Ocean Pines Community Survey Planned For Next Month

BERLIN — A coming-soon community survey was the major topic of discussion during a presentation by Strategic Planning Committee Co-Chairman Bernie McGorry last week.

“We’re very close to [releasing] … the property owner’s survey,” he said, adding later that the committee was targeting a release in August.

McGorry said committee members, Board liaison Colette Horn, and some Ocean Pines staff aided in the development of a draft survey, which is meant to guide strategic planning over the next three-to-five years.

He said a strategic plan, among other things, should help better align the board and management on key principles and directions, and help communicate that direction more clearly.

McGorry, who previously worked in marketing for the Hershey Company, Kraft Foods and Perdue Farms, offered an example of how strategic planning can work in the business world.

“We would decide that we’re not going to launch any new products this year – we’re going to focus on current products,” he said. “Six months through the year, the VP of sales comes up and says, ‘We need new products.’ No, we made the decision [that] we’re going to focus on selling the products we introduced last year.

“It’s no different than amenities,” he continued. “You can invest in current amenities, or you can invest in new amenities.”

McGorry later added, “We probably don’t have the dollars to do both right away, but based on what the property owners’ input is, we can establish clear strategic priorities and plans.”

In working toward the survey of Ocean Pines homeowners, McGorry said the committee collected data from Association department heads and committee chairs, and benchmarked neighboring and similar communities including Bayside, GlenRiddle, Montgomery Village, and Crofton.

“We’re a little bit different than a lot of them … but you learn some things by looking at some other homeowner’s associations, and we’ll be applying those lessons learned,” he said.

The next step, McGorry said, is a survey of Ocean Pines property owners.

“The timing of [the strategic plan] is really going to be based on when we get the survey results back,” he said. “We’d love to get this done before the budgeting process … but it’s really going to be based on how many surveys we get back and when we get them back.

“Once we finish up the survey, we’ll be able to really say, ‘Here’s a summary of all our work’ … and hopefully it’ll be just really crystal clear on what the strategy should be,” he added.

McGorry said the current plan is to release the survey in late August through October or November in a hybrid manner, both using the online “Survey Monkey” platform, and with hard copies available upon request. The estimated cost is $1,500-$3,000.

He said the survey would have about 15 questions and should take roughly 15 minutes to complete.

“We have a committee meeting tomorrow where we’re going to look at it one more time … and we’re going to ask for any final homeowner, Board [or] staff input within the next week, and get it released,” he said. “We welcome anybody’s input.”

To contact McGorry about the survey, email [email protected].