Time for Change

Time for Change


NB: An update will be provided following the 4th Oct IRM Workers Compound meeting.

18th Sept Committee meeting
We are reliably informed that both the resort president and vice president will be resigning very soon following the discovery of Nigel's Jan 2012 manifesto which was never cascaded to all owners. This is now cascaded following Hilary's announcements below:

Dear Owner, It is a real shame, it looks like at least 3 of the 7 will resign from the Committee due to constant flack on the HRGR Forum, e-mails and critisism, some who have been with the committee for many years.The HRGR Forum was originally set up for free discussion; it has become a place where a few angry and sometimes misinformed owners use to rant. Opinions and votes on the forum do not count, it is just a place to discuss issues with other owners before an owner can take action.

I have never got on the Forum because of its reputation either before or after becoming a president; it seemed like a very negative place to be.  

Hilary, Phase 7 President
19th Sept 2013

 

I have just read this statement on the Tomillo5 website. As owners I am letting you know that this is yet another untruth....... I am one of the people referred to above. I have announced my resignation to the owners I represent and, as far as I know, at the moment I am the only one who has resigned.  It is completely untrue that it had anything to do with the manifesto referred to. My reason is simple. The committee, and in particular Nigel and I, have been the subject of unreasonable demands, criticism, insults and inaccurate postings on the forum.  As well as this, we are being inundated with unreasonable demands and very unfair criticism, via a steady stream of emails from others with an agenda to cause as much trouble as they can.

 

Ron

20th Sept 2013



For those that think it is reasonable to make the recent and constant excessive demands on the committee, as well giving us unfair criticism based on untrue, or lack of, information let me tell you what we have to deal with when working on your behalf. The committee is mature enough to take reasonable criticism as feedback and take it onboard but things too often go too far.

It is probably time to let the moaners, not all who post on the forum, get on and sort things out and give us a break and the chance to enjoy what we thought we bought into.

Ron
4th July 2013

To all Phase Presidents, Hacienda Riquelme Golf Resort:                                                                              January 2012

Resort Presidency

It is, by now, common knowledge that I have put my name forward for consideration as the next Resort President. I am conscious that it may be seen that I have been in the background during the last year so I want to take some time to advise you of what I can and cannot bring to the presidency and my thinking for the forthcoming year. If this sits well with your thinking then I will welcome your support but if you believe that it is not right for the resort then I will perfectly well understand and make way for somebody else and give them my unreserved support.

To start with the positives: Rachel and I are totally committed to HR having placed the order for our apartment before the first sod had been turned. We plan to become permanent HR residents in November 2012 although the fact that my employer is still trying to retain my full time services and the health of aged parents may affect the timing.

We welcome the concept of adopting Spanish culture and would wish to integrate the various nationalities represented within HR into a semblance of “Spanishness”. We are not interested in being in a little bit of England in Spain and will do all we can to avoid anglicising our resort. I have already been in contact with some of the Spanish community in an effort to establish relationships for the future.

We bought in to the concept of a 5* complex and although, like so many, are deeply disappointed that PW did not deliver on their promises, intend to do our best to ensure that we improve the quality and standards of our resort so that the value of all our properties will increase and that those who need rental income will have first class facilities to sell.  

Professionally, I am a Chartered Management Accountant who works for a food logistics company as its Finance Director and Company Secretary. My remit includes Accountancy, Computer Services and Human Resources. In the past I spent three years as deputy chair of the governors of our local college of further education. I believe these skills and experiences will be very relevant to HR’s needs.      

There has been a lot of recent activity on the owners forum relating to costs and standards so I will lay out my position in relation to these:

Debtors

Professionally, when it comes to debtor management, I could be described as a hard-liner. I expect to have fully annotated debt lists on my desk by the 2^nd of each month and my credit controller knows what to expect if she cannot answer any questions. I expect our resort administration to adopt the same standard and will be pressurising Resortalia to improve on their performance if they are to have any chance of being retained in to the future.

The policy on debtors has been clearly stated and was cascaded through the Phase and Block President on the 20^th May 2011. It is tough but fair and I do not see any reason to change it.  

I understand that some owners may have temporary (or even not so temporary) difficulties in meeting their responsibilities to the community but the responsibility remains with the owner and any delay is simply not fair on the rest of the owners.

Despite examples of bank and Resortalia errors, most payments are made properly and most direct debit failures have one simple cause. Our procedures allow time for the correction of errors but, fundamentally, late payments will be liable to penalty charges.

Obtaining payment by direct debit is by far the most efficient and cost effective method of collecting community fees and I will not advocate any change.

Contracts

I will not be a party to any breach of contracts. Michael and his negotiating team have performed minor miracles in managing to reduce contract costs on all our contracted services so I would intend that these should all be allowed to run through to their completion. It goes without saying that all the contractors will be performance monitored and any failings brought to the attention of the committee for discussion and, if necessary, action.      

