Special Meetings and an Owners Forum: Clearing Up Terms and Focusing on Outcomes
This is a response to a recent post on Neighbor to Neighbor that raised two related questions.
✅ What is a “special meeting”?
✅ How could Big Canoe build a constructive, owners-led forum to improve communication and trust?
Both are fair questions. Both deserve a calm, document-based answer. Both matter because trust grows when we use the right terms, follow the governing documents, and keep the conversation centered on outcomes.
🧾 Part 1: What is a “Special Meeting” in Big Canoe?
Here is the first point that often causes confusion.
🔎 The By-Laws use the term “special meeting” in two different contexts
They are not the same thing.
👥 1) Special meetings of the Members (property owners)
These are membership meetings, meaning owners acting as Members. In the By-Laws, these are addressed in Article II (Meetings of Members), including:
- 📌 Section 2.2 Special Meetings
- 📌 Section 2.3 Notice and purpose of meetings
A Member special meeting is a formal membership meeting called for a defined purpose, with notice requirements, and the limitation that only the business stated in the notice may be conducted.
🗳️ Who can call a Member special meeting (high level):
- 🧑⚖️ The Board, or certain officers
- 👥 Two or more directors
- ✍️ A qualifying Member petition that meets the voting threshold defined in the By-Laws
If you are talking about Member special meetings, you are talking about the owners as Members meeting as a body.
🏛️ 2) Special meetings of the Board of Directors
Separately, the By-Laws also describe Board meetings as regular or special in Article III.
At a high level:
- 🗓️ Regular Board meetings are meetings held on the schedule the Board sets.
- 📣 Special Board meetings are meetings outside that regular schedule, called as needed, with notice requirements that are directed to the Directors.
A special Board meeting is not a pandemic-only concept. It is not inherently suspicious. It is simply a classification used in the By-Laws to distinguish meetings on the regular calendar from meetings called outside the regular calendar.
🎯 Why this matters
When someone quotes Article II (Member special meetings) but applies that definition to Board meetings, the conclusions can drift away from what the governing documents actually say.
If we want constructive improvement, the first step is using the correct definitions.
🤝 Transparency and trust
Transparency matters. Owners should be able to understand what decisions were made and why.
It is also important to be precise. Our By-Laws do not create an open meeting requirement for the Board, and Georgia nonprofit law does not impose one by default. That means the practical conversation is not “the Board is violating the By-Laws.” The practical conversation is:
- 📤 What information should be proactively shared?
- 📑 What meeting materials should be posted in advance for major decisions?
- 🧠 How can owners get better decision context without turning governance into daily online debate?
Those are practical questions. They can be improved.
✅ Another point worth stating plainly
Board members have a duty to do real work between regular meetings. That includes reviewing materials, asking hard questions, testing assumptions, and evaluating options. Doing that work is not improper. It is part of responsible oversight.
🧭 Part 2: A Big Canoe Property Owners Forum
On the second question, I support the concept. Big Canoe is large and diverse, and an owners forum can help owners organize questions, surface recurring themes, and propose solutions that are more useful than comment-thread arguing.
If we want it to succeed, it needs to be set up with structure and guardrails so it stays credible and constructive.
🧩 First clarification: owners do not need “sanction” to organize
Property owners can organize an independent forum at any time. Where “sanction” matters is whether the POA treats it as an official channel. That includes use of POA resources, promotion through POA communications, or any implication that it speaks for the POA or the community at large.
That is a higher bar for good reasons, including fairness, liability, moderation, and the risk of a small group being perceived as “the voice of the owners.”
👍 What I would support
I would support an owners-led forum that is:
- 🧱 Independent
- 📏 Well-governed
- 🫱 Civil
- 🧾 Fact-based and solutions-oriented
- 🔁 Structured with a clear way to interface with the POA
Done right, it can reduce rumor, increase understanding, and help the POA respond to owner concerns in an organized way.
🛠️ A workable model that actually helps
🧷 A) Define what the forum is, and what it is not
✅ It is:
- 💬 a place to gather owner questions and themes
- 💡 a place to propose solutions and improvements
- 🧭 a way to ask for clarifications in a consistent format
🚫 It is not:
- 📣 a complaint megaphone
- 🧨 a rumor mill
- 🗯️ a platform for personal attacks on staff, volunteers, owners, or directors
If it becomes personal, it will lose credibility and the serious owners you need will disengage.
👥 B) Create a small steering group
A reasonable starting point:
- 👤 5 to 9 volunteer steering members
- 🌐 intentionally diverse, with different perspectives
The job is not to control opinions. The job is to keep the process civil, consistent, and credible.
🗓️ C) Agree on a simple operating cadence
For example:
- 📥 collect issues continuously
- 📰 publish a monthly “Forum Summary” that lists:
- 🔝 top themes
- ❓ the question being asked
- 📌 relevant background facts
- 🎯 what clarification or decision is being requested
- ✅ what “good” looks like
This gives the POA and the Board something usable. It also helps owners see progress and reduces repetitive churn.
🧑⚖️ D) Be careful with Board participation
Directors are property owners too, and I understand the desire for them to participate. There is also a practical risk. If a director comments frequently, many owners will treat those comments as the Board’s position, even when they are not.
A better model is:
- 👂 directors attend occasionally as listeners, and
- 📬 the forum routes questions through a structured summary rather than real-time debate
That keeps roles clear and reduces confusion.
🧭 Where I land
✅ On special meetings: the Board is not automatically doing anything wrong because the word “special” appears on a calendar. The By-Laws define “special meeting” in different contexts, and we need to use the correct one before drawing conclusions.
✅ On an owners forum: the concept is sound, and I would support an owners-led forum that is independent, civil, well-governed, and structured so it produces useful outputs rather than noise.
📣 Call to action: if you want an owners forum, organize it
If you want this to happen, here is the clean way to start.
- 📝 Publish a short “Founding Note” that includes:
- 🎯 the purpose (2 to 3 bullets)
- 📜 basic rules (civility, facts, no personal attacks)
- 🙋 a request for volunteers
- 👥 Recruit 6 to 8 owners for a steering group. Aim for balance, not uniformity.
- 🕒 Hold a 60-minute organizing meeting with a simple agenda:
- ✅ finalize purpose and rules
- 🧰 choose the platform
- 🥇 pick the first 3 topics to tackle
- 🧑💻 assign roles (moderation, note-taking, monthly summary)
If someone drafts the “Founding Note,” I am happy to help tighten it so it is neutral, inviting, and set up for broad participation.
