"Class A" Appearance

Last night I had my first appearance as an official at-large board member of my condo association. It was a very interesting experience. I'm told that the role of an at-large board member is to simply be "a representative of the people", so I don't have a specific duty like the secretary or president. There are more than 60 units in my complex and the largest number of non-board members at the meeting last night at a given time was 8. I suppose that's a good thing in some way. That is, if there were things to complain about people would show up. For the most part, we're doing a great job. They're doing a great job. I really don't do much. I did spend a bit of time on an informative poster about recycling, but that's been the bulk of my work so far.

I made my roommate come to the meeting too so she could see me in action and finally experience these meeting's I'd been telling her about. Mostly they're just a forum for people to hear themselves speak, but some people are really serious about their gripes. We have one man that is VERY involved in our little community. I think he was actually on the board at one time, but found his real purpose with the role that the crazy old lady with too much time on her hands would assume - "Get that dog off my grass!", "People are closing the door to my lobby too loudly!" His complaints are sometimes valid, and he lived here in the days when standards were considerably lower. He is also very helpful with certain issues and fancies himself the "eyes and ears" of our association. He got on quite the high horse last night about the value of rules and their enforcement to any society. It was heated and laden with expletives. I could sense some underlying issues with society as whole going on.

"Sir, your concerns have been noted by the board! This meeting will come to order!!!" Well, we didn't say that last part, but it would have fit.