Winter 2004

Resident Board Members - Bringing an Important Perspective To the Carolina Meadows Board
   People who are involved in making decisions that affect their lives are more satisfied with the outcome. The government structure of Carolina Meadows provides plenty of opportunity for residents’ voices to be heard. Most notably, four of the 15 members on the retirement community’s Board of Directors live at Carolina Meadows.

   “The structure of government at Carolina Meadows is built for maximum interaction among residents, board and staff,” said Board member Myles Walburn, who has lived at Carolina Meadows for the past decade.

   “When you have retired people involved in decisions that affect their lives, you have happier residents and better decisions,” Walburn said.

   Although about half of all continuing care retirement communities in North Carolina have residents on their board, Carolina Meadows has one of the highest ratios of resident-to-outside Board members . Having such a large number of residents on the Board is not just window dressing.

   “It’s not a concession we make to residents,” Walburn said. “It’s an essential part of the way you understand the organization.”

   “Board members who are residents bring “inside knowledge” to the discussions,” said Wilfred Norman, treasurer of the Board, and a Carolina Meadows resident.

   “We’re all involved with different Resident Association committees. So, we bring that slant to the discussions,” Norman said. “We bring a nuance that a community board member might not be aware of. We’re on the grounds every day. We talk to people and know what’s going on and what’s on residents’ minds.”

   Residents have ample opportunity to let the board know what’s on their minds. Upon moving in to Carolina Meadows, people automatically become members of the Residents Association, and many become involved with one or more of the association’s numerous committees. Nominees for the board usually come to the attention of the Board Nominating Committee by their work in the different committees. Once elected to the Board, the Board members usually continue some involvement with the committees they had been serving on.

   In addition, the Board has six board committees chaired by Board members: finance, marketing, property, health, endowment and nominating. All but the nominating committee have parallel Residents Association committees. It is not uncommon to find the chairs of the Board and the Residents Association committees attending each other’s meetings. This helps insure good communication, interchange of perspectives and keeps the committees informed of each others priorities.

   Board members are nominated based on their expertise and what knowledge and experience they can contribute to the operation of the retirement community. Norman logged a quarter century of experience in the corporate world before practicing law and ultimately retiring as president of a hospital foundation. Walburn, before retiring, was finance director for America’s oldest Protestant missionary board. In that capacity, he dealt with endowments and planned gifts. Some of which were made as early as the late 1800s. Board member Doris Bowles, a former nurse, is starting her second year on the board and has been active in health-related committees and projects since she moved to Carolina Meadows in 1999. Earl Weaver, Board secretary, who has lived at Carolina Meadows for about eight years, acquired diverse sales experience during his marketing career. He accepted the nomination because he believes, “If you have the qualifications an organization you belong to needs, you have a responsibility to fill that obligation. It’s in your best interest to use your talents from your career.”

   Criteria for being on the Board are high, said Norman, who has lived at Carolina Meadows for about six years.

   "We want residents who can bring experience to the party," Norman said. "We have people with strong marketing backgrounds, experience in the nonprofit field, business, nursing -- pretty broad experience. The nominating committee doesn't rubber stamp anyone."

   Discussions that lead to resolving issues that come before the Board balance the interests of current residents with what is best for future residents and the ongoing health of the continuing care retirement community. Weaver, who is starting his fifth year on the Board, said that being on the Board gives residents a different perspective of their community. “Residents serving on the board must separate what is best for them and shift their focus to what is best for Carolina Meadows in the future,” he said.

   “Not all of the decisions the board makes are easily accepted by everyone, but the board feels they are best for the community,” Weaver said.

   The Board meets quarterly, and committees meet before each board meeting. Resident Association committees meet every month or two. Preparing for and attending meetings takes an average of about 10 hours a month, though some committees, such as finance, put in more work at certain times of the years and less work once their major mission is accomplished.

   “The time commitment isn’t overwhelming, but it’s enough to keep you busy,” Bowles said.

   The Board considers issues of how to keep Carolina Meadows the best community in the area, and how to maintain that reputation as other communities open in the area. Much of the discussions in the past year pertained to the expansion of Carolina Meadows. The expansion plans include a new two-story wellness building, expanding the current Assisted Living building, increasing the size of the library, and refurbishment of the villas and apartments built in the initial phase of construction of Carolina Meadows.

   The budget is a hot button issue every year. Walburn said that some people might argue that there’s a conflict of interest in having residents vote on decisions that affect their own quality of life, but he sees no cause for concern.

   “But there’s no more conflict of interest than there is with any other professional who has a vested interest in the decisions that are made,” he said.

   Norman and Bowles are both impressed with the professionalism of both residents and nonresidents on the Board.

