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The Terra Verde Homeowners Association Magazine

Issue 56: February 2018

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An Oasis at the Heart of the Magic

We love hearing from you, so please send us your thoughts on the magazine, comments, suggestions on future topics, articles on places and restaurants you visit and photographs. Please contact: connections.editor@terraverdehoa.com

Please note that opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the Home Owners Association, nor the Editor.

Terra Verde Connections is published 4 times a year. Articles sent for inclusion in the magazine should be forwarded to the Editor by email, ideally in MS Word format. Photos should be in JEPG, PNG or GIF format. Deadlines: 17 January for February issue 16th April for May Issue 17th July for August issue 17th October for November issue

HOA Board updates

3 HOA 2017 review

4 General Manager’s Report

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An Adventure in Florida 6

Lagoon Tiki Bar & Grill 8

Homeowner’s Noticeboard 9

What’s on Where? 10

HOA Board updates

Swimming with Dolphins 7

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For those of us with an interest in all things Florida, 2017 was punctuated by the impact of hurricane Irma, but for me personally it will al-ways be remembered as the year we lost our great friend and HOA founder member, Helen Elmer, to cancer.

The effects of Irma on our resort were certainly extremely disruptive, but thanks to careful preparation by our experienced onsite team, trees, fences and roof shingles were the only casualties. Within 24 hours of the storm pass-ing, things were already getting back to normal and our contract landscapers were working with our own staff to clear the grounds and roadways of fallen branches, roof tiles and gen-eral debris. Although the Kissimmee/Orlando region luckily escaped the feared direct hit, it is reassuring that our resort infrastructure with-stood the storm and gale force winds without suffering any significant material damage.

Conversely, the other catastrophe - the passing of our HOA Board member & Gen. Sec., Helen Elmer, following a long struggle with her illness - will have much longer-term conse-quences for our resort. Helen, through her un-stinting efforts, was instrumental in extracting us from the clutches of unscrupulous manage-ment back in 2007 and went on to rally like-minded owners, including myself, to the cause of rebuilding our resort affairs from top to bottom. Over the ensuing decade Helen stayed fully involved in the day-to-day running of the

HOA and her energy and regular input is a loss to all involved in the management of Terra Verde, but more importantly, she is sorely missed by her family, friends and all who knew her.

Towards the end of the year, another HOA stal-wart and long time owner, Clive Hand and his wife Eileen, made the decision to sell their Terra Verde townhome, for lifestyle reasons and so we lose Clive’s services on both the Masters and Villas Boards.

It would be remiss not to put on record here our thanks to Clive for his diligence, loyalty and wise decision-making through our difficult formative years. In addition, Clive was solely responsible for establishing and developing our excellent News-letter and fortunately had the foresight to create it in a format which can be readily picked up by a less skilled editor, on his departure. We wish Clive and his family all the best for the future.

Back to business. On the economic front, 2017 was a further year of recovery in the US, with most indicators set fair. Low unemployment made staff retention and recruitment quite chal-lenging and low interest rates deprived us of a decent return on our Reserve deposits. At the same time, however, inflation remained low, which enabled us to contain costs and to meet our key financial targets. Throughout the year, homes on Terra Verde were in strong demand and therefore sales levels relatively bouyant, in-creasingly at prices not seen for some years. There seems no reason to anticipate an early change in the current benign climate and we are planning the year ahead with confidence.

I’m hoping for a less eventful 2018 !

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2017

While 2017 wasn't a year of major improve-ments, it was still quite an active year.

Many of the issues with which we had to deal with centered around maintenance, in addition to items that would have come up during nor-mal operations. Issues such as Gate equipment

breaking; AC units needing to be replaced; Pool Heaters breaking; we had to replace one of our recumbent bikes in the Fitness room; the Tiki Bar awning canopy also needed to be replaced and we had a couple pool pumps fail.

It wasn't all repairs and maintenance and we

were able to add a few important items, such as the new lights around the lake, lights for the Bas-ketball courts and new golf holes for the mini golf area. We expect that with the age of many of the items on the resort, we will continue to balance repairs and replacement with making improvements in the resort in 2018.

House Sales

House Sales in the resort during 2017 have been strong. In 2017 46 homes were sold, against projected home sales of 20. The bulk of these sales were on the townhome side of the resort with 36 of the 46 properties sold being townhomes. Many of the new owners are owners that live onsite. Terra Verde Re-sort clearly continues to be an attractive op-tion for new buyers.

Website Statistics

Our website www.terraverderesort.net saw a tremendous increase in traffic in 2017 over previous years.

