Rancho Santa Fe Association board retreat

By Roxana Foxx

RSF Association board president

Last week the RSF Association board held its annual retreat to discuss our goals and priorities for the upcoming year. The retreat is a two-day planning session where the board gets the opportunity to sit down together and discuss issues facing the community, as well as potential community enhancement projects that we will need to address in the upcoming year. I was pleased to see that the entire board felt that everything we do should be looked at with the thought that we are all one community with a common goal and that goal should be to make the Covenant the most desirable place to live as possible.

As community members and organizations, we sometimes get caught up in the thought of us and them and forget that we are all part of the same community. What is good for all of our community organizations, including the Community Center, Golf Club, Garden Club, Tennis Club, School, Historical Society, Riding Club, Art Guild, Historical Society, youth sports groups and the RSF Foundation, is good for all of us. If one of our organizations has a success we all benefit.

With this in mind, as a part of our retreat this year we had a joint lunch between our board and the Golf Club Board of Governors. The intent of the meeting was to get to know each other better and explore ways that we can draw upon mutual resources to better serve the membership. A lot of the discussion centered on what a great asset the clubhouse dining facility is and how little it is used by Association members that do not belong to the Golf Club. One of the projects this year will be to get the word out that all Association members have the right to use the clubhouse restaurant and are encouraged to experience the wonderful new improvements to the menu and service.

The main priority of the board for the upcoming year will be to focus our attention on improving community awareness of the Covenant. Improved awareness includes making our members aware of the tremendous amenities that our community has to offer, as well as getting the word out in general about what a wonderful place the Rancho Santa Fe Covenant is to live. We hope that this increased awareness will promote better participation in the community, as well as an increase in demand that will in turn help to improve the real estate values for our members.

Additional priorities include addressing the fire risk to our community due to the significant number of dead and dying trees as well as finding ways to make the Osuna Ranch and adobe house accessible to more of our members. We will also be devoting a great deal of time to working with the County to secure funding to improve our roads. The County will be completing the resurfacing of over 8 miles of roadways in the Covenant in August but many roads remain in poor conditions. It is a top priority of this board to secure funding to improve all of the roads in the Covenant.

I was very pleased with the spirit of cooperation and enthusiasm during the retreat and I look forward to making some significant enhancements to our community in the upcoming year.