ORACLE December 2019

ORACLE December 2019

DECEMBER 2019

ORACLE

Outdoor Resort Palm Springs - the Number One RV Resort in the USA

GM & Board Message

2 3 4 4 5 5 6

Meeting Calendar CFO & Finance Health & Fitness

Dog Owners & Friends Planning Committee

FMCA & Welcome

Chapel 7 Quilting, Bingo & Book Club 8 Lifestyle & Events 9 Golf Operations Manager 10 Golf 11 Tennis 12 Pickleball 13 A&A Committee 14 New Owners

15 & 16

Vendor List

Back Cover

I would like to welcome everyone back to our winter paradise in the desert!

Another summer has come and gone, and it is great to see so many familiar faces back here at Outdoor Resort

Vision is the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom. Can we predict the future? No. Can we plan for the future? Yes. So, when you look at our vision statement, it is our attempt to think about and plan for the future with collective imaginations and wisdom. As you may have heard, we have merged the Facilities and Strategic Planning Committees into one committee called Planning. This committee is critical to us realizing our vision. As such, we will be working to develop a long-term strategic plan. This plan will then provide the road map for our short-range projects. Executing the plan means there will, inevitably, be change. Speaking of change, every season we arrive to the resort and wonder what has changed. Some changes we see as positive and some we question why the change was made at all. We all know that change is inevitable, but we also sometimes yearn for how things used to be. It is our hope and belief, that if we have a strategic plan in place, the changes we make will be understood when viewed in the context of that plan. Nonetheless, there will always be those who question changes. Part of our vision statement speaks to the “social atmosphere and climate”. When changes are made, often times we will hear owners question why the change was made. Some even express their displeasure with the change. Every owner has the right to let the Board and management know what they think. Sometimes, this can come across to owners as negativity, and can result in a degradation of our social climate. So how do we counteract this effect? As I stated in the last Board meeting, we have so much to be thankful for and many of the changes are viewed as positive. I am going to make a concerted effort to point out some of the positives every chance I get. At the Board meeting, I recognized Frank, our Security Post Commander, for the excellent job he and his team did over the summer. I am asking each and every owner to consider pointing out some of the positives that you observe or experience when you have the opportunity. We need to hear all of the feedback but let’s make sure we keep it in perspective.

Palm Springs. I would also like to take this opportunity to greet all our new owners and hope that the kickoff to your first season here is enjoyable! Many of you have kept up with the progress of the summer by reading the Out and About emails detailing what we were up to while battling the 110+ degree weather. As a brief overview we plastered many of the pools and spas, including the two spas and one pool at El Saguaro (ES), resurfaced the tennis courts at La Palma as well as satellites A,B,C, & F, put new artificial turf in the dog run, replaced the balance of the bad benches, seed buckets and ball washers on the big 18 golf course, refinished the tee monuments of both courses, added a delivery ramp at La Palma by the café, replaced a couple of the lake fountains, placed new date palm trees and lighting in the front entry, replaced our old and tired street sweeper and updated the ES kitchen. Regarding the ES kitchen, we did experience some delays in the permitting process and then some additional; delays once construction started as we found some structural issues that need to be cured. Hopefully at the time of the this article being published, the kitchen will be completed with a new hood and cookline giving us more flexibility when catering events like the rib dinner, potato bakes and bar food service. Despite the challenges with the kitchen project, the problem is working with a building approximately 35 years old. We’ve had some other updates regarding our management team as well as changes to the facilities listed above. I am happy to welcome Morgan Bonney and Remington Post to the team. Morgan is the new head of our Lifestyle and Events department and has jumped right in working hard to provide some great events, food and entertainment for the members. Remington is spearheading a new position here at ORPS and is overseeing our golf program. He has been instrumental in implementing our new tee time software and adding value to our program with his knowledge of the game and overall golf operations. They are both doing a terrific job so please help welcome them to the ORPS family. I would also like to thank the balance of our management team and all our staff for the great work they did all summer. Our management team is as follows: Brenda Mejia - CFO, Byron Jessie - Facilities Manager, Jennifer Miranda - Resort Services Manager, Frank Flores - Post Commander, Kristine Agular - Assistant Controller/IT. I would like to thank the Board members, all the volunteers and the rest of the members for all they do for the resort to help make it such a special place. Here’s to a great season!

