Stenning Woods Maintenance Association

President’s Message

December 2020

To Stenning Woods residents and neighbors:

I hope that all is well with you and your families and you are surviving these very extraordinary times. As we near the end of 2020, I wanted to share some news and information about activities that the Board has been involved with this year.

In March, we held our first ever virtual Annual Meeting at the beginning of the pandemic restrictions. It went well using technology provided by our property management partner, A2Z. We had excellent participation and we will most likely hold another virtual meeting in March 2021.

Due to the pandemic, our goals were very basic:

• Maintain the proper upkeep of the development and common space. 

• Maintain good open communications with residents.

• Address unexpected emergency situations.

• Find replacements for long time Board members who were stepping down.

We had two long-time volunteer Board members leave in 2020. Chip Fody, Treasurer and Billing Coordinator stepped down in July and Dianne Fair, Secretary and ARC member stepped down in November. Chip and Dianne had served on the Board for more than 15 years each and we thanked them for their dedicated service to Stenning Woods.

Huiqing Kang was voted Treasurer and Officer on the Board in November. Julie Tang will take over the Billing Coordinator role as a neighborhood volunteer working with Huiqing. Albert Piha joined the Architectural Review Committee (ARC) as a neighborhood volunteer. We are still looking for a volunteer to become Secretary and Officer on the Board. In the meantime, we have divided up the Secretary responsibilities among other Board members and A2Z. If you are interested in finding out more about the Secretary role and joining the Board, please contact me.

Board Members and Officers:

V=voting member NV=non-voting member

Ralph Lopilato, President, ARC member, V

Bob Tully, VP, Common Space Chairperson, V

Huiqing Kang, Treasurer, V

Secretary, Open, V

Lynne Gunter, ARC Chairperson, V

Neighborhood Volunteers:

Julie Tang, Billing Coordinator, NV

Albert Piha, ARC member, NV

We voted to change the budget year to 4/1/21-3/31/22 and each year thereafter to better manage revenue, costs and align more with our Annual Meeting, historically held in March. To adjust to the new fiscal year, this year will be a 15 month year 1/1/20-3/31/21. Leo McDermott and Dianne Fair have agreed to be financial audit volunteers and they will audit our budget on a periodic basis and work with PNC Bank to ensure that our checking and money market accounts are being held to the highest financial standards.

We had significant expenses this year with tree removal in our common space. We had a number of serious storms that downed many trees, which needed to be removed. We went over budget in this area, but our overall budget is good and our reserve fund remains slightly above 100% of one year expenses. Because of this, it looks like we may be able to keep the annual assessment for 2021 the same as 2020 ($250). We still have the winter months ahead of us so we will keep our fingers crossed that snow removal stays on budget.

Our budget philosophy will be to spend for normal maintenance items per the budget. When we have emergencies that force us to go over budget, we will draw off the reserve fund to pay those expenses. We will then build the reserve fund back to 100% with assessment increases the next year so residents will be able to see where the money was spent. This is how most families run their house budgets and we will reflect the same.

Stenning Woods is a Deed Restricted community. I would ask that all homeowners review the DR’s on a yearly basis. Since the proposed updated DR’s failed to pass in May we are following the original DR’s established 1987. A2Z audits the neighborhood each month against the DR’s and County codes. This is a very important process as it ensures that our property values remain at the highest level based on investments that homeowners have made in their homes.

Lastly, if you have any questions please feel free to contact me at my contact information below or A2Z at SWMA@A2Zpmc.com or (302) 239-6000. I hope that you have a safe and healthy holiday season and Happy New Year. 

Ralph Lopilato

President SWMA