By Greg Ellison

(Oct. 28, 2021) The Ocean Pines Communications Committee considered several new initiatives and highlighted membership needs during its meeting last Thursday.

Committee Chair Cheryl Jacobs applauded Josette Wheatley on recently being appointed to the board of directors and accepting the role of secretary.

“That leaves a vacancy on our committee,” she said.

Wheatley’s appointment to the board on Oct. 11 requires her to end her committee membership, as she becomes board liaison for the group.

“We will be looking for anyone that would like to join this wonderful committee,” Jacobs said. “Please get the word out.”

Jacobs said several residents had expressed interest in joining the committee but failed to submit applications.

“Let’s shake the bushes again and see if we can’t get a replacement,” she said.

Although unable to attend last week’s virtual meeting, committee member Debbie Bennington, whose current term ended last month, has opted to continue with the group, Jacobs said.

In other business, committee member Jenny Cropper-Rines said establishing a contact sheet for community clubs and organizations was discussed at the most recent Strategic Planning meeting.

“What we have for contact information for the clubs is simply names, addresses and phone numbers,” she said.

Rines said the idea of compiling a distribution list for club contacts to assist with communitywide initiatives, such as the property owners’ survey or election participation, has been suggested in the past.

The goal would be to collect current contact information for club leadership.

“If we took the list of contact information that we have for the person we have in the club and divided it between us it would be maybe five phone calls a piece,” she said.

Marketing Coordinator Julie Malinowski said the bulk of club contact data is collected by the Recreation and Parks Department.

“When they’re doing the room reservations, they provide that information,” she said.

Malinowski said a number of community organizations lack the need to book space through the recreation department.

“So we’re really reliant on those organizations providing the contact information,” she said.

Rines asked Malinowski to send her the current club contact list to assess what information should be added.

“It can’t be that big of a job — there’s not that many clubs,” she said.

Committee member Marlene Ott turned to the idea of issuing an official welcome announcement for new residents.

“Just so folks would know who their new neighbors are on their street,” she said. “Is that a privacy issue?”

Malinowski said new residents currently receive a welcome packet from the membership department that contains general information about the area and passes to community facilities.

“My question is can you put something on there that welcomes them to the community?” she said.

“We don’t have anything like that,” Malinowski said.

Ott acknowledged in some instances new residents may prefer to remain private.

“It is a matter of public record,” she said. “You can search by address but not by name.”

Wheatley cautioned approval would be needed before unveiling identities of recent property purchasers.

Rines envisioned potential permission procedures but also expressed reservations.

“When they send back the information from the re-sale packet, there could be a check box that says, ‘Would you be interested in being on an announcement list,’” she said. “But I think that’s a maintenance nightmare and I wouldn’t open that can of worms.”

Changing topics, Wheatley revived earlier discussions about establishing a texting program for the police department to notify residents in case of an emergency.

“Has that ever been revisited with the new police chief?” she said.

Marketing and Public Relations Director Josh Davis said former Ocean Pines Police Chief Dave Massey had considered the approach.

“He said at that time the cost wasn’t worth the benefit,” Davis said.

Wheatley said her experiences with similar programs using email in other communities proved successful.

“It’s a very effective tool to be able to communicate with your neighbors in a short amount of time,” she said. “It would be a lovely idea to consider if it was affordable.”

Davis said an alternative approach could be to employ the Northstar club management software.

“NorthStar has an app that we can use, but that service won’t be live until the private side of the website is activated, which were working on,” he said.

The committee also highlighted strong returns from the recently issued property owners’ survey.

While the roughly 1,500 survey responses received to this point provide a good sample size, additional replies are being sought from the 31-40 year old demographic.

The next virtual Communications Committee meeting is scheduled on Nov. 18 at 10 a.m.