What possible harm would come if a list was available of all owners? If someone really wanted to know what real estate you owned, all one would have to do is go to the Lee County Court House and look at the public record. As far as getting unwanted contact, that's just part of the society in which we now live. How many pieces of junk mail to we get everyday, or how many spam emails do we receive? It's pretty easy to ignore what you don't want to read. I recycle the junk mail and put the unwanted spam in my email spam folder. If that's the greatest challenge we face daily, life is pretty easy. On the positive front, having a list of owners would be very helpful in communicating our common interests. Yes, I know it's the law to not make such lists readily available so it's rather a moot point unless the law is changed. But having the website here published in "our" Sandscript for those who might be interested doesn't seem like a bad idea on the surface. The problem is that, even though we pay for it's publication, it really is an instrument of the resort owners ie. the Hospitality group. They have no interest in undermining their market share of rental income. I'm not sure of the role Hilton plays in it's publication, but as the management group that oversees resales, they have no interest in publishing such information either. I do like getting it because it reminds me of one of the best places on the planet, but it's a pretty worthless publication other than that.

This morning I had several calls asking me if Susan, our President, was telling us we can no longer communicate and list units on our wonderful web site.

Be assured, we live in the USA, and no one person can shut our web site down just by talking out loud without looking at the law.
Susan is very close to our fine management group, I have seen her in action during my service to the board, and found her taking Hilton side repeatedly, and always rejected my ideas for needed improvements that Hilton did not agree with.
She is opposed to fact that we can continue having our own web without her control.
She is a very nice lady, but very opinionated.
Sorry to say.

Therefore rest assured, I am not counting on help from Susan in any of our arrangements to keep the owners money in the owners own pockets.

An owner asked me:
Who gave the sole right to rent and sell our units to Hilton and the front office so they could make 35-40% commissions on the owner's income?
You will find the answer in minutes 8-10 years ago with a motion by Mr. Jackson that all rights are given to the two (Hilton and Hospitality) by a majority of that present board under Jackson. (My vote with one other member Mr. McElroy were in minority) and the sole right to sales went to Hospitality, and the sole rights to rentals to Hilton.
It made for a very cozy deal for the 2 management companies.

So the board actually has their hands tied, History shows they have done their damage, and it continues,
and this is why Susan has to follow suit. Sad enough that the owner’s interests are not considered.
We need a board by the owners and for the owners.
We all need to study how we got from a board with rights to make decisions in the 80’s to a board ruled by consent and minutes telling the board what they cannot do.

Stand up for the owners!

Carl Appelberg

One correction to the above:
The board under Jackson gav sole rights to Hilton for Sales, and sole rights to Hospitality, the front office, for Rentals. The lions divided the catch.
The board could look into a possible experation date on that agreement to save us, or was it for the life of our Casa Ybel arrangements for a an eventual termination of the Casa Ybel arrangements some years from now?
Carl Appelberg

Thanks for your input Carl and others

I think the chances of getting an owners list are slim to none and not worth pursuing with the current timeshare laws.

I wonder if our present boards could find a way to get the OWNERS website address into the Sandscript each time its published?? Who has the final say-so on what can be published in it?? If its Hospitality or Hilton, we're probably out of luck unless our present boards pursue it vigorously. I would like to know the names of board members who are unwilling to do so and their reasons.

We are original owners of two weeks at Casa and one at South Seas. On occasions when we were unable to use our weeks it was easy to rent ( and save $$$) through Carl's site. The wish list is also a neat option. The site is a great way for owners to express ideas and discuss issues.

If our present boards/ Hilton/Hospitality don't see fit to helping ALL owners trade/sell/rent among themselves in Carl's OWNER website, perhaps its time to go public and advertise our site in Goggle along side of Casa's ads for rentals, weddings, etc. " RENT DIRECTLY FROM CASA YBEL OWNERS, SAVE 40/50 % !!! "

Walt,

That's a great idea! A little competition with Hilton could do us well. I wonder what the costs would be? One thought: If we ever did decide to go that route, we certinly would then have to have this website password protected. If not, the owner's forum would be clogged with people asking for this and that week to rent.

