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THE TOP 5 COMMITTEES TO CREATE IN YOUR COMMUNITY BY TOWNSQ While the board is responsible for ensuring that the overall community runs smoothly, residents can volunteer to oversee a particular aspect of the community—or in other words, they can join committees. These committees ease the burden on boards while allowing homeowners to participate in the community at a lower level of commitment, making them beneficial for everyone in your association. If your community doesn't have committees, you could ask homeowners which ones they'd like to participate in via a survey or by creating a poll in an app like TownSq. Otherwise, you can begin the committee-creation process by considering whether any of these options would fit the needs of your community. WELCOME COMMITTEE Consider a welcome committee with homeowners willing to stop by and say hello to new neighbors; members could also provide a high-level overview of the rules and community processes in addition to making a social visit. This keeps your first interaction from being a violation letter—that's definitely not starting off on the right foot! NEWSLETTER COMMITTEE A newsletter committee can take responsibility for formatting the community newsletter and coming up with some of the topics to include; the board will still need to approve the final version before it is distributed, but having someone else help with the preparation lets others be involved while having less for the board to complete. SOCIAL COMMITTEE A social committee can help plan a community garage sale, block party, or other neighborhood gathering. They could also assist with creating polls to ask others the types of events they are interested in. Once you know people are interested in a particular event, another poll can be used to narrow down the event date or venue. The committee can then make the official announcement with a mix of traditional and digital media, such as yard signs in front of the clubhouse, or posted on your community's website or mobile app.

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