WorldMark Involvement
I purchased my WorldMark account in Las Vegas in July of 2001. Since that time, my family has booked 341 nights in 27 different WorldMark resorts and 11 exchanges. That is an average of nearly 42 nights per year!Immediately after my purchase, I did what so many people do. I went home and typed "WorldMark the Club" into an internet search engine. In those days there was not a lot of information available online, but my search did lead me to one discussion forum. On that forum I got to "know" many wonderful owners who were incredibly helpful in teaching new owners about the Club.
The more I learned about WorldMark, the more I wanted to know. Once I had learned all I could from Owner Education classes and online sources, I began to study the Club's Governing Documents -- Vacation Program Agreement, Declaration of Vacation Owner Program, Articles of Incorporation, Bylaws, Guidelines, and Management Agreement. I then requested copies of the official Minutes of all of the meetings of the Board of Directors (this was before they were available online) and studied those -- nearly twenty years worth. I know WorldMark.
When the structure of the Vacation Forum at the official Club website began to change, making it more difficult to ask questions and get answers, I sought out a different place for sharing WorldMark knowledge. In late 2003 or early 2004, I discovered what has since become www.wmowners.com. For the last five or six years I have been very active on that site, continuing to learn from other owners and sharing my own WorldMark knowledge.
I was thrilled when, in the spring of 2007, I learned that the Board of Directors had called for an Advisory Committee made up of WorldMark owners to assist the Board in their duties. I was honored to be one of the original five members chosen for that committee, and served on it in 2007-2008.
In 2008, I was urged by other owners to take up the cause of an independent Board of Directors by becoming a candidate for the Board. I was pleasantly surprised by how well I did in that first election -- counting only direct owner votes, excluding the Developer's vote and all proxies (whether held by the Board or by individuals), I out-polled both of the incumbents. Of course the Developer vote and the Board proxies went exclusively to the Incumbents, keeping me off the Board. (For more detailed analysis of the 2008 election results, click here.)
