From what I can tell, Talk of Sun City, has been around since 2013. I just found out about it a few weeks ago. I wish I knew about this when I moved in. Never seen mention in the Sun City Independent. Never saw it in Sunviews . Never saw it in the Sun City Visitors Center. I actually took a tour before I looked for a home here. Never saw it on SCHOA's wall of information. What can be done to get to all of Sun City and let them know that this forum exists? I'll just have to ask Rusty Bradshaw if some kind of PR notice could be run in the Sun City Independent. With 23,700 subscribers, this would be one of the best ways to get the word out. Another way would be to create some kind of flyer that could be posted in local businesses. Wouldn't it be great if the RCSC recreation centers actually had a PUBLIC bulletin board for notices? I'm not going to hold my breath on this one. Forum Statistics from the Forum Page Discussions: 3,663 Messages: 21,278 Members: 1,404 1404 members includes all the Sun Cities. Looking the number of posts it looks like most members are from Original Sun City. 1404 is nothing compared to the population and the Sun City Independent circulation. It would be nice to grow this community. I think people just don't know about "Talk of Sun City". I'm a nerd at heart and it took me 3 1/2 years to become aware of it. I haven't been in a hole. This Forum is just a pebble among so many things, that I didn't see it until someone else told me about it.
It's a terrible thing to get old and forgetful but i think they did a site upgrade and changed their software program in 2013. It was around before that, just don't recall when it started. Some folks thought i was behind it, was never the case, even when someone emailed me and asked me to sell it to them. Funny. Rusty never seemed interested. At one point they (site owners) passed out TOSC bumper stickers and at another they offered a $5 bounty for each new subscriber. It was an ambitious effort and as you can see covered Sun City communities across the country. It does look like we were the only one that caught on. While on the board i argued vehemently to put up an interactive site where members could share their opinions. Guess how far that went? I had a simple explanation for the gm regarding why open two-way communication would have been good. Obviously answering questions should be simple and better yet as i told her, my philosophy was if you couldn't articulate why you were doing something, you probably shouldn't be doing it. If you look how we have backslid from member engagement and involvement, it all fits a pattern doesn't it?
Wasn't the active forum before this one through newszap which was part of the Independent Newspaper? It seems to me like we've had a non-RCSC forum for at least 15 years? The newszap forum was plagued by a few people that were just intent causing problems. I expect a couple were just bored teenagers trying to get a rise out of us. It's hard to promote a website when you aren't 100% sure of the security. So far there haven't been any problems with this website that I'm aware of. Any forum run by the RCSC would be heavily monitored and censored by Management so little sense in even setting one up.
Newszap goes back to the days when i was on the board at the RCSC, 2012, 2013 and 2014. I only know that because i was kicked off of it 8 times. Seems the right-leaning folks from Sun City Grand and Sun City West hated a taste of their own medicine. I was way more aggressive back in those days. While the Independent owned the site the admin was in New Jersey somewhere and we didn't bond too well. You are right about the rcsc. They would never put up an interactive site, but if they did it would be so sterilized anyone reading it would quickly die of boredom. In Sun City West they allow open comments and aren't afraid to be confronted about the issues of the day.
What I liked about Newszap was that often comments from there were culled and run as comments in The Independent and it was interesting to see the breadth of topics from the community. Seems to me that now you have to comment on YourValley under specific articles (and some online articles seem to be for subscribers only so not everyone can comment) or write letters to the editor so there's not the dialogue, so this is the place to be, but it doesn't get into the community at large. Yes, it's very disappointing not to have an interactive RCSC site but I can understand the fear of the time it might take to chat with the membership in that format, but I can't understand the reluctance to engage in real dialogue with us at all--no Q&A sections in Sunview or response to letters in the local paper--as it was brought out in the board mtg. today, board mtgs. are really our only forum and now with that 3 min. time limit (absolutely crazy that our time to speak has to be shared with the response--there should at least be 2 clocks with each set for 3 mins. so a board response doesn't subtract from a member's time) it's pretty obvious the board is doing all it can to spare itself from close in-depth listening. It would also be nice if Nextdoor would allow a designated neighborhood for Sun City, but their neighborhood boundaries have weird overlaps. Maybe a separate "Group" for Sun City issues could be started there with membership limited to Sun City residents?
