Click here to view Jake's cover letter and the survey form

 

 COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE  MINUTES   JANUARY 11, 2010

 

Present: Joan Bitely, Bill Arnst, Denzil Willis, Dan Augustine, Margie Kramer, Ron Larson,                      Norm Kolb, Chair.  Regrets, Len Godek, Marv Koontz

Also present:  John Thrash, Board Liaison; Jake Bernard, Board President; Tom Whelan,

                        Dan Owens, Bill Smith and Don Horan.

 

  1. First order of business was election of chairperson.  Bill Arnst nominated Norm Kolb, Margie Kramer seconded and all agreed Norm should be chairperson.

 

  1. Norm outlined the general timeline for the task given to us by the Board. December and January will be spent on the survey to the Community and then the other questions will be tackled.  Norm detailed his meeting with the NW Zone Captains saying that we appreciated their volunteering as individuals to distribute the survey in January.  There will be instructions given to the volunteers along with the surveys labeled for each residence.  ComCom will pickup the surveys from the volunteers, and do further follow up by phone etc., if necessary; collate the survey, prepare the results, etc. Bill, Joan, Ron and Margie volunteered to help in this process.

 

  1. Proposed survey was reviewed and changed, with many suggestions for covering the topics the Board needs to know.  Input from various Board members and others present was appreciated and narrowed the survey considerably. Their comments also shortened the time needed to revise the survey.    Revised survey will be sent out to all for further comments, etc.  Plans are to finalize survey and cover letter asap so that we can get them printed.  We then need to attach residence labels and put into zones for the volunteers and distribute to the volunteers, all surveys out to residents hopefully by January 18th.  We agreed that survey deadline would be January 31st.

 

  1. Cover letter was discussed.  Margie suggested an opening sentence about money to grab everyone’s attention.  She suggested one.  Denzil suggested putting letter in bullet form, Norm will send revised letter today for his bullets. Revised letter will also be sent to everyone for approval.

 

  1. There was some general discussion about the future situation and some suggested that we put a question on the survey about whether folks would be in favor of taking the Cox Basic Service off the monthly dues and letting everyone negotiate the services that they wanted.  Many felt that this was a question to be answered after the results of the survey were available and by the Board themselves.

 

  1. Future meetings will explore 3 questions suggested by the Board in their task:

      Question #2 --Explore with various cable/satellite TV providers the possibilities for both                exclusive and shared bulk contracts by FRCA.

      Question #3 --Explore with various cable/satellite TV providers the possibilities for  cable/satellite TV, digital telephone or internet service at reduced prices for FR residents via individual contracts by residents in lieu of a bulk contract by FRCA.

      Question #4 -- Explore the technical and contractual possibilities for maintaining a community-wide information channel (Channel 20) under the various contracting scenarios.

 We will probably need some sub-committees to pursue these issues.

 

Norm Kolb, Chair, Communications Committee