This was the result of a couple steps we took in January 2017 that seems to have paid off very well. We made the decision to upgrade our listing on TripAdvisor which substantially improved our profile, allowing us to add better images of the resort. It also allowed us to place a direct link on our profile, directly to our website. This allowed potential guests to view our profile, visit our resort website for more information and submit vacation enquir-ies. In addition, we improved our business profile on Google, allowing us to include many images. We were also able to add direct con-tact information, including a direct link to our website. The ability to visit our website direct-ly, once potential guests have come across our profile is important, as they are not only able to obtain more information during the deci-sion stage of planning their vacation, but they are able to directly submit enquiries to Resort Homeowners who have elected to be on the

Resort enquiry distribution list.

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Homeowners are then able to respond directly to potential guests with relevant information. Vaca-tion enquiries received and forwarded to home-owners in 2017 have increased by nearly 400% over 2016, with a total of 1074 vacation enquiries circulated. This growth in the number of enquir-ies is certainly welcomed by owners who are looking to increase their occupancy rates.

Dumpsters

We recently installed new gates at both the Ma-deira and Pompano Dumpster Areas and this has really proven to be a worthwhile addition to the appearance of the areas.

We have also seen a significant decrease in the amount of large items dumped by the dumpsters. In fact the only dumping that has now occurred has been the result of a couple vendors prying and forcing the gate open, in order to dump bulk items. This situation has been addressed. In addi-tion to reducing the dumping, the fact that the gate remains closed throughout the day really

gives the area a more polished look.

Roof Replacement

As you drive through the resort you will see some properties on the single-family side of the resort where the roof does need to be re-paired or replaced. These damages were a result of the most recent hurricane. Insurance companies and homeowners are still working through the process of either replacing the roof or repairing the missing shingles that were lost in that hurricane. We have seen a steady flow of roof replacements on the resort over the last few months and this will continue as owners schedule or finalize the jobs.

For homeowners still in the process of replac-ing their roofs, an Architectural Review appli-cation is required to be submitted and ap-proved prior to the commencement of work. It is important that the color of the new shin-gles is keeping within the guidelines of the resort. Unlike paint colors, different manufac-turers have varying names and designs. We ask that along with the AR application, an im-age of the shingle also be submitted. We usu-ally respond to most applications within 48hrs of submission.

As those who joined the January 2018 HOA meetings

on the conference line will be aware, the HOA’s long

serving President, Pat Blum stood down after nearly

10 years of service. The HOA thank Pat for all his hard

work and advice over the years. With the additional

loss to the HOA, of both Helen Elmer and Clive Hand

during 2017, and more recently, Trevor Hunt, whom

we also thank for all his hard work, this may be a

good time to advise owners of the 2018 HOA Board

structures .

The 2018 Villas, Manors and Masters boards are now

as follows and all contact details, including those of

the Resort General manager are available on the

HOA website.

Villas : President—Ken Simpson

Vice-president—Mark Randell

Secretary—Paul Nash

Director—Kristian Kroner

Manors: President—Jeanette Roman

Secretary— Jeanette Roman

Director— Kita Boschulte

Director—Skip Shervington

Director—Stan Kolodziejski

Masters: President—Ken Simpson

Vice-president—Jeanette Roman

Secretary—Paul Nash

Director—Mark Randell

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In November 2017 we sold our home in Terra Verde and as we enter a New Year, it is a good opportunity to reflect back on our adventure ….. and what an adventure it was.

We had been visiting Florida on a regular basis since 1996 and decided to research the possibility of buying a home in Florida to coincide with Clive’s retirement from the Fire and Rescue Ser-vice. We eventually flew out to Kissimmee in 2003 to view properties, staying at Emerald Island. During that visit we were taken to Terra Verde where Phase 1 was under construction. The homes were selling rapidly but by chance, one townhome had just come back on the market and we ‘bit the bullet’ and put down a deposit, eventually closing on the purchase in May 2004.

In the early days the resort was run by a Commu-nity Management Company, as most resorts were and still are. Those days were challenging until a completely new Board of Directors took the brave decision to dispense with the management company’s service, and employ an in-house team to run the resort.

This resulted in significant savings, allowing HOA fees to be reinvested and to develop the resort into the success that it is today.

Running a vacation rental property is not easy from over 4000 miles away and to be successful requires a lot of hard work, but over the last 13½ years it has given us a lot of pleasure. It has provided us with a base to explore Florida outside the main theme parks and tourist attractions, with the city of St. Augustine probably being our favourite.

