Advisory group set to share data details during board meeting this Sat. at 9 a.m.

By Greg Ellison

(Dec. 9, 2021) After wrapping up collection efforts for the Ocean Pines property owners’ survey in mid-November, members of the Strategic Planning Committee met last Thursday to prepare a summary report for the Board of Directors’ meeting on Saturday.

Committee Co-Chair Bernie McGorry said the deadline to submit responses was Nov. 15.

“The survey is done,” he said. “We had a great response, which was more than expected and better than the last survey.”

All told, 1,838 responses were collected in the recent survey, eclipsing the 1,773 replies filed during the community survey conducted in 2018.

“We want to review with the board of directors on Saturday and then we’re going to take it to the executive council, which is the heads of all the [advisory] committees,” he said.

In addition to viewing the report presentation during the board meeting on Dec. 11, McGorry said residents would also be seeing survey results in their mailboxes.

“We’re going to put it in the newsletter in January, which will go to every resident,” he said.

Contingent on board approval, plans are also afoot to stage a town hall meeting early next year.

“We’re recommending to the board … to have a town hall to review results with all property owners,” he said.

The survey was released on Sept. 23 with a Nov. 15 deadline to respond.

Prior to issuing the property owners’ survey, Strategic Planning members drafted the 15 questions in under 60 days.

While primarily an online survey, a hybrid approach was employed to provide residents access through alternative means.

In addition to distributing 2,500 “reminder business cards” containing a phone-scan QR code at select locations such as the Sports Core Pool, Yacht Club, Golf Course, Ocean Pines Library, the Administration Building and Community Center, 300 hard copies were also made available.

“We did receive some hard copies, but we only had 65,” he said.

McGorry said 65 percent of respondents expressed support for online options.

“That tells you that even though Ocean Pines is a lot of older residents, like myself, they’re still pretty tech-savvy and were happy to take the survey online,” he said.

Precise timing for the proposed town hall meeting remains undetermined.

“One of the issues we’re going up against is they’re (the board of directors) working on the budget,” he said.

“To put this in the middle of it just confuses things,” he said.

McGorry said at this point survey data would likely have minimal impact on the next fiscal year operating budget.

“We did not miss their capital spending cycle, so I think it will have an impact on future capital spending,” he said.

McGorry said the full slate of survey results would eventually be posted on the association website.

In terms of next steps for survey responses, McGorry hopes to delve deeper into the results for more in-depth analysis in the future.

“There’s a lot of different data,” he said. “I want to dig down and look at full-time versus part-time …  to see what the differences are.”