Worldmark Owners - BOD

[riverdees05 Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close riverdees05]

Hello,

I’m sending this to everyone I’ve spoken to about Worldmark over the years, and you’re on the list.

I’m running for the Board of Directors of Worldmark in the upcoming election, and want to ask your support. I don’t want your vote, I want you to assign your proxy to me. I want to pool all the owner’s proxies I get and vote them for the independent (non Trendwest employee) candidate with the best chance of winning a seat on the board. Please consider writing my name in on the ballot as your PROXY AGENT. I’ll then vote all of our votes together for 1 candidate. If I get more than 30,000 proxies or so, I may vote them for 2 candidates. I’ve selected a committee of unbiased owners who are familiar with the issues to direct me how to vote. I don’t want this to look like a ruse to get votes for myself, I want to keep it above board. You can only assign proxies on the paper ballot, not the electronic one, so you’ll need to wait until it arrives in the mail.

75% of the owners toss the ballots, and another 12% give their proxies to the Trendwest dominated board. The few people who vote for specific candidates split their votes, and the incumbents wind up winning 100% of the time. That’s why Trendwest Corporation (the developer and management company of Worldmark) has 4 seats on the 5 man board. Us owners have a token rep who does nothing. That was less of a problem prior to Cendant purchasing Trendwest. Now we have a much hungrier beast trying to live on us owners. It’s resulted in smaller unit sizes in new resorts, lower availability (due to all the underutilized resorts they’ve added in Oklahoma, Galena and elsewhere), higher credit values (San Diego takes 15,000 credits for a 1 bedroom!), lower service and other problems. They are running Worldmark into the ground.

If we continue splitting our votes, we don’t stand a chance against this multi $billion corporation. We’ve got to vote them together.

There are about 2000 people I’ve helped over the years with Worldmark issues on this email list. Therefore, it’s possible that I mistakenly included you, or copied you more than once. If so, I apologize. Also, due to the sheer numbers, I may be slow in responding to your emails.

You can look up my qualifications and learn more about the issues by going to this link:


www.wmowners.com/forums


Please advise any friends you know who own Worldmark to give me their proxy, I promise you I’ll vote them in the owner’s best interest.

Thanks for listening.

Philip Abdouch
pabdouch@satx.rr.com

[roadsister Member Find all posts View Profile Close roadsister]

There is MUCH debate about this election on the www.worldmarktheclub.com forum...I would suggest that any worldmark owners go to the site and read some of the responses from the candidates when deciding what to do with their votes IF they aren't going to vote them theirselves.

[PA- Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PA-]

There is MUCH debate about this election on the www.worldmarktheclub.com forum...I would suggest that any worldmark owners go to the site and read some of the responses from the candidates when deciding what to do with their votes IF they aren't going to vote them theirselves.

The forum listed is controlled by the management company. What I mean is that the management company regularly deletes posts that they see as counter to their interests. So why use that forum, when an entirely uncensored forum exists. If you want the straight skinny, go to www.wmowners.com and skip the edited version. Any/all candidates, including the ones supported by the developer, are free to post their unedited comments on wmowners.com. So why mess with the edited version?

[shopgirl Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close shopgirl]

There is MUCH debate about this election on the www.worldmarktheclub.com forum...I would suggest that any worldmark owners go to the site and read some of the responses from the candidates when deciding what to do with their votes IF they aren't going to vote them theirselves.

Voting many votes together as owners is in the best interests of the owners. If you vote on your own, your vote is only one. The powers that be will have a slew of votes, so why not send your vote to a fellow owner, to make sure the best candidate gets the position? It makes no sense to send in your vote on your own and possibly vote against fellow owners and weaken their position against the developer. This is not about PA-, it is about owners banding together.

I have met Philip and talked to him on the phone many times. He has incredible integrity, he is a family man and has no strange motives for gathering proxies. I would trust him with my vote. He is a man that has a business background and is incredibly nice, why not give your vote to a person that has nothing to gain from having a board position or the votes to guarantee another's election.

Philip and I own at the same resort in Colorado, which is how I know him, besides our TUG connection. I have been looking into getting our resort in VRI, which would mean a change in management companies. I feel that the management company takes too much ownership of our resort after managing it for 25 years. The owner of the management company actually runs our meetings instead of the president. Philip does not want to change management. He feels that our manager caring that much is a good thing. Does that sound like a person who has an agenda? I am the one with the agenda, but I think being a VRI resort would be great for us as owners. Of course, when Philip asked what specifically I want to change, I could not really answer. Philip is very level-headed, unlike me. I am all over the place with my opinions. I rarely have a clear picture of what I want and change my mind frequently.

It is so important to give people the benefit of the doubt. Most people have good motives, especially those who want to volunteer for a position on a board. No one pays these people. Some people are suspicious of everything, but sometimes you have to trust that others have your best interests in mind because your best interests are also theirs. Because you share the commonality of Worldmark, you automatically benefit if another owner gets on the board. It is about protecting your investment and keeping the value of your ownership.

[roadsister Member Find all posts View Profile Close roadsister]

The forum listed is controlled by the management company. What I mean is that the management company regularly deletes posts that they see as counter to their interests. So why use that forum, when an entirely uncensored forum exists. If you want the straight skinny, go to www.wmowners.com and skip the edited version. Any/all candidates, including the ones supported by the developer, are free to post their unedited comments on wmowners.com. So why mess with the edited version?

Posts attacking individuals, other owners and other candidates are deleted, I will agree with you on that one. It would be the same on this site.

I would suggest to owners that want to make an informed decision to visit ALL the forums to read what candidates are writing and, among other things, determine how well they would be able to work together with others....Many postings are on the www.worldmarktheclub.com forum that give a very interesting insight to the candidates along with their bios if owners want to read.

An owner should be as informed as possible, especially if giving up their right to vote for the candidate THEY want.

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

While I