   “It’s a high-quality Board,” Norman said. “People put a lot of time on it; there’s a lot of complex things to wrestle with.”

   Bowles added, “It surprised me how much time and effort the community Board Members who are not residents put into it. They are hard-working on our behalf.”

   The mix of residents and nonresidents on the board brings balance to the decision-making process that keeps Carolina Meadows running smoothly.

   “There’s an effort to say we’re in this as a community,” Walburn said. “It’s not ‘us’ and ‘them’; we’re all ‘we.’ ”

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Resident Committees: Covering a Wide Range of Interests and Activities
   As the 2004 Olympics wrapped in up in Athens, Carolina Meadows residents celebrated with stuffed grape leaves and baklava. Dick Ballard, a past president of the Residents Association at Carolina Meadows and chair of the special events committee, enjoys drawing on his career in public relations to organize international dinners for others in the retirement community. He takes advantage of the talents of the kitchen staff that include three graduates of the Culinary Institute to showcase gourmet fare from around the world, sometimes tying it in with world events or local exhibits.

   For the Olympics dinner, Ballard acquired some posters of Greece from the Greek Embassy in Washington to decorate the dining room. When the Empire of the Sultans exhibit came to the N.C. Museum of Art, he tapped the talents of the woodcraft committee to build a five-foot-tall replica of a mosque to accompany the Turkish cuisine and a slide show of the art exhibit, courtesy of the museum’s curator. Browsing through an antiques shop in Pittsboro, Ballard discovered a six-foot-tall replica of the Eiffel Tower, which inspired a French dinner with background music by Edith Piaf recordings. A resident of Swedish ancestry requested a Swedish dinner. Ballard made it happen, complete with a Swedish attaché as a guest speaker and Swedish dancers.

   “I like to do exciting events that are unusual,” Ballard said.

   Special Events is only one of 30 standing committees funded by the Residents Association. Each committee establishes its own objectives and accomplishes its tasks through the work of volunteers who live at Carolina Meadows. Committee volunteers run the gift shop, arrange concerts, publish poetry and fiction, oversee the in-house TV system, and clean up the roadways through the Adopt-A-Highway program.

   Not all of the committee work is fun and games. Committees tackle such tough topics as bylaws, buildings and grounds matters, and budget. The work of these Residents Association committees provides important and timely input to the Carolina Meadows Board and administration.

   Murray Bovarnick, who has lived at Carolina Meadows for four years, is completing his third year as chair of the Residents Budget and Finance Advisory Committee, which reviews the annual budget – of about $17 million this year – for the operation of the entire community. Committee members visit all departments at Carolina Meadows every month or two to learn about on-going operations, review budget/expense issues, talk about staffing issues and study capital budget requests with their assigned department head. Additionally the committee meets monthly with Kevin McLeod, Carolina Meadows CFO, to discuss overall financial operations.

   “It’s rare that the residents of a retirement community are able to be so involved in the finances of the organization.” Bovarnick said.

   “A lot of people on our committee have run budgets in their careers,” said Bovarnick, who made a career in human resources management consulting. “The staff is always willing to share information with us and listen to new ideas. They provide infrastructure in terms of computer access and written documentation that we couldn’t get ourselves.”

   The accessibility of committee members is an advantage to residents when they have an idea or a bone to pick. By talking informally with a committee member who can raise the issue at a meeting, residents can get a quicker response. Quite often residents bring suggestions to the committees or share ideas, which can then be handled by the administration in an efficient, timely manner.

   The committees cover a wide range of activities and interests. The golf committee organized volunteers to assist a group of legally blind golfers. The Meadowsingers, a group of resident vocalists, put on concerts at Carolina Meadows as well as around the Chapel Hill, Durham and Cary areas. The sports committee stages events in 11 different sports run by residents who participate in them. Other committees include safety, library, community outreach volunteers, music concert series and public relations. The Residents Association president visits every new resident to find out his or her interests then passes that information along to committee chairs.

   “The committee system gives each resident the opportunity to participate as much as he or she wants in the life of the community,” Bovarnick said.

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Executive Directors Letter
   In this issue you’ll read a lot about how involved residents are in our community. And it’s not just “lip service” or “token representation” … Resident involvement, at all levels, is a key to what makes Carolina Meadows such a great place to live and if you ask our staff, the residents make it a great place to work too! With resident involvement, we make better decisions, decisions that reflect formal committee input as well as informal discussions at the lunch or bridge tables. Resident involvement comes in many forms and it helps guide us not only today, but for the future of our campus.

