How Much Time You Got? We'll Take It

As members of the SilverHawk HOA, I think we all have roughly the same Wants: we want to live in a safe community, we want the values of our homes to appreciate, we want to know that our HOA dues are well spent. The problem is that to ensure these goals are met, it requires more than just an investment of money. We can and do outsource as much maintenance and upkeep as possible with the help of our management company, but outside agents can only do so much.

For one, decisions about the neighborhood have to be made by members of the HOA, and to make informed decisions, options must be researched. For another, we neighbors are the ones living in the neighborhood, so it's up to us to spot problems and make sure vendors/contractors and our fellow neighbors are acting in the neighborhood's best interest. Until you've served on an HOA Board, you probably do not realize how much work goes into running, maintaining, and improving a neighborhood, and a large chunk of that work is done by volunteers, by your neighbors who are giving their spare time to do what they can to improve on the investment you've made in this community.

Now, this post is not intended to heap guilt onto you. Many of you are already overwhelmed by commitments: to families, to work, to your church, to the PTA, or to the hundreds of other organizations you might choose to participate in. All we're asking is that if you do have some spare time, whether it's several hours a week, ten minutes a month, or a few hours for a one-off project, please volunteer that time to our neighborhood.

Not only are we willing to take whatever time you can give us, we'll take it how you want to give it. If you have an eye for style, we'd be happy to have you help us design holiday décor at the entrances or work with the Grounds Committee to choose flora to add some pizzazz to the public spaces. If you like to throw a good party, talk to the Board to get backing for a neighborhood social event. If you simply want to help, but don't have particular ideas about how you prefer to help, see this running list of work needing to be done.

Finally, if you have a fair amount of time to give, please consider running for a Board position. We have four open positions that will need to be filled at our Annual Meeting on January 29th and not enough volunteers. Board members are responsible for making decisions for the neighborhood and need regular access to email. How much time you give as a Board member is up to you but requires at least a few hours each month.

To close this out, a big thank you to all of you who have volunteered your time in the past. From former and current Board members to pool volunteers to fence repairers to Little Free Library builders and bench installers and everyone in between, you all prove over and over again that SilverHawk is a great place to call home.

To volunteer, use the Committees volunteer form whether you are interested in committee work or something different.