In house services

There has been a lot of discussion regarding self administration and direct employment of services such as gardening and resort administration. My intention would be to use the time afforded by having the existing contracts in place to thoroughly research the cost effectiveness of taking specific services in house. I have no pre-conceived ideas as to the viability of these but intend to bring to the discussions whatever skills and experience we have within the resort. I would expect to prepare a paper on each service and present options and recommendations to the owners at the appropriate time.  

Resort Administration

I am not a great fan of Resortalia as there are aspects of their performance which are frustrating and, despite Michael’s constant efforts, still needs to be improved. That said, their quote for the next 12 months is competitive so, on the basis of better the devil you know, I would recommend retaining their services for the next 12 months. As stated in the previous paragraph, I would expect to be considering options well before the next renewal.  

Gardens

One of our biggest quandaries is that PW has left us with a legacy of manicured lawns. To British eyes, these lawns look marvellous but, in Spain, they are an alien species. They are high maintenance and cost a fortune to irrigate.  If memory serves, the lawns were designed as a feature of the resort at the time when PW were intending to build a desalination plant which would have provided relatively cheap and plentiful irrigation water. Unfortunately, like so many PW promises, the desalination plant has failed to materialise so we have a legacy of thirsty lawns demanding increasingly expensive and scarce resource.         

The current committee has already prepared some groundwork with STV (the gardening contractor) with a view to replacing some of the lawned areas with less high maintenance plants and have quotes for some proposals. There appears to be scope for investment in other types of ground cover which would have varying pay-back periods. It would be my intent to have a gardens committee to study these proposals and make recommendations for any further action.

General facilities

I am not in favour of stripping amenities simply on the basis of cost cutting. That said I expect to review the cost effectiveness of each facility with the aim of ensuring we get proper value for money for them. During the last twelve months, we have identified examples of suspect costings which means that I intend to continue to verify numbers before making any hasty decisions.

Constitution

The original constitution, which currently remains in place was prepared by PW and, understandably, was written to best suit them. What was best fit for PW is very likely not to be the best fit for our community and our constitution has been the subject of much adverse comment in the forums. Accordingly, Michael has been instrumental in setting up a review panel with the aim of presenting a revised constitution upon which we, the owners, can make an informed decision sometime in the near future. It would be my intention for this invaluable work to be completed.

Planning

Despite the part of the community’s rules that forbid any modification which affects the outside of an individual property, there are signs that some owners are modifying the exterior of their properties without obtaining the prior approval of the Planning Committee. It should be noted that the community’s management has the legal authority to demand that any unauthorised development be removed at the owner’s expense. The danger is that continuing unregulated modifications will ruin the look of the resort so the Planning Committee is vitally important to ensure that we retain the coherent look of our buildings. For the last two years, the Planning Committee, which is a volunteer but un-elected body, has done sterling work but has operated completely independently of the elected general committee which is a situation with which I am not entirely comfortable. Accordingly it would be my intent to give teeth to the Planning Committee by nominating one of the general committee to join it.      

Anti social behaviour

Anti social behaviour has reared its ugly head during the last twelve months and when it happens, it makes life thoroughly unpleasant for those caught up in it. Despite the risk of recriminations, I would have no hesitation in seeking to attempt to gain moderation on the part of offending parties as a community such as ours depends upon sound social inter-reaction between neighbours.

How will it all work?

So, that is my view of HR. So how am I going to achieve this when I am resident in the UK?

Well, it is going to be difficult but not insurmountable. Michael has done a huge amount of work during his tenure and has laid the foundations for a much more streamlined management and without this groundwork, proper remote Presidency would not be workable.

As it is, I have been fortunate in that colleagues on the committee, friends and neighbours have expressed support and a willingness to be my eyes and ears. With those talents in support, I have every confidence that we came overcome the disadvantage of my temporary UK residency. Amongst the offers of support, I am grateful to Michael Corke, Ron Locke, Antonio Escalera, Ann Dyos, Viv Church, Allan Pattemore, David Bamford, Manuel Gonzalez, Carole Eteson and Ena Glover.

Language

It had been my intention to use the first months of my retirement to get to grips with learning Spanish and lowering my handicap. I still intend to succeed with the former but will have to put the latter on the back burner. In the meanwhile, I have been promised offers of help to overcome my linguistic shortcomings.

Communications

I am not of the social networking generation so do not use facebook or post on forums and neither do I tweet.

Because I am not resident, I would need the active support of the Phase and Block Presidents and part of this is including them in the communication process

I intend to cascade information through the Resort’s hierarchy which means that Block Presidents will be a fundamental part of the information flow. The HPA makes the first level of responsibility that of the Block President so it is my belief that there is a need to get them to buy in to the concept of being a part of that communication process.

This message is effectively a test of how that might work.

I am sending this to the Phase Presidents with the request that they cascade it to their Block Presidents for onward transmission to their owners.

