hoysalaace

[hoysalaace]

HOYSALA ACE FIRST NEWSLETTER

All,

We would like to share the great news that after a year with an informal association we are now Officially Registered Association. With the new association coming into effect, we would like to take a glimpse of our journey from where we started to where we are today and look at what lies ahead of us.

Thank you to all who helped us in coming all this way. I don’t want to mention names as it would not be right if I take one and omit another, but I would like to say we had a good team who worked in unison and to achieve a goal to make this a better place.

Origin of this association and what led us to start maintaining the society ourselves

In September 2019, we were told by Hoysala that they cannot maintain this society anymore and left us with no choice but to start maintaining the association. We were asked to take over without handing any documentation or understanding of the situation, it was difficult to really take that step. However, since we got no option, we started with basics like Housekeeping and Security. We also had to service our DG and we did that with the small one. A nominal amount of ₹2,000.00 was charged for each flat at this time so we can buy diesel and pay for the expenses of services, housekeeping and security. We also had to get drums for collection of garbage.

October 2019

We recognized early in the game that we must work on many things but first is to put the house in order. We started with forming an informal association and setting up roles to keep us going. We formed a core team to work together and take right decisions. We also appointed few key staff like maintenance manager, Swimming pool maintenance and Gardener. While we were still trying to take baby steps, we were hit with a huge bill from BESCOM for common areas. This was taken up with Hoysala but since they were not ready to pay immediately, we had to clear the backlog else our Deepawali would have been spent in dark. Deepawali started with the first festival after we took over and we gave bonus to our staff.

November 2019

November started by celebrating Kannada Rajyotsava where we had a small celebration and talk about how Bangalore was years back and the changes we have seen. We had some of our elders taking us back to history.  Tube lights were fixed in many areas of basement where the lights were not adequate. Here I must mention that Ramesh RP played a very important and key role to ensure we get the best fittings and at a reasonable rate. Going to market and buying motors for rainwater pumps, getting diesel pump and carrying them around is something I will never forget. I learnt a lot on how to negotiate and keep our cost to minimum. We thought all the problems are resolved but it never stopped or still facing. We had to get our borewell motor pump repaired and to avoid the amount of spending on tankers, it was decided to get a new borewell motor pump while we get the old one repaired and kept as spare. All under the supervision of Ramesh RP and few elders we were able to save up to 60% of the cost.

December 2019

To add to our security and to manage our maintenance account, we invited MyGate to our society to utilize the solution. MyGate is used widely today for visitor management, maintenance collection and service management. The lifts were not maintained and since Kone did not get payments from Hoysala, they were not ready to service the lifts. We engaged with Hoysala and Kone to get this resolved.

January 2020

We got into an Annual Maintenance Contract with Kone to ensure our lifts are running safe. We replaced lights in lifts to make it look better. We wanted to get one round of paint done but holding as there are still many interior works happening and this will damage further.

February 2020

As we continued to work as a team and holding all the cash in-house, we thought it would not be safe to continue as-is. Hence, we opened a bank account with 3 joint members to help managing the accounts. This was linked to our MyGate ERP so all maintenance payments can be done online.

March 2020

Just before we had this pandemic, we got all our sumps and overhead tanks cleaned. To ensure we are safe, we took measures of lockdown in our society with minimal entry to key services. We got sink installed at the gate so all can wash their hands before entering the premises.

April 2020

Continuation of the situation, we got some basis stuff like contact less sanitizers, wheelchair, stretcher, first-aid kit etc.

May 2020

We worked on improving our society security with installation of CCTV in main areas and lifts. This worked involved a lot of effort. We also got boom barrier installed so we can control the vehicle traffic.

June 2020

We engaged an electrical contractor to get auto changeover for DG. This work involved getting the required cabinets and parts. The work is still on as there were few other emergencies that happened and now, we are almost to get this done. Hope to finish this activity by Sept end. We engaged with service providers like Airtel to service our apartments. Today we have a single DTH dish in our society.

July 2020

Worked on getting sensor installed for water controls. It was not an easy task as there was lot of piping changes that needs to be done. Almost 90% of work has been completed.

August 2020

We engaged with Lawyer to form the association and with few of the documentation work, we are now able to get this done as formal. We got gates and canopies where required.

September and beyond

Get the formal bank account and few of the other works as below (not limited to)

·         Safety equipment like Road Humps, Mirrors, Pillar Guards etc.

·         Covering ducts to make sure basement is clean.

·         Arresting overhead tanks leaks and major leaks.

[hoysalaace]

From the past 8 months we are maintaining the society where we were left with no fund. Since September, we started working on with servicing DG and having some basics like MyGate for our visitor and maintenance management, Lifts which was in bad shape where there was no service and we managed to get those in order with AMC.

Due to lockdown some of the works we intended slow down but in this month we made some good progress. Thanks to Ramesh uncle to negotiate some of the contracts we gave for CCTV, Boom Barrier, Water pump service and Drain water management.

We were able to use our staff Achuth, Joktha and Gowda to get some of the work done rather than outsourcing them. I say they are doing a better job putting interest and treating this as our property.

CCTV

Though our intention was to have CCTV in all floors, due to the cost constraints we had to go with phase wise approach of having this done in Basement, Ground floor and Podium. Lift which was one of the main area we wanted to cover is not happening at this stage as the cost of wiring was coming to a lot. We are working to get alternative approach for the same.

Boom Barrier

We are in the process of implementing Boom Barrier for which the work as seen above are started. You can see on the above picture where Gowda is filling the core with concrete where the barrier post will be installed. Once we have this we will see a more secured entry and visitor management. For ease of residents we will also have RF ID which will automate the gates. This will also avoid unauthorized entry of vehicles and guests.

MyGate

With the use fo MyGate, we see that most of the visitors are tracked. We also know where domestic helps are working and all the deliverables are also tracked. With the help of ERP module, we are able to take advantage of online maintenance payments, automatic generation of invoice and reminder of payments. We advise everyone to install and configure MyGate so we can track all entries and help for safe and secure society.

Sticker

We have got new stickers to easily identify resident vehicles. This was distributed today for both Car and Two wheelers based on the amount of parking they were allotted as per Hoysala. This was not a small task and the preparation by all the volunteers who worked and spent their personal time over the weekend. Thanks to Avinash for sitting and working on organising the day. It took nearly 4-5 hrs (till midnight) so we had a smooth day.

Thanks to all the volunteers helping in this activity.

Many more activities are planned in coming months which we will share these details.

Hoysala ACE Core Group