It was well after i left the board but the long story short was we were embroiled in the lawsuit with ARS. At the same time Rep Payne started the push for the RCSC to be "grandfathered" under Title 10 rather than being forced to have to operate under Title 33. Until that time, we had a monthly board meeting and one or two member exchanges per month. The member exchanges were more informal and were at Lakeview in the social halls. Immediately following them the board most often would convene for work sessions in the board room. As the lawsuit advanced and the legislation was stalling, the board suddenly announced they had turned over a new leaf and everything would be done in the light of day. My immediate reaction was cool. Then they said rather than just opening up work sessions (they were closed to members) they were going to hold two board meetings a month at Sun Dial and everything would be done there. No member exchanges, no work sessions, no emails flying, no secret coffee clutches, everything done at these two monthly board meetings. Those of us who were skeptical questioned how sometimes board members knew stuff if they never talked about it in advance. It was silly on it's face because under Title 10 there's no teeth if they meet and decide away from the maddening crowd. I personally wondered why they just didn't open up work sessions to members who wanted to come, or film it so we could watch it (ideally both). The member exchanges were valuable. The two meetings a month have been a strangled mess, with inconsistencies and questions that never get answered. At this point, i would love to see something more manageable, more member friendly but anything they would try to do know would be interpreted to be sinister. Hopefully we get through the next couple of months, elect 4 new board members with a fresher more friendly attitude, let the gm slip into retirement and the new gm trying to restore that sense of community. We'll see.
Hmmm... I made similar arguments while I served on the (former) Communication Committee. I resigned when the committee wanted to become a Bi-Monthly Video Newsletter Club. Their productions are better than I expected, but Talk about puff!. We have more important communication needs (IMHO).
I was on the "Member Communications" Committee over 15 years ago and quit when it was decided the focus should be on Marketing as it was more important than communicating with current RCSC Members. The Member Communications Committee was a standing committee. Communication Through Technology should be a club not a standing committee as it is nothing remotely like actual communications. It could also be a function of the Technology Committee. This has gone so far off field from any communications between the RCSC and Members.
Don't even get me started on this. The day the gm came here she recognized clubs would be an impediment to her agenda. The problem for me is, it should never have been her agenda in the first place. Sorry, she was hired to run the day to day operations. The first thing she did was neuter the committees. Think about this; the most active committee, long range planning, has put numerous ideas before the board and nothing has been done about their recommendations. As Mike pointed out, the video thing was the vision of the chair, so it became a reality. All of which is circular. While serving on the board i wrote a lengthy piece on if getting rid of clubs was their agenda, then before we do so we need find a way to replace them (it's on the site somewhere). My argument was the community HAD to be involved or we would lose all of the talent that was out there. That too fell on deaf ears. The most aggravating, the most infuriating issue and the one i will never forgive the gm for was regarding the Lakes Club. It was for sale and we looked at it. I argued we needed to hold a town hall meeting and see if the community liked the idea of having a 38,000 square foot community center on the most gorgeous piece of property in Sun City. We could have bought it, remodeled it and had less money tied up than we have in the Grand Center. By the way, there would have been a 400 person seat theater and we wouldn't be fighting over Mountainview. The gm said we can't do that, we'll drive the price up. The truth was she knew people would love the idea but it didn't fit her agenda which was all-golf-all-the-time. It is the classic example of taking the community out of the picture and letting a handful of board members (golfers) and the gm decide our future/fate.