If this procedure does not work, then I fear that neither will my Presidency which, in turn, may require a rethink on how we move forward.

Many thanks for your patience in reading thus far.

Kindest regards,

Nigel

Time for the HRGR secure forum to close............................

With only 4 to 5 views per day then it really has had its day!






Long term plans.....................Most Spanish communities and especially the former Polaris World communities are going through hard times at the moment. A combination of over borrowing, debt and unrealistic planning together with the fact that in a small region of Murcia in the last nine years were built at least fifteen golf courses with residential property and a useless, unnecessary unused airport.

Murcia is a permanently drought stricken region of Spain and an official semi desert and not a particularly attractive region for tourism at that. Where the water was coming from at an affordable cost to irrigate golf courses and tourist resorts on this scale was never considered. It was the greed of the boom and now we have the inevitable bust years which will run on and on.

Some years ago a study was carried out on these resorts long term feasibility which the conclusion they were an unmitigated financial disaster which would end in being an enormous financial burden on any investment that was made, even at reduced prices with little or no significant return.

Resident management committees struggle to keep these places going in the teeth of ever rising costs and community debt. The courses are now run by a conglomerate of four disaster banks. Their market capital descends ever lower into the abyss as right downs on capital security are reduced by the market and the Bank of Spain. The banks themselves are kept afloat with bail out loans provided by the EU and will struggle for at least a decade.

It's unfair and wrong to blame anyone but the developers, bankers and politicians who have damaged Spain in the last ten years and brought the country almost to it's knees.


Views from the sub community of the Workers Compound

SCA, Floor 1

SCA, Floor 2

SCA Floor 3

SCB Floor 2

SCB Floor 3
From the Resort president: Hacienda Riquelme Golf Resort - Presidents Newsletter

Regrettably, this newsletter is going to concentrate on some of our financial challenges.

Cash flow
Because of the decrease in revenue due to the increase in debtors (PW being by far the largest) we are generating substantially less cash than was forecast. Accordingly, we have embarked on an austerity program and are only spending on existing contracts plus essential repairs to maintain our security and infrastructure. Although we budgeted for 100,000? for long term repairs and renewals, our cash flow means we would be unwise to consider committing to expense when we cannot be sure that we will receive all our budgeted revenue.

Holidaymakers
June, July and August are the months when those owners who rent their apartments seek to optimize their revenue so that HR resembles a holiday resort.  Unfortunately, too many holidaymakers are attracted by some of the extremely low rentals that can be had here but who do not understand that apart from the golf course, there is little else to do. If the holidaymaker does not have access to a hire car, their options are decidedly limited.

We have already had a serious incident when one of a group of teenagers renting a second floor apartment apparently tried to jump off the apartment wall. He failed to walk away from his misguided attempt. This same group had earlier been smashing glass on to the road and had an altercation with our security.

If you rent, please make sure that your tenants understand the limitations of our facilities. HR was designed as a 5 star golf resort and is just not suitable as a general holiday resort.


Phase 7 storage area
Owners on Phase 7 are understandably upset about how the storage area is being used by contractors which causes them varying degrees of nuisance depending on their position. Successive committees have recognised this and endeavored to improve matters for Phase 7 but, regrettably have had little success. It would appear that some Phase 7 owners believe that the committee does not care about this issue but nothing could be further from the truth.


The problem lies with the issue that there is nowhere else for our contractors to use that is remotely as effective as the storage area. The alternative areas for contractors to use are both outside our perimeter so would need to be secured before they could be used. One of these areas is adjacent to the pump house to the left of the road to Sucina and the other is outside our security fence opposite the end of Phase 6. We understand that both these areas are owned by PW or IRM so the golf course machinery could be moved to these areas but our gardeners would have no right to use these areas. This would mean that we have nowhere for our gardeners to base themselves.



Moving these operations will involve costs which, eventually, would be passed through to us either in increased golf course costs or increases in gardeners costs. For these reasons, the majority of the committee has not been supportive of the idea to force the contractors to move although we have tried to have the contractors reduce the nuisance of the storage area and to reduce its adverse visual impact.


Community gardeners em emptying cuttings into 40 tonne skip

Dump ground

Rubbish dump

Golf Course equipment and portacabins with could be relocated and up and running within 24 hours

Community workers rest facilities whereas Golf course have air con portacabins as shown below


Some owners on Phase 7 have now had enough and are taking matters in to their own hands by initiating legal action to have the contractors removed. The majority of the committee is not prepared to support the action because they believe that such an action would not be in the best interests of the HR community as a whole.


We should also have a concern that the golf course is owned by a consortium of banks who have no choice but to take a tough commercial line. They have already told us that they are making a loss on the HR course with no sign of an improvement until they can source cheap water. We need to be mindful that if we push them in to a corner they could choose to close the course. I have had the benefit of being in communication with IRM so have a very real fear that this could well be their response so have this comment to say to the good folks on Phase 7: Be careful what you wish for................