I just posted on a Facebook group a portion of a copy of minutes i found in my pile of stuff on my desk. I'm not even sure why i had it, by the time it was written, i had quit the Long Range Planning Committee in frustration. I lasted all of 7 months or so, i simply found little had changed as the general manager still had her hands on and in every decision the board made. I was wasting my time. That aside, this 2 page summary was entitled "2030's Meeting Minutes Thoughts." Seeing the header immediately got my attention, after all, it was a forward look on a 5 year old (11/31/19) presentation. How accurate were the 4 committee members who put it together? BTW, their names have been withheld. Let's take a look at what they suggested and you determine whether anyone listened: The LRP has been tasked by its Chair to provide the RCSC BOD with a look forward to 2030 and beyond. The attendees above have been researching 2030-plus and found many varied postulations from "futurists." We discussed what we found and how it might impact RCSC members and facilities uses and needs. Connectivity: Most futurists agree that the pace of electronic connectivity will continue to explode. By 2030 the average person will have over 15 connected devices (phones, tablets, watches, thermostats, smart speakers, etc). That continued increase in both the number of devices and the speeds needed to get desired performance will increase bandwidth requirements for any organization providing a connection. That may be their wireless provider, cable, satellite, or even RCSC provided connection at or near RCSC facilities. Since RCSC now provides connectivity (Wi-Fi) at its facilities we don't foresee that provision ending. RCSC should consider increasing speed and capacity of its Wi-Fi. I'll stop there and just tell you there were a total of six topics covered. These committee members hit the nail pretty squarely on the head, which isn't surprising. They all were heavily involved and knew and understood where the RCSC had become questionable in their decision making process over the years. Clearly their goal was to provide a path forward.
I came up with a question once that I included in the so-called "27 Rules I live my life by." It was, "if something is not worth doing, is it worth doing well?" Not exactly the same as what you are talking about, sort of a second cousin.
Let your voices be heard at the annual members meeting: March 11 - Registration starting at 5:00 PM Sun Dial Auditorium I am bringing cookies for the first 100 to show up
That probably got their attention!!! Free food!!! I have a printout of the SunViews March 2014 issue with a Recap of the Annual Membership Meeting. They provided donuts and coffee in the morning and hot dogs at break time. There was a guest speaker and a chance to win a door prize of a 32" flat screen TV, movie tickets, overnight casino trips and free rounds of golf. I don't think that worked, either. Let's hope you can just come because it's your community and you should!
Bill, Back to the original post, it was all of those years ago. yet nothing changed? What is even sadder, nothing has moved forward to help make the RCSC any better off, all these years later. You said there were six components to the document? Did anything productive come out of these documents as far as recommendations?
There were 6 SCG, with the remaining five: 1). RCSC Entertainment (Sun Bowl, Shows). Mostly adding shows and and increasing the times available. 2). Optimizing Facility Usage. Nothing new here and yet we've done next to nothing in that area. 3) Drones. The idea was to create a "drone club." 4). Security. This one has all of the things we have been suggesting for the past dozen years. It's quite a lengthy list. 5). Recreation facilities. We will continue to research which activities are in growth and decline.There will surely be activities that come along that we don't know about at this time. But we do expect to be able to see which major activities requiring significant facilities are in growth or decline. These activities could be golf, tennis, pickleball, basketball, volleyball, lawn bowls, mini-golf, swimming, fitness and bowling for example. Since many of the facilities have a high maintenance cost and are separate intensive, forecasting to keep capability in line with demand will be important. All of these were before the pandemic and were on track to become a longer term strategy where data would matter and in fact be the life blood for our decision making process. Sadly, the long range planning committee for years was trying to push the RCSC in ways that made sense. The push back from either the general manager or some board members resulted in those ideas never coming to fruition.
This thread demonstrates why I think our self-governance model has a fatal flaw - members don't matter. Each Board insulates itself from the members as does the GM. This is not a onetime occurrence. It happened when I was on the Board, it happened when SCG was on the Board, it happened when BP was on the board, and it will happen again and again and again. As a social experiment, I asked FA's why Matthew put those signs about arresting members up. Their response was shocking - who is Matthew? Let that sink in. Or how about board members stating that "things look different from this side of the table" or "the board has no responsibility for member apathy." Our sister community had a statement in their strategic plan to the effect that they would monitor activities, and some would be eliminated if participation is too low, and some would be expanded if the demand justifies it. They target 50% participation in every club. The numbers speak for themselves: SCW has about 29,000 residents while Sun City doesn't really know how many reside here, but it is probably between 32,000 and 38,000. SCW Pickleball club members - 2,000; SC about 850, SCW tennis - 500 members; SC about 100. What are they doing right that we are not?