We have also been lucky to meet many other owners and make new friends as the Terra Verde community developed over the period. For us, the Terra Verde community has been really im-portant. As owners like us come and go, the dy-namics of the resort will change and it will be down to the new owners to maintain and contin-ue the community spirit, on both sides of the Atlantic.

As mentioned elsewhere in the newsletter, long term owners, Clive & Eileen, recently sold their home at Terra Verde. We asked them for some reflections from their 14 yrs. ownership …...Ed.

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Terra Verde is a short-term vacation rental resort and that is what we bought into. When we decid-ed to sell it was important for us that the new owners would want to continue with a successful rental property and we believe we were able to achieve this.

Three months on and we certainly have no regrets about owning our home at Terra Verde and also our decision to sell. It was simply the right time for us. We will treasure the friendships and the memories that we made at through our experience at Terra Verde. We hope to re-visit and meet up with some of our friends again at Terra Verde and perhaps welcome some of our US friends when they travel across the pond and visit the UK.

When Martin, my husband, told me we would be going to Discovery Cove and swimming with the dolphins, I have to admit to emotions of excitement, mixed with a little nervousness. However, on the day we could not sing praises high enough for the whole experience from start to finish. The staff were all so friendly and helpful.

Our pictures show the enjoyment and privilege of the experience with the beautiful dolphins.

However, what did surprise us, especially Martin, was snorkeling with the tropical fish and rays, and even more so at about 4.00pm.

when some of the rays were being fed. There were lots of varying sizes of rays all around us and quite a few of the bigger fish came in to the shallow area just nudging past us humans that were in their way. We have never done any snorkeling before, so once we got use to breath-ing the correct way, we could swim over coral and rocks in the deep and in the shallows.

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Now accepting take-out orders! It's simple, call us on 407-374-TIKI, place your order and pick it up shortly after!

Lagoon Tiki Bar & Grill

The

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Terra Verde Homeowners Association 109 Madiera Beach Blvd, Terra Verde Resort, Kissimmee, FL 34746 Telephone: 407-396-2327 Fax: 407-396-8265 Email: terraverderesort_gm@yahoo.com Website: www.terraverdehoa.com

The HOA would like to remind owners that the Resort website www.terraverderesort.net regularly receives vacation rental enquiries. Interested owners may place their email addresses on the website enquiry distribution list, such that they will receive copies of enquiries received by the Resort website.

Owners may either check to confirm that they are already included on the distribution lists or request that they be added to the distribution list, by visiting the Owner’s section of the HOA website at www.terraverdehoa.com and completing a simple form.

1. Take advantage and received rental enquiries from the Resort website. See ‘free service’ below.

2. Owners are encouraged to phone in to the BOD meetings. Dial-in details are available in the Owner’s Section of the HOA website.

3. Owners should ensure that all property management and contact details kept by the HOA are up to date. This is really important, particularly if the resort need to contact you of your management company in the event of an emergency. Form available on the Owner’s page of the HOA website.

4. Owners who have mislaid their login details for the Owner’s Section of the HOA website should contact the HOA website administrator. admin@terraverdehoa.com

5. Access details for the Owner’s Section of the HOA website are different from those of the Terra Verde Owner section of the chat forum.

2018 HOA Meetings Saturday 28th April Saturday 21st July

AGM & Homeowner’s Day Saturday 6th October

Street Party (Royal wedding)

Saturday 19th. May

Maintaining the appearance of the Resort to a high standard is extremely important. Our staff work hard on a daily basis to achieve this by spending a great deal of time clearing up unwanted trash. Homeowners and management company support with this is essential. To assist owners, a handout for both Townhome and Manors owners are available on the HOA website. Please make sure this is in the Guest Folder in your home and also that your management company has a copy.

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FOR MORE EVENTS & THINGS TO DO AWAY FROM THE THEME PARKS VISIT

www.experiencekissimmee.com www.visitorlando.com

FLORIDA STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL

1st to 11th March 2018

Plant City

Florida

www.flstrawberryfestival.com

Wine & Seafood festival

23rd, 24th, 25th March 2018

Blues at the Winery

14th & 15th April 2018

Jazz on the Vineyard Green

12th & 13th May 2018

www.lakeridgewinery.com

Kissimmee Lakefront Park

Annual Sunshine regional Chilli Cookoff Festival

Chilli tasting and beer sampling

Saturday 24th. February, 2018

Kowtown Festival

Celebrate Kissimmee’s 135th. birthday

Saturday 24th. March, 2018

Cape Canaveral scheduled launches

March 1st. - Atlas V Rocket

March 13th.—Space X Falcon 9 Rocket

March 20th.— Space X Falcon 9 Rocket

April 18th.—Atlas V Rocket