Hi Jen,
The first place to look to see what you should be getting from your Strata Manager (SM) is your agency agreement. If you have a good SM they will be using an istm agreement and the agreed services will be listed in schedules A1 and A2 of the agreement, firstly showing what authority they have to do what services and secondly showing what is included in the management fee and what can be done for an additional cost.
You must also be cognizant of the old saying ‘you get what you pay for’. If you have a low management fee, your strata manager is likely to need to manage a bundle of buildings to be profitable.
SCA otherwise known as the Institute of Strata Title Management is offering executive committee training, which will help to explain what an EC member’s role is and also role of the SM. Also local council’s are providing informative sessions for owners in strata, such as the one being run by Sutherland Shire Council in August.
In the first place, it may be worthwhile talking to the Licencee of your current SM company to see if they may be able to offer EC member training, as most are very happy to help keep their clients very happy.
Hope this helps!