Rimfire Lodge Homeowners Association
(Mailing address) PO Box 48, Elkins, WV 26241
(Physical address) 7 Rimfire Road, Snowshoe, WV 26209
July 8, 2022
Dear Rimfire Lodge Homeowners,
I hope everybody is making it through what appears to be an improvement in the pandemic. I have been very delinquent in getting news out to you. I hate to admit it, but it has been a year since my last letter. I can come up with so many excuses, but the pure fact of the matter is that I should have put more priority on communication with our homeowners. I promise to do better. Overall, the building looks amazing. I have received a tremendous amount of compliments on how much better our building looks and even smells than any other building on the mountain. We always get lots of compliments on the Christmas decorations that Jeff and Sherrie put out each year. If you have not had the chance to see the building between Thanksgiving and the first week of January, you have to make the effort to get up here. People that have been selling their units (I can’t imagine why they would do that!) have been getting a significantly higher amount in the last several months. I feel like we are now one of the most desirable buildings to own in. It appears that our long path of improvement and renovation is paying off. And now, on to the news…
• Our meeting date is Saturday August 6th, 2022 at 9:30am on the same day as Treasure on the Mountain as usual. The official notice will be coming soon, but save the date. There will be a Rimfire Homeowners’ barbeque dinner on Friday, August 5th at 6pm in the Hearth Room, hosted by Jeff and Sherrie Moss. They asked to be able to do this as a thank you to all of the homeowners that are always so helpful and appreciative of what they do! The meeting will be in person and in the Hearth Room again. Treasure on the Mountain will be in person as well. If you have not bought your ticket, do it right away. They are on schedule to sell out even earlier this year. All tickets have to be purchased online. You have the option of selecting a charity to “buy your ticket through”. There are very good and worthy groups. I will ask that you consider buying through the Shavers Fork Fire and Rescue Department. They are group that protects our building.
• We are trying to set up a zoom meeting to go over the budget and answer questions that owners have prior to our annual meeting. I am still trying to set a date for the meeting. We will be sending out a notice with the date and time.
• We are working with Snowshoe to get the view on the west facing units back by taking out the trees and replacing them with shrubs that will not grow very tall. It will be August before that happens though.
• Those of you with mountain bikes have a new and improved area to store your bikes. We are already ordering more racks to double the capacity.
• Our building will have an address change. To make emergency response more accurate and efficient, addresses are being updated and corrected. We are going to update you as soon as we have the new address. It will NOT be 7 Rimfire Road. Actually, there is not a Rimfire Road, so that address will be disappearing.
• We did not replace any fireplaces this spring. There was a fire in Allegheny Springs involving a fire place and we put a hold on the replacement project until we found out more. Everything is fine and the replacement fireplace install was not to blame. We are going to get that program back on track.
• I am sure you have all heard of and experienced the difficulties of finding people to work in this day and time. Rimfire is having the same difficulty. We continue to have Jeff and Sherrie Moss as well as Kelly Queen. We have gone through several people this past year that have come, worked, and left. If any of you have somebody that you think would be a fit with our Maintenance Team, please let us know. We would be happy to talk with them. We have a great benefit package and pay more than other employers on the mountain.
• The parking system is working great. We added a call service that answers 24 hours a day. It has taken a tremendous burden off of our maintenance staff. We are adding a feature that allows guests to make their payment on PayPal if their card does not work.
• Do you have an electric vehicle? We are adding charging stations in the garage. We hope to have this completed before ski season. What about an electric bike? I just found out about this and Jeff Moss is already looking into it. This should be something we can provide at the bike storage area in the garage.
• The renovation continues in Rimfire. Take a look at the chandelier and the grate railing that overlooks the lower lobby. The North Building is complete with this phase of overhaul. We are finishing up the first floor of the South Building and working on getting bids for the 2nd through 4th floor.
• CityNet is still talking with us about continuous wifi throughout the building. They want a 10 year contract. We on the board are not happy with that. Since when has anything technological in nature lasted 10 years? See the point? We will continue to talk with them and see how it goes. More to come as it becomes available.
• We are still waiting on the new doors for the main and Village entrances. We ordered these at the beginning of March and are still waiting.
• A lot more insulation has been installed in the attic. The entire building will reap the benefits of this. There were areas with little to no insulation. We also added significant ventilation to protect the roof and help prevent ice damming and leaks.
• New vending machines have been installed with the ability to use credit cards. We have cut back to machines being only on the first floor of the North and South buildings.
• The hot tub renovation did not happen this spring. We could not find a contractor to do the work. Jeff did improve some of the fencing around the hot tubs though. We will be adding more fencing to keep out people not staying in Rimfire. Yes, this is a problem and we are working on it.
• With the advent of a lot of support animals and our building condo documents prohibiting pets, a policy is being written and will be finalized soon. It will be posted on our website. Also, there have been a considerable number of contractors in the building for both the HOA and individual owners. A policy pertaining to contractor requirements will forthcoming soon. We will keep you apprised of those and other policies. The existing policies can be located on our website for your use in the Documents section. We will let you know as soon as new ones are posted.
• We have had an issue with people parking in the front loop on both a short term and extended length of time including overnight. The Shavers Fork Fire and Rescue Department has asked very nicely to have us stop that practice. We will be booting and towing vehicles to stop this practice. If you use a housekeeping service that is doing this, please advise them that we will be towing their cars at their expense. The homeowner utilizing the contractor parking in the loop will be subject to fines and revocation of parking privileges as well.
• The last thing I have is basically bragging about what our Maintenance Staff have done in the last year. In this letter, I am only trying to hit the high spots, but do not have the space to list everything. Even the brass valves for the fire department standpipes in the stairwells are polished. The garage stays (mostly) free of dirt and gravel. The Hearth Room floor gets sealed with polyurethane each year. The old drapes and blinds have been taken down to let the sun in. Windows are actually being cleaned for the lobbies. The point is, I could go on, and on, and on, well, I think you get it. We are the luckiest building on the mountain to have the people we do.
• I know, I said last item in the previous bullet. We had to accept a resignation from a long time board member Geoff Truslow. Geoff represented the Commercial Owners in Rimfire with the largest portion of ownership being Imperium Blue. The commercial property formerly owned by Imperium Blue was sold to The Big V Property Group. The new owner will not be contracting with Geoff for property management. Geoff has been a valuable member on our board and always provided thoughtful insights on issues facing the board. I want to thank Geoff for all of his hard work and dedication to Rimfire. The board has appointed Caroline Dollard to fill the remainder of Geoff’s term. Caroline will be running for the board to represent the commercial interests. Please welcome Caroline to our board.
Believe it or not, this is the condensed version of what has been going on and what may matter to you. The second document referred to as the narrative, goes into more detail. You can pick and choose what you want to learn more about. I hope you consider all of the information worth your time. With the complexities of this building and being 23 years old already, there is a lot to do and take care of. We are fortunate to have very good people on staff that care for our building as if it is their own. The money going into the building is making your property worth more every day. We are doing our best to make this the best building on the mountain. Thank you for your support!
Sincerely,
Kevin Elvin
CC: Kevin Elvin –President – Rimfire Lodge Executive Board- SUZandKEV@aol.com
Abdallah Malouf – Vice President – Rimfire Lodge Executive Board – amalouf.rf@gmail.com
Caroline Dollard –Rimfire Lodge Executive Board – cdollard@bigv.com
Meredith McNeely – Rimfire Associaition Manager-Mountain Life (850) 797-9058 –
Meredith@mountainlife.net
Jeff Moss – Maintenance Supervisor, jeff.rimfiremaintenance@gmail.com