Bill, I always like your posts. There is little that I may disagree with. But the History Lesson and benefit of your experience here is invaluable. Ben Rolof is another that provides good commentary and history lessons. I started another Fun Fact thread on Communication. Check it out. It appears we have ceded too much control to RCSC Management and definitely lost sight of the importance of COMMUNICATION in this community. My new thread is exploring this. It can help better identify the communication issues and problems. I am proposing a solution and looking for others to weigh in with their ideas and suggestions. I hope the board are reading these forums. I think they can learn a lot. I think they want to do their best. Lets focus on identifying an issue and suggesting solutions! Lets try and eliminate the complaints. How you say something is very important. Complaints just turn people off. [This comment is not directed at you, Bill. Its just a general statement.]
I am seeing some great comments and discussion. But getting back to my original premise on this thread: How does one find "Talk of Sun City"? It may have been tried in the past and this is helpful. But what can we do now? What about posting info in NON-RCSC facilities and documents? Grocery Stores, Fast Food, local Restaurants, etc.
NextDoor and where it fits: I'm very familiar with NextDoor. Its a perfect solution for much of what we need the original Sun City, We have boundary issues. I setup Nextdoor for Sun City Anthem at Merrill Ranch, in Florence (my prior residence and the newest Del Webb community in AZ). I was able to get the Sun City NextDoor boundaries to map to the physical boundary where Pulte / Del Webb were going to build Sun City homes. I had one Sun City neighborhood (about 180 homes) that created their own island, surrounded by the rest of us. They refused to merge with us. Total community size to be 2500 homes. Small compared to here. Nextdoor provides several things: You must be a verified resident of a neighborhood to join. NO Outsiders. No Friends and Friends of Friends. There is a concept of Nexdoor Neighborhoods: Your Neighborhood; Nearby Neighborhoods; and some distant neighborhoods (for on-line listing for-sale items only) Groups for anything. Easily Created. For your chartered or personal club. For the individual community neighborhoods within the Nextdoor neighborhood. Groups for just about anything you can think of. No Outsiders. Groups can be: Closed (privacy for group members only); Open (anyone in the neighborhood can see and read things, but only members can post) Public (anyone in the neighborhood can read and post). Safer than Facebook. Better guidelines for posting. The concept of a Nextdoor Neighborhood is extremely important To use it correctly, boundaries (of the Nextdoor neighborhood) are the limiting factor. The provide the basis safety of verified members (your true neighbors) and keeping outsiders out. The concept of a Nextdoor Group is how you divide things within the Nextdoor Neighborhood. This is the real power of NextDoor in my opinion. The issue is the existing groups and boundaries that exist today in Sun City. I only follow 10 Nextdoor neighborhoods in my news feed. When I moved here 3 1/2 years ago, I found the Nextdoor community (all the neighborhoods that I could see) to be overwhelming. So I limited the news feed to just Sun City Nextdoor neighborhoods. I don't follow Youngtown, or Peroria, Glendale, or other cities. Just Sun City. and even some of those boundaries are blurred. I just want to follow Sun City neighbors. In my opinion Nextdoor would be an excellent solution for better communication in Sun City. But due to the way in which Nextdoor grew in the northwest valley, it would be a huge effort to remold the Sun City neighborhoods to fit out needs. It would be as monumental as SCHOA trying to get their proposed CC&Rs changes, approved by Sun City homeowners. Near impossible. Molding Nextdoor to Sun City far exceeds what I can do and the effort/energy I have available. I like Nextdoor but only use it casually due to the problems and issues with its organic growth.
I stood up an commented on this item at a board meeting earlier this year. It was after I resigned from the Communications Committee over this same issue (video News Letter) and not following its charter. I mentioned that this video newsletter project should be a club. It should be a function of RCSC managment or a Club. It should not be a standing board committee. The Communications committee did not want to focus on Communications (Sunview, Web Site and other items). Joelyn Higgins (RCSC Communications & Marketing Coordinator) only attended one committee meeting during my tenure as a committee member and as a guest (about 18 moths total). Karen McAdam fully understood my comments. Dale Lehrer mostly understood. As for the rest, they were like "Deer in the Headlights". Needless to say, Director Ege got his Communications Through Technology club and the Communications Committee died with a hush. Director Ege and Director Akins were the new co-chairs at the time I resigned.
