Get to know your neighbors
We hope you enjoyed our post on neighborhood block watches this month. They are beneficial towards neighborhood safety, but even better for establishing a feeling of community in your HOA.
We thought that to some, creating a neighborhood watch may seem daunting. The title alone may infer night watches and long hours, when in fact they don’e require that all (
check out our 6 simple steps).
Nonetheless, we continue our effort to share with our HOA communities alternative ideas to establishing connections with your neighbors…..
4 Easy and Effective Strategies to Establish Connections in your HOA
- Plan a neighborhood BBQ. BYOB, bring a dish to pass, or request each family bring the meat they want to grill. Don’t take on the expense yourself. Offer to host the event in your backyard or a common area. Set the date and time, go door to door, post event details on the community Facebook page, and ask your HOA board to announce the event at the next meeting and insert into upcoming communications.
- Plan a children’s event. If there are a lot of children in your HOA, parents are more likely to attend an event their kids can enjoy. What parent doesn’t love when kids have neighborhood friends to keep them busy outside? Plan a kid-friendly event and make those connections! Try renting a “bouncy-house,” ask a local sports figure to attend (they love to promote their own community happenings), create obstacle courses and backyard games.
- Plan a poolside cocktail hour. Picture this: signature cocktails, tranquil pool, an evening breeze. Sets up a nice environment for calming, relaxing, get-to-know-social time. We all have busy weekends, so pick a day during the week as people are more likely to find that extra hour to unwind from a busy workday. During the event, make sure to spread the word that the event will happen at the same time/place each week/month. You can plan this same event over coffee in the morning as well!
- Introduce yourself. Ok, seems like the obvious answer, but it planning an event isn’t for you, go knock on a door (the old fashioned way). Approach the conversation with an offering. Maybe offer to watch their house when out of town, water the plants outside, or pick up their mail? Courtesy and kindness still goes a long way!
