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The year 2020 will be the year of the STRONG! A time ever embedded in our hearts and minds. For almost a year we have risen above the biggest threat we will hopefully never see again.


While talking with a mentor in the first part of 2020, a serious question was discussed. Is this pandemic a recoverable event? A mentor who served boards in many capacities stated, “We as a country battled SARS, AIDS, the Depression, World Wars and survived.” Community management is an essential industry. The business of managing a community is a 24-hour job which never stops, even in a pandemic.


We all have been through masks, rules, closed amenities, additional cleaning, sanitizing, etc. The most important thing is we are performing and being successful while keeping ourselves, staff and owners safe.


It is thought that the “new normal” is teaching us respect and safety in a way we never would have thought of in the past. This is certainly a time in which we need to be practicing the conscious effort of how we respect one another’s spaces as well as our own. Associations all over the world must come together and keep one another safe by respecting the idea of the mask that we have all come to know as part of life. Realizing each one of us faces this challenge together, we all can work as a cohesive team to do the right thing by listening to the scientists and health experts regarding the appropriate measures to keep us all safe.


With many people not traveling, not attending concerts or festivals, or engaging in other “normal” social activities this year, many association residents turned to their neighborhoods or community associations for pastimes and diversions. Amenities in community associations are key, though often they have been temporarily closed due to the pandemic.


In most associations, the number one amenity is the pool. When the community association board determined to open the pool in late June, the owners were pleased. The measures put in place allowed the community to have a successful summer season, and created satisfied customers. While it was challenging to keep owners safe in a normal pool situation, additional measures were needed to instill higher levels of safety. Wearing masks except while swimming, or social distancing on the deck was successful at this property, though initially, some residents did not want to comply with the mask mandate. However, given the strong relationships built between association staff and property owners, even those who did not want to comply at the start of the season eventually climbed on board.


...


In the beginning, 90-minute time slots were allotted for pool and deck time, separated by periods of deep cleaning in between with an electric sanitizing system to clean touch points on chairs and other furniture, deck rails and locker room surfaces. Reservations were required, temperatures were taken, and waivers of liability (Assumption of Risk and Indemnification forms) were signed. Eventually the pool was opened in 4-hour increments. Capacity was no more than 50 at a time in the pool abiding by the Governor’s mandate of Stage 4 (gatherings of no more than 50). A recent poll from the Illinois Department of Public Health for Lake County stated that 75 out of 150 pools opened during the 2020 summer season. This manager was not a big fan of opening the pool at the start; but in the end, it was believed to have brought the owners, board and manager together in a way that may not have been seen otherwise.


The second most popular amenity is a common area clubhouse or recreation room. This association’s common area recreation room also hosts a management office staffed by a professional management team of two to three, depending on the day. The association worked with the staff in cross-training to maintain the cleaning, and each employee pitched in to continually keep touch points of our amenities clean. The management team became the cleaners of touch points in the recreation room between homeowner visits and the owners were enlisted to clean all touch points if they were using billiards or Ping Pong tables. This collaboration of asking owners to take a part in keeping us all safe created another moment of respect for one another.


The third most popular amenity in an association is the laundry room. Talk about touch points! We requested all folks to wear masks, but often public safety officers received calls from owners stating they saw other owners not wearing masks as they entered the laundry room. A simple call to the owner provided a dialogue that in most cases resulted in a calm conversation of future compliance. However, it is important to know that managers are not the police and cannot police for compliance. It has been discovered that when approaching someone in a calm manner and explaining the need for a mask in common areas, most appeared embarrassed and complied.


Many associations may have had additional expenses due to COVID-19 this year. In times like the ones we’ve seen this past year, it has taught us to be more creative with our resources and push beyond the everyday scope of operations which in the long run made us more compliant, safer, and enterprising in ways of doing business. Most of the measures we practiced in 2020 will continue to


www.cai-illinois.org • 847.301.7505 | 37


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