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I acknowledge that Strata Executive Committees can look like self-perpetuating cliques, but there can be more to it than meets the eye. I chair an Executive Committee whose average age is probably over 60; some of us are retired, others approaching retirement. Membership is rarely contested at successive AGMs. If only it was! Our building has a high rate of owner-occupancy, and some of the owners are in the young to middle-aged category with professional or management backgrounds — just the type that I have in the succession plan that I like to think about. In the run-up to each AGM, I try to make the point to my fellow owners that the management of probably the largest single component of their personal wealth is at stake. Unfortunately, the ones that I want to see on the Executive are busy building careers and relationships, and respond to entreaties by saying what a good job we are doing.
We do not “proxy farm”. Far from being a self-perpetuating clique, we would like to see new talent coming on board. When I see political leaders being “rolled” by former mates, my reaction is “why not me?”.
Of course, encouraging readers of Flat Chat to take an active role in their Schemes’ management is probably preaching to the converted. Readers and, especially, participants in the Forum are already committed. Inertia among the rest is hard to overcome.
Let's hope that this leads to the emergence of an explicit identification of smoking as a nuisance or hazard for the purposes of S.117 of the Act. Living in a mid-60s block, I was interested in your reference to a by-law adopted by new blocks, prohibiting release of smoke that might pass over common property or into another owner's lot. Can you provide a link to such a by-law – I would be interested in putting it forward 'ready made' at a future general meeting, without having to engage an expensive strata lawyer to, in effect, reinvent the wheel.