Please haul your own furniture to the dump!

Latest News and Updates

The Agenda for our November meeting has been posted on the Website and in Pilera (Remember, Pilera is the primary source of all Woodbridge information and documentation.  The Woodbridge website, and this blog, will eventually be disabled.)

Our November meeting will be primarily budget planning.  If there is time, at the end, we will capture updates on the current running projects, but there will not be time for New Issues.  If you have maintenance or repair issues with your unit, please use Pilera to "Submit Maintenance Request" under the Maintenance tab in Pilera.  If you're having trouble getting in to Pilera, please do not hesitate to contact Erika via e-mail or phone (802.578.2948).

The November meeting will be held on the 15th, at the Police Station, and it will start at 6:00 PM.  Visitors are welcome to attend, but will not be invited to participate in the discussion so that the Board can dedicate all their time to discussing financial and budgetary issues.

The Website and Pilera have both had some updates, which you are invited to check out.

Welcome to Pilera

Greetings Woodbridge,

As many of you may already know from attending Board meetings or reading the Minutes of those meetings, the Board has been working on ways to more efficiently and effectively communicate with you, the members of the Woodbridge community.  We have also been working on improving workflow or the management of the projects that go on within the community; everything from individual unit repairs to general community maintenance.

With a grant provided by Covered Bride Apartments, Woodbridge Condo Association is trying out an online property management tool that will hopefully assist us in our efforts to boost productivity and improve communication.  Our hope is that you will check it out and give it a try.

So let’s get started.  This new tool is called Pilera. You can find it by going to www.pilera.com.

When you get there, at the top right corner of the page you will see “Login”.  Click there.

The next page will invite you to enter some login information.  Your “Member Login” is your e-mail address.  If we do not have an e-mail address for you then you will not be able to log in. Your password (until you change it) is “changemenow” (all lower case, all one word, and do not include the quotes).  Once you have typed in this information, click "login".  Before you log out, you should change your password.

If you are having trouble logging in for the first time, please feel free to call Erika (802.578.2948) or send her an e-mail (erika@mellmann.com) explaining what problem you are experiencing.

The Pilera page is broken up into two columns.  The main column is where you will see whatever information there is.  Along the right hand column you will see either your name or the name of your spouse.  If you would like both names to appear here, please let Erika know.

In the top "box" by your name, you will see what Pilera knows about where you live.  Your building name - this is just for functional purposes.  We have five buildings; Ledgewood, Pinewood, and Woodbridge 1, 2, and 3 (1 is the multicolored building, 2 is the second building on the left, and 3 is the building on the right that backs up to Ledgewood).  You can ignore floor - Pilera is designed also with apartment management in mind where Floor is pertinent information.  Apartment refers to you unit number.

Below this information you will see your e-mail address and an option to "change my password".  This is where you can go to change your password to something other than "changemenow".

The next box down is "Office Hours"...ignore that.

Below that is the Board of Directors.  This is your serving Condo Board with their phone number and e-mail information.

The last box is called Contacts and includes an e-mail for our Bookkeeper, Paula, as well as the web address for both our current blog and website.  It is expected that both of these will go away once Pilera is firmly established as the "go-to" place for all things Woodbridge.  The website and blog, while nice tools, are dependent on a somewhat technically skilled individual who can act as website manager.  For the past many years this has been Erika because she enjoys doing this kind of thing, but no new volunteers have ever stepped forward.  By switching completely to an online tool, such as Pilera, all Woodbridge business can easily pass from one “generation” to the next with much less loss of data, information, and “corporate memory”.  By using a central source of information, Woodbridge business remains consistent and continuous regardless of who is on the Board and what their technical skills or interests are.

Let’s take a brief tour of what is available in Pilera.

Across the top of the Pilera page you will see a blue strip with seven links; Announcements, Events, Files, Packages, Maintenance, Marketplace, and Contact.

Announcements comes up automatically when you log in.  Here you will see any announcements that pertain to the community.  If you see “* There are no accouncements for your community at this time.” then there is no news to report. (and, yes, there is a typo in that sentence and we’re working with the website developer to fix it)

Packages you can ignore because those are handled through the mailbox system, or UPS, that you are already familiar with.

Contact is pretty straight forward.  It is a way of communicating with any member of the Board via e-mail.  Select the "Manager" that you want to contact, indicate the nature of the contact (question, comment, other), and then type in your message and click "submit".  An e-mail will be sent to that person.

Events will be a good place to see what events are planned.  If you have an event that you would like to "advertise", use the Contact option and send the information to any member of the Board.  For now, Erika will handle these updates, but as more and more people become familiar and comfortable with how Pilera works other members of the Board will be able to make changes just as easily as she can.

Marketplace is an online swap meet for residents and owners of Woodbridge.  If you have something that you want to get rid of, you can "Post Item" at the marketplace.  Give it a title, describe the item, list a price, provide contact information, and even post a picture.

Files is where you will find a LOT of Woodbridge information.  You can see the terms being served by each member of the Board, see the agenda for the next meeting, access copies of the Bylaws and Administrative Rules and Regulations, and even access Association Minutes dating back to February 2006 (the most current Minutes are at the end of the list).

Maintenance is where you can see what projects and work orders are, or have been, assigned to your unit.  This is where you can submit a new work order (click on "Submit Maintenance Request") or access some basic information about current or closed work orders.  If nothing appears in this page, then you don't have any work orders to review.  When you submit a maintenance request, an e-mail is sent to a member of the Board and it is added to the next agenda.

To log out, click on "Logout" located right below your name, kind of to the right, along that right hand column.  Before you logout, however, be sure to change your password.

That's all there is to it.  It's a pretty simple interface, and it gives you access to timely information.  It is a tool that will help the Board manage workflow and help you to stay in the loop.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to contact a member of the Board.  If your questions are technical in nature you may want to contact Erika for now.

Updates

The UNapproved Minutes of the September meeting and a tentative Agenda for October have been posted to the Woodbridge website.