4 Tips on How to Reach a Quorum
We help Co-op and Condo boards reach a quorum for their Annual Meeting, every year.
For many buildings, every year is a struggle to get a quorum in order to have a legal election. Meetings are held up, people have to go back to their building to try to persuade their neighbors to join them, or at the very least fill out their individual proxy and allow it to be delivered. With our assistance, Annual Meetings are well-attended and proxies from non-attendees are handed in ahead of time.
How can this be, you may ask? We use a holistic approach on how to handle meetings/ elections and the importance of their outcome. Our top 4 tips on reaching a quorum include:
Enter today’s electronic society and stop having your managing agent administer the election. Instead, spring for the minimal cost to provide either an outside service such as onsite and online voting service Honest Ballot or online voting services such as ElectionsOnline or OpaVote. A recent article by HabitatMagazine, “Electronic Proxies Can Help You Reach a Quorum” discusses exactly this point.
Plan early. You could potentially set the date of next year’s Annual Meeting on the schedule in this year’s meeting. The earlier you put a date on the schedule and inform your fellow neighbors, the more likely they are to attend.
Make the Annual Meeting interesting. Add some visuals. A quick Prezi presentation showing a couple of the projects the board is working on or have in the pipeline always peak an interest. It is definitely more interesting than the dry reports from the CPA and Attorney.
A raffle is another alternative to reaching a quorum. All attendees could automatically get entered into a raffle to win $1,000, or some other amount, and have it credited to their next monthly bill. That should goose attendance! Bruce Cholst, a partner at Rosen Livingston & Cholst LLP, shares his view on this in a HabitatMag article titled “If you want a Successful Quorum, Hold a Raffle”
Each of these ideas is sure to help increase attendance, and all four combined would virtually guarantee a quorum. Give it a shot, and don't be afraid to personalize additional ideas for your unique building!