Information and Technology Committee –

Minutes of 01/28/2015 Meeting

Information/ Technology Committee
Meeting of  01–28–2015

Participants

The following owners have volunteered for this committee so far:

1. Berndsen, Cecilio unit 1005N    703 439 4902     email ceciliob@gmail.com
2. Chase, Arkady unit PH5N      954 674 8754     email arkady.chase@gmail.com
3. Schmuter, Samson unit 1101N    212 744 2340     email sam.schmuter@gmail.com
4. Volchek, Albert unit  802N     954 458 6989     email eugeniavlchek@gmail.com

Elected chair – Samson Schmuter.

Membership of the Committee could be extended if more volunteers express desire to participate.

Purpose of the Committee:

• Advise the Condo Association on matters of Information and Technology
• Facilitate the communication between the Board-of-Directors (the Board), Management, and the Unit Owners
• Take action to support the information flow
• Select and enhance the use of the Communication channels available to the Community
• Provide support to the day-to-day Communications activities
• Provide the Board, Management, Unit owners with alternatives to service providers, hardware and software that can improve the Communications and Technology use within the Condo.
• Provide alternatives and innovation suggestions for the use of Technology at the Condo.

The priority task of the Committee is to provide to the Board recommendations and help on creation and dissemination of documents from the Board to the Association Owners. The following means shall be supported:

• Announcement Boards
• Website / eMail
• TV Channel 93
• Emergency public Radio announcements.
• Up to date List of Unit Owners with necessary details
• Suggestion Boxes in North and South Buildings

Among Technology issues to be addressed are:

• Designated WiFi areas for public use
• Remote controls of A/C units in the public areas (recommendations to the Management)
• Business telephones for the Office and Security use

Information Flow

The Committee shall work with the Board to restore periodic and systematic creation and dissemination of the following documents:

• approved minutes of the Board meetings
• quarterly and yearly financial reports for the Association
• monthly project updates
• monthly maintenance updates.

These documents, once released by the Board Secretary or the Office Manager,  shall be produced in the agreed format and posted on the Announcement Board by the office Assistant(s). Also, the document(s) shall be eMailed to the Website Administrator(s) for making them available via the website.

The Aquarius Condo website supports the document access in two ways:

1. On-line, upon Log-in to the website by a registered owner, and/or
2. From the registered owner’s personal eMail, to where each document is forwarded via the website eMail bulletin.

The website administration shall device and provide means for archiving the documents that are over one year old, in order to free the display and storage space of the  Aquarius Condo website.

Other Website Usage

There are many features available on the commercial website core; their enabling and usage require customization and arrangements. Examples of such features are:

• Concierge announcements of USPS packages
• Classified private advertisements
• Payment of maintenance or assessment fees
• Access to Address Book information searches
• Exchange of Recipes between users
• Reservations of Amenities (e.g. restaurant, or meeting room), etc…

Given the limited (around 50%) owners participation in the website registration, each implementation shall be preceded by careful analysis and understanding of the benefits of such implementation. This will become subject of the Committee planning after the first priority Information Flow is fully under way.

TV Channel 93

The equipment for preparing and translation of the TV information broadcast is available. It has been arranged, used and upgraded by Arkady Chase. However, the scope of the broadcast could vary significantly by content and length –

• from simple announcements
• to longer translation of the recorded Board meetings
• to movies and entertainments.

To what degree we shall use the Ch93, requires further discussions and organizational arrangements.

Some other items for consideration by Committee

• Review of the content items in the net site with the purpose of simplification, improved functionality, relevance ,content enrichment and streamlining the work flow.
• Improve the information flow among the several stake holders in the community (Board, Committees, Management, Staff, Unit owners, dwellers, vendors, service providers, etc.)
• Advise the Board on the modernization of controls for the building. Of immediate interest are swimming pools chemicals dispensations, temperature control, lightning. Also to be considered are automatic economizing devices for lightning and climate control throughout the buildings.
• Study the potential of the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) in providing savings in the building operations.
• Study the possibility of extending WIFI availability to the two pool decks in addition to the Lobby and Business Center availability.
• Make available electronic survey tools such com for the Board, Committees.

Chart of Potential Tasks & Responsibilities  for Feeding the Website

The following Chart is  initiated by Cecilio. Tasks shall be added when defined.

Conclusion

We will reconvene on Feb.02 to adopt these minutes  and to proceed with action assignments between the members of the Committee.

Attachment  02-03-2015: Immediate Assignments for Members of Information / Technology Committee