November 10th, 2014: I received the minutes from the Squatters Run 2014 Annual General Meeting held on the long weekend last October.
With the minutes was also a copy of the "Squatters Run Newsletter" from the "Squatters Run Council". Both documents have provided fodder
for several future grump articles and, whilst current, I will report on some of those before returning to the issues pre 2014 that led up
to the reasons behind why I started publicly grumping.
As has been the way with the Squatters Run body corporate council for some time now, inconsistency continues to be one of
the major traits of how Squatters Run is managed (and I use that word loosely).
Last year and the year before and the year before that and so on, all owners who attended the Annual General Meeting were presented with
a copy of the "draft" minutes for their approval, before sending the "final" minutes out to all owners in case
errors, misrepresentations or typos were made. Well, that was not the case this year.
Unlike in previous years, I received no "draft" copy of the minutes. I'm not privy as to who did receive a copy but I'm sure none
of them would ever disclose that fact in any case. Considering my name was mentioned 9 times in the few short pages of the minutes,
one might think
that common courtesy and general professional behaviour would dictate that I receive a draft, in case I had been misquoted or misrepresented.
Oh no, not this year.
And it's not as though past minutes have been posted without errors. Even at this year's AGM, when the chairman requested a motion to accept
last year's minutes, I reported that those minutes contained a blatant error in reporting how voting for council members was carried out.
Was it just mismanagement (that wouldn't be a first) or do they think they might be able to achieve other ends by not sending me a draft
of the minutes. In any case, it will all come back to haunt them in the long run, if not during my next round of grump articles then
certainly at next year's AGM.
I keep asking myself "why is Squatters Run managed the way it is?" and every time I discover another omission or failure to
inform owners of all the facts or failure to uphold past precedents, I'm reminded of
the Polymorph. Avid followers of the Red Dwarf TV series will recall the monster (known as the Polymorph)
that grew bigger and bigger by feeding off the fears, guilt and paranoias of it's victims.
Upon speaking to people in other strata style environments within Thredbo and beyond, I am constantly uplifted by the shock, horror and
surprise they show when seeing how Squatters Run is "run".
Are you seeing a pattern in my articles? "Professional behaviour", "courtesy", "openness"?
Whilst ever there appears to be a glaring lack of openness and transparency in how things are done at Squatters Run I will have an endless
supply of subjects to write about.
If you know of any owners of apartments or businesses in Squatters Run, who are not already keeping up to date by reading my articles,
then I implore you to tell them about this series. It's their money that is being spent by the body corporate.