Perspective: What you see depends not only on what you look AT, but also where you look FROM.

Board President

2

BOARD MEETINGS, December 2019

DATE

TIME

MEETING ROOM

BOARD PLANNING MEETING

Monday, Dec 9

1 PM

East Room

REGULAR BOARD MEETING

Monday, Dec 16

1 PM

La Palma Ballroom

BOARD ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETINGS, December 2019

COMMITTEE

DATE

TIME

MEETING ROOM

ACTIVITIES

Tuesday, Dec 10

2 PM

MPR

A&A

Wednesday, Dec 4 & 18

1 PM

East Room

COMMUNICATIONS

No Meeting

DOG OWNERS & FRIENDS

Monday, Dec 9

2 PM

East Room

PLANNING

Thursday, Dec 5 & 19

2 PM

East Room

FINANCE

Wednesday, Dec 11

2 PM

East Room

GOLF

Tuesday, Dec 3

1 PM

Multipurpose Room

HEALTH & FITNESS

Tuesday, Dec 3

10:30 AM

Multipurpose Room

PICKLEBALL

No Meeting

SAFETY & SECURITY

Friday, Dec 6

2 PM

East Room

TENNIS

Saturday, Dec 7

9 AM

La Palma Ballroom

The terms of two current Board Directors, Dede Loop and Maryellen Muir, will expire in March of 2020. Once again we are searching for dedicated owners to put their names forward as candidates to fill these two vacancies. A wealth of talent and experience resides within ORPS. Serving on the Board of Directors is a challenging and rewarding way to contribute to your Resort. An understanding of the Association’s governing documents, serving on an ORPS Committee, volunteering within the resort, or having served on a

governing board, are all experiences that would benefit prospective board members. However, the only requirement of a candidate for the Board is that they must be an owner of record and may not be delinquent in HOA assessments. Additionally, only one owner per lot is eligible to serve on the Board at any one time. The Board Nominations Committee, consisting of Charlie Leahy and Maryellen Muir, will be reaching out to the ownership to provide information and answer questions from owners who may be interested in serving as a Director. Persons interested in learning more may contact them directly or stop by the La Palma Board Office to pick up an information packet which contains a Board Candidate Application Form.

Applications will be accepted until 4PM Monday, December 30, when nominations will be closed.

VISION STATEMENT Outdoor Resort Palm Springs strives to be the ultimate RV Destination, unsurpassed in facilities, activities, amenities, social atmosphere and climate. Our 5-Star community delivers a “personal paradise and escape” creating new friendships and memories that last a lifetime.

Have a voice in how our Association is governed. Help work out solutions. Serve your community. Bring your talents to the Board table. Become a candidate for Member of the Board of Directors! 3

CFO REPORT

HEALTH & FITNESS COMMITTEE Welcome back! Happy to see so many in the gym. Just a reminder, please use the sanitation wipes to clean off your equipment after each use. We want to keep all healthy and well. The Health and Fitness Committee will be selling bricks again this season as annual fundraiser. Leave your legacy at ORPS. Go check it out. Brick walk is outside the gym. Reach out to Kathy OedeKerk, Gabe Fratada, Terry Huff or myself in Lot #1. We are also in search of a new self - motivated committee member who wants to be creative, motivated and enjoy Health and Fitness. We are in the process of searching for new health speak- ers for January and February. Further information to come. Back by popular demand, we will also be doing our 5K walk/run February 15. I will personally be in the gym 3 days a week. If you need help with proper weight usage, or wanting greater health and wellness, I am happy to help. Just seek me out. As a certified massage therapist and medical practitioner, I will be offering massages in the resort, (by appointment only). I hope to see you all out walking or in the gym. Our bodies are made to move .... So let’s get going. It’s going to be a fabulous season!! Healthy Living - Nutritional habits for an active life style lectures, will be held at Annenberg Health Sciences located at 3900 Bob Hope Dr, Rancho Mirage. Monday, January 13: Diet Pitfalls by Barbara Sassower, MPH, RDN, CDE Monday, January 27: Colorful Foods by Rachael Dillion, RD Saturday, February 15 starting at 9AM 5K run/walk Monday, February 24 Healthy snacks by Lisa Misi, RD Chavalla Lopez-Bassham, Chair

