I wish to remain anonymous. Is that OK?

If you went to the AGM, then you would have seen who got elected onto your executive committee. If you don’t like what they have been doing, then vote them out next year and nominate yourself for executive committee.

Guess what, someone in my building went ahead and did all this and now the poo has hit the propeller.

It has raised a few issues about privacy and secrecy and, as predicted, the dog’s abuse has been forthcoming. Now I am involved because I kind of gave them a leg-up with the advice below so I can’t leave them hung out to dry.

(This website was quoted in an email from our chairman who proudly boast that he never reads my column.)

Anyway, this has led to a big think about privacy which is a valid concern but which a lot of Executive Committees use as excuse to maintain secrecy. As in, “we won’t tell you who’s standing for a vacancy on the EC because it’s an invasion of privacy” and telling owners they can’t have other owners addresses – or even EC members contact details – for the same reason.

Have a look here and tell me if you think there is or should be a legal limit on how much contact owners can have with other owners in the same strata scheme.

By the way, I am revising my thoughts about secrecy. I reckon if your point is important enough, you should man (or woman) up and take any brickbats or bouquets that may be coming your way. Otherwise it undermines your credibility, apart from anything else.

When I was on the EC, I was the first point of contact. I had a lot of messages left on my own personal mobile, mainly from the SM.The mobile phone company I was with at the time charged me for retrieving messages. Whe I left the committee my mobile phone bill decreased quite a lot.

I had asked at an AGM if we could gett a mobile phone to have as a direct contact. I was thinking of one of those mobiles that you get for kids which only enables you to dial 5 numbers and is locked for anything else. In this way members of the EC could have turns at being “on duty”, covering weekends and evenings when the SM isnt available. This was given the kibosh by owners, owners who were,not on the committee, never had been, still aren’t and yet complained just recently about wanting better contact.

I had reasoned that this mobile phone would allow EC members to have their mobiles for their own personal purposes, owners would only have to know one number on speed dial for the EC no matter who was on it each year and would know there should always be someone on the end of the phone. I had a call once whilst standing on the great wall of China. Wouldn’t it have been better to know that the number you rang would be answered by someone within spitting distance of the complex and the problem at the time?

True – but this EC is saying that you can see the names and addresses but you can’t use them to communicate with the owners. Of course, they then use the same list of contacts to send out electioneering piffle. This is where the whole privacy argument starts to get a few holes.

I think the main issue here isn’t EC members not wanting to be contacted by the owners, it’s the EC not wanting owners to use their contact lists to communicate with each other, which my EC says our strata manager says may be illegal and an invasion of privacy (although I suspect there may be some selective reporting of what actually was said).

@considerate band fair said:
How silly to get into spurious debate over what and if… put your money where your mouth is and say what you need to at the next AGM or AND put your hand up to be on the EC and be productive. 

What we’re talking about here is where the EC isn’t open and fair and you can stand for office as much as you like but you know the EC and their loyal supporters, plus those that they have convinced the sky will fall down if they aren’t elected, are going to vote themselves in every time.  Then you get all the nastiness of the filthy looks and muttered imprecations as you walk around you own homes.

Friends of mine were bailed up in a cafe nearby by a friend of one of our EC’s ruling group when they said they wouldn’t be giving their proxy to the chair – and this woman doesn’t even own or live in the building!

Nothing spurious about this discussion at all.  It can get very nasty and this is your home, after all.  People feel isolated and frustrated and wonder if making their point is worth all the abuse they will inevitably receive.  Roll on the end of proxy harvesting.