NeM

Novel e-Meeting facilities for better sectional title management

Hello!

Despite all the challenges of these times, in its first 12 months NeM supported more than 44 meetings in 27 sectional title schemes. There is more information below, but first let us note that e-Meetings, and e-Voting in particular, become highly significant when South African sectional title schemes were driven to discuss and decide important issues remotely, using the world wide web. Arranging proper PQ-based voting, in accordance with the Sectional Titile Schemes Management Act and regulations, has been especially problematic. Now ...

Who are you, and what is your interest?

Who are you, and what's your interest in e-meetings?

Owner

Since the introduction of the new Sectional Title Schemes Management Act in 2011 the pressure on your managing agents and trustees has become more intense. Agents that are not up to the job, and trustees who are too busy to bother, allow the discipline of scheme management to decline and the value of your investment to fall. As the efficiency and effectiveness of scheme management falls and the cost of owning space in a scheme increases, too often we find that service delivery and building management get worse.

NeM services support efficient and effective scheme management, by recording decisions and chasing up actions right through to organising voting at your AGM.

Trustee

Agreeing to take on the responsibilities of a trustee because it only involves a couple of hours four or five times a year is a very bad idea. Trustees sit between owners and residents (on one side), and the managing agents (on the other); time and information is needed to effectively straddle the two. Decisions touch both sides and depend on having the right information at the right time. NeM systems separate and organise the management of scheme administration, building maintenance, ownership, occupation, and meetings - always a good start.

As a trustee you already know about the problems of inadequate information. We structure that information and make it visible and accessible.

Agent

At NeM we are intimately aware of the problems of maintaining good building and scheme management, starting with finding and supporting people with the capability to act as portfolio or building manager. Our previous implementations have centred on managing meetings (of Trustees and AGMs) and everything that goes with them. Decisions and actions can be recorded and progress can be monitored, agendas and minutes are fully supported, and wider issues such as short-stay visitor management are addressed by a visitor registration feature.

The target is to enable capable managing agencies to minimise costs at the same time that service delivery is improved and sustained.

OK, so who are we?

NeM is an independent initiative that is developing new ways of managing organisations and meetings

After a long career in software engineering, information management, applied research and management education, Dr Andy Bytheway became involved in the management of a large sectional title scheme in central Cape Town as Chair of Trustees. Together with the managing agents, he developed cloud-based systems for managing ownership, occupation, maintenance and meetings.

Conforming to the STSMA and regulations

The stringent requirements of the South African Sectional Title Schemes Management Act (2011) have placed new demands on managing agents and trustees, and considerable progress was made that addressed those demands. Problems around communications, short-stay visitor management, and meetings management have all been addressed.

Weighted (PQ-based) voting for AGMs

2020 was a year when Annual General Meetings were very difficult, and our focus has been on a safe and convenient PQ-based voting system that handles special and unanimous as well as ordinary resolutions, according to the requirements of the Act. With the first year behind us, NeM offers e-Meeting, e-Voting and related services to all organisations that have a commitment to improving decision-making.

Mission

At a time when all organisations are moving to online working, there is a need to manage meetings and the decisions arising from meetings much more carefully than in the past. It is no longer possible to rely on paper records and managing 'actions' and chasing 'progress' requires more than a call across the office, or a dash to the filing cabinet. This is especially true in fragmented organisations such as sectional property schemes - where diverse owners and occupiers share a single building or complex - because successful management requires the involvement of the whole community.

Facilities

NeM provides innovative facilities to bring structure, accessibility and organisation, where otherwise there could be chaos:

management of the ownership of sections of the scheme
control of the occupation of sections of the scheme
maintenance of the fabric of the building
registration of short-stay guests and other visitors to sections of the scheme
logging and control of security issues
administration of meetings and actions arising

Partners

		CRA provide financial and property management services in the Western Cape and elsewhere
		CSMS provide financial and property management services in the Western Cape and elsewhere
		Property Exponents provide financial and property management services in the Western Cape and elsewhere
		STRATA provide financial and property management services in the Western Cape and elsewhere