Each year we return to the resort from our busy summer lives and it’s good to refresh our understanding of the resort financials. As a Board, we work with our management team to manage the resort for the benefit of the owners. We finished the 2018-2019 fiscal year with our expenses well within budget. We have strong budget and accounting processes in place and our annual audit was completed over the summer. Recent changes in California law have imposed new responsibilities on the Board to review financial documents. The California minimum wage will increase from $12 to $13 an hour on Jan 1, 2020. Minimum wage will increase to $14 in 2021 and $15 in 2022. These wage increases impact some of our employee wage rates and also impact Vintage and our other contractors. The non-wage parts of our budget, such as supplies and utilities, are also subject to inflationary pressures. We are fortunate to have an active Finance Committee staffed with owners who have the skills and experience to guide the Board in its financial decision making. On July 1, the HOA monthly fee increased by $11 to $394. We are projecting that increasing costs will lift the HOA monthly fee by another $12 a month in July 2020, and $13 a month in July 2021. We would like to thank the 66 owners who signed up for ACH (Automatic Clearing House) payment of their HOA fees and another 115 owners who signed up to accept Email distribution of their Annual Disclosure mailings. Reducing the work load for our employees is an important way owners can help control our expenses.

Charlie Leahy, CFO

Finance Committee Committee members Howard Berman, Dave Crosswhite, Bill Dietrich, Doug Folsom, Doug German and

A&A Committee

Dave Mueller met mid-November to be apprised on of the activities of the Board since April 2019, specifically addressing new statutory requirements of the Board in regard to financial matters, and the results of the audit process of the year 2018 - 2019. We also devised a work program to identify and select resort operations to study in more detail. We will also be undertaking our usual role in the preparation of the budget for 2019-2020.

Ted Wilson, A&A Chair See page 14 for article

Gail Pollock, Chair

4

DOG OWNERS AND FRIENDS COMMITTEE

Hello from the Dog Owners and Friends Committee!!! We all hope you had a wonderful summer and welcome you back to the resort. You may have noticed that over the summer our primary dog relief area (by the maintenance yard) was renovated and refreshed with new drainage and turf. K-9 Grass designed especially for the use in dog parks and dog boarding facilities. K-9 Grass has a special drainage system plus has an antimicrobial built into the blades which is non-toxic. This system is the best available on the market and if you have a pet, you might want to consider installing this turf on your lot. Stay tuned for an updated cleaning protocol but for now please continue to remove any feces and rinse the turf after your dog makes a visit. You also may notice upon your return that some new Doggie Waste Stations have been installed in the resort. Please remember that it is all pet owners’ responsibility to clean up after their pets and properly dispose of any waste. Additionally, there is a trial going on which runs from 10/1 to 12/31, which allows dogs in the grassy areas on the back and sides of the tennis and pickle ball courts. In January 2020, the DOF committee will provide the Board with observations and feedback gathered during the trial period for consideration regarding a decision to implement a permanent rule change. Why is this trial so important??? The goal of the common area trial is to improve the facilities and culture for dogs at ORPS and increase pet owners’ ability to comply with rules and regulations by opening up some of the common areas. The current social climate at ORPS has eroded to a point that owners are having altercations regarding the use of common areas and the Cathedral City Police have been involved. After much consideration and discussion of various alternatives, the committee decided that this request was the most reasonable way to gather >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20

Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online