FYI/ It's a Federal Law(Buckley Amendment) that this type of information cannot be made public so I'm not sure that trying to post owner list on the web would work. Someone needs to investigate the law before we do "pie in the sky wishing" to publish private information. Week 23 owner (some 25 years)

Does anyone but me wonder how big a doofus carl is? If the board gave exclusive rights to Hilton for sales and exclusive rights to hospitatily for rentals howw can owners list on this website? The truth is you can rent loan or sell your unit any way you wish to!

Hi Jones. I'm not sure if anyone wonders anything about Carl other than the fact that he had the foresight to develop this website and owner's forum. Maybe that qualifies as doofus in your book. Anyway, I think that what the board did was to allow Hospitality and Hilton the priviledge of being the exclusive agents for owners for rentals and sales, meaning that the board would not endorse or promote any other entity and refer all efforts in that direction to the management companies. That certainly doesn't preclude any owner from renting or selling his unit in any manner that he finds acceptable. In fact, as a long time owner, I remember being solicited by a company called The Vaction Shoppe for rental of my unit. They gave a guaranteed rental income if you listed your unit with them a few months in advance. Hospitality has done this of late as well with some prime time weeks early in the year. Since the board(s) have a relationship with management in this regard, it makes it difficult for owners to learn about or utilize other venues when they sell or rent.

I think that calling Carl a duffus [defined in the dictionary as incompetent and stupid] is completely uncalled for.
He has provided a voice and a forum for owners to learn about Casa Ybel and the "politics" over the years,while providing a service for all of us at no cost.
We do not have to agree with him but surely we can respect his selfless input without submitting to name calling.
I have never met the man and do not agree with everything he says,but I do respect what he has done over the years to keep us informed.
On the exclusivity rights as far as I know exclusive rights were never granted to Hilton or anyone else,and they certainly have no rights to my weeks.

I haven't read through the whole thread, but frankly I am not surprised we were denied. We can still ask people to register on the forum and that will at least knock down some spammers(not sure if that is an issue) from the forum. I wonder if we could petition them to allow a form be handed out upon check-in that would basically be a voluntary form by members to mail to you with appropriate disclaimers that you can create an account for them. Just a couple of ideas.

Gerry, I imagine that management and the board would deny a request to supply owners any access to this forum upon check-in. What I have taken upon myself a couple of times is to place such a notice in each owners mailbox by their front door when I've been down. I use the "owners in residence" list that we get when we check in to target people who are using their units during my stay. At least it reaches a few people that way. Maybe if more of us would do that during their stay it would reach nearly every owner in time. I just printed a few information sheets before I left home to take with me.

Surely we are putting the cart before the horse here. All I have been talking about is passwording this forum so that our discussions are kept private from the general public. What we do about notifying other owners about this site is another issue.

We have been critisised for sometimes putting negative views on this forum, and thereby possibly putting off potential renters from the public. We all agree that we need to have a forum for two way discussion on issues - whether they be negative or positive, but we need to keep the discussions amongst ourselves. Therefore, passwording is the only solution, and the sooner we do it the better.

Furthermore, does the 'Board' own this forum?

Just a little info to keep a level platform

I bought the web site (as a board member)in order
to establish better communications amongst ownersw,
thinking it would be a natural.

However we have had a series of boards always with 7 members that never could see beyond the board meeting room and were encouraged to slow down communications.

We could not get a forum and were obstructed in preventing the takeover by a second management party, now the lucky owners of all our amenities because Mariner needed a fast deal that would not allow us owners to tie Casa Ybel together but created a split with advantage to our Hilton Management group.

The board refused ownership of the web site, but I kept it anyway to prevent large future surprises.

We have come a long way, and our 500,000 click to our web was passed recently.

If you go to Google Timeshare Sanibel we are on top of the list,but we are still kept as a secret by the workings of the board,there must be a reason.

Thanks for clicking on to us!

One last thought. We would not need an owners' list IF our board, or a board member who supports all owners, would write a short article for the SandScript acknowledging the OWNERS website, and giving a brief history, its good and bad points. Owners could then judge for themselves if the site has merit. I think it would be of interest to all owners to know who on our boards would oppose doing this. Also, who has veto power over what gets printed in the SanScript??

I just listed our week 19 for rental on the owners site. If it rents, great. If not, we'll give it to a relative or friend to use, or use it ourselves. Very flexible. We hate to board and leave behind our aging Peke for that week. It is unfortunate (and aggravating) that our ad reaches only a very small percentage of owners.