much adverse comment in
the forums. Accordingly, Michael has
been instrumental in setting up a review panel with the aim of presenting a
revised constitution upon which we, the owners, can make an informed
decision sometime in the near future. It would be my intention for this invaluable work to be completed.
Planning
Despite the part of the community’s rules that
forbid any modification which affects the outside of an individual property, there
are signs that some owners are modifying the exterior of their properties
without obtaining the prior approval of the Planning Committee. It should be
noted that the community’s management has the legal authority to demand that
any unauthorised development be removed at the owner’s expense. The danger is
that continuing unregulated modifications will ruin the look of the resort so
the Planning Committee is vitally important to ensure that we retain the
coherent look of our buildings. For the last two years, the Planning Committee,
which is a volunteer but un-elected body, has done sterling work but has operated
completely independently of the elected general committee which is a situation
with which I am not entirely comfortable. Accordingly it would be my intent to give teeth to the Planning Committee by
nominating one of the general committee to join it.
Anti social
behaviour
Anti social behaviour has reared its ugly head
during the last twelve months and when it happens, it makes life thoroughly
unpleasant for those caught up in it. Despite the risk of recriminations, I
would have no hesitation in seeking to attempt to gain moderation on the part
of offending parties as a community such as ours depends upon sound social
inter-reaction between neighbours.
How will it
all work?
So, that is my view of HR. So how am I going to
achieve this when I am resident in the UK?
Well, it is going to be difficult but not
insurmountable.
Michael has done a huge amount of work during his
tenure and has laid the foundations for a much more streamlined management and
without this groundwork, proper remote Presidency would not be workable.
As it is, I have been fortunate in that colleagues
on the committee, friends and neighbours have expressed support and a
willingness to be my eyes and ears. With those talents in support, I have every
confidence that we came overcome the disadvantage of my temporary UK residency.
Amongst the offers of support, I am grateful to Michael Corke, Ron Locke,
Antonio Escalera, Ann Dyos, Viv Church, Allan Pattemore, David Bamford, Manuel
Gonzalez, Carole Eteson and Ena Glover.
Language
It had been my intention to use the first months of my retirement to get to grips
with learning Spanish and lowering my handicap. I still intend to succeed
with the former but will have to put the latter on the back burner. In the
meanwhile, I have been promised offers of help to overcome my linguistic
shortcomings.
Communications
I am not of the social networking generation so do not use facebook or post on forums and neither do I tweet.
Because I am not resident, I would need the active support of the Phase and Block
Presidents and part of this is including them in the communication process.
I intend to cascade information through the
Resort’s hierarchy which means that Block Presidents will be a
fundamental part of the information flow. The HPA makes the first
level of responsibility that of the Block President so it is my belief that
there is a need to get them to buy in to the concept of being a part of that
communication process.
This message is effectively a test of how that
might work.
I am sending this to the Phase Presidents with the
request that they cascade it to their Block Presidents for onward transmission
to their owners.
If this procedure does not work, then I fear that
neither will my Presidency which, in turn, may require a rethink on how we move
forward.
Many thanks for your patience in reading thus far.
Kindest regards,
Nigel
They really do need to engage and listen to the locally born
population of owners that do have valid opinions and expertise, they can always
help if they are ever called upon to be part of the decision making process. 