   Speaking of the future, we’re just getting underway with three major projects on campus. You’ll hear a lot more detail in the next issue of this newsletter but for now, I’ll just tease you with a few details. We’re expanding the Club Center to create a new wellness/exercise space, more general meeting areas, a larger library and a dedicated card room. We’ll be adding twenty four new assisting living units, including some two bedroom apartments as well as new social and activity space for assisted living. And perhaps we’re most excited about the building of a Special Care Unit for the Memory Impaired, modeled on the Assisted Living, home type environment. Last, but not least, we’re undertaking an extensive refurbishment of the independent living units in the older area of campus. It’ll be busy but a heck of a lot of fun as we move forward on these projects over the next eighteen months or so.

   Finally, I really need to say a special, heartfelt and public thanks to the staff and Board who have worked so hard to keep things going while I’ve been out on medical leave the past few months. I knew we had a knowledgeable and informed Board and they have really stepped up to deal with the issues at hand. Likewise, our Department Heads have the operation clicking along on all cylinders, running smoothly, with much resident satisfaction. In fact, I’m starting to fear that they can run it better without me! Believe me, I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years now, I’ve visited untold number of CCRC’s and I stack our Board and Staff up against anyone, anytime, anywhere. You guys are the best! Thanks so much for all you do.

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Residents Association: Providing A Voice in The Community
   Involvement comes naturally to Dud Waldner. By moving to Carolina Meadows, he’s come to the right place. As vice president of the Residents Association, Waldner has the opportunity to hear his neighbors’ concerns and do something about them.

   “It’s very important for residents to have a voice in the community,” Waldner said.

   The system of government at Carolina Meadows makes it easy for residents to discuss concerns, offer ideas – and have administrators pay attention. Information flows freely between residents and administrators via the Residents Association, Residents Council and the Carolina Meadows Board of Directors.

   “There is a great deal of exchange of views,” said Dot Reilly, president of the Residents Association.

   The 391 independent living apartments and villas of Carolina Meadows are divided into 12 precincts. Each precinct has its own elected representative to give voice to the varying interests of the different living arrangements and areas of the campus. The Assisted Living and Health Center are each their own precinct, and have their own representative too. Precinct representatives chair monthly meetings to get information, ideas and concerns from residents. The information that comes out of the precinct meetings is brought by the representatives to the monthly Residents Council meeting.

   “Anything that needs further explanation goes back to the precincts for voting, then back to the council,” Reilly said. “It’s a very democratic process.”

   The elected officers of the association, along with all of the precinct representatives and the Executive Director of Carolina Meadows, form the Residents Council, which meets monthly. The Residents Association funds 30 standing committees, which report to the council. The committee chairs attend council meetings, although they don’t vote in council actions. Reilly and Waldner both attend many of the standing committee meetings.

   Any concerns that can’t be decided at the council level move on to the executive committee, a gathering of Resident Association officers and the immediate past president. The executive committee meets with the Executive Director of Carolina Meadows at least once a month. Waldner, a retired trade association executive, sometimes leads tours for prospective residents on weekends when staff members are unavailable. When visitors find out how much input residents have to the corporate board, he said, “They are pleased that we have so much clout.”

   The Residents Association works with an annual budget of about $20,000 that comes from its annual dues of $15 (payment is voluntary) and revenue from the gift shop. Committees request financial assistance to cover such expenses as the Women’s Club’s opening tea, the Men’s Club’s monthly breakfast, and the publication of “Voices,” a collection of memoirs, poetry and essays written by residents. The association also sponsors a concert or two every month and pays the honorarium for guest speakers from the university who address residents on medical updates and topics in the arts and humanities.

   “It’s a very stimulating environment,” Waldner said.

   Every few years, residents organize a silent auction that raises thousands of dollars for a capital improvement. The 1997 auction made it possible to purchase and install an in-house TV system; a state-of-the-art stage was built from the proceeds of the 2000 auction. Once the wellness center addition is finished, residents will vote on how to spend the $11,000 that last year’s auction brought in.

   Residents make an impact outside of the retirement community as well. The Residents Association spearheaded fund-raising drives that donated more than $50,000 toward building a Habitat for Humanity house in nearby Pittsboro. This was the first North Carolina Habitat house to be completely funded by a retirement community.

   “Volunteering is becoming part of the community rather than giving to the community,” says resident Helaine Plaut, member and past chair of the Community Outreach Volunteer Committee (COVC). The COVC is instrumental in a variety of projects, including organizing campus-wide food drives, running a two-week camp at Carolina Meadows for children of the Orange, Person and Chatham County Mental Health Association, and serving as a clearinghouse for resident ideas. The committee, comprised of 10 residents, is continually pursuing ways to reach out in its community to help those beyond the campus grounds.

   Doris Bowles, chair of the health advisory committee and one of four members of the board who live at Carolina Meadows, considers the range of projects and interests that residents pursue to be very healthy.

   “It keeps your mind and body going,” Bowles said. “There’s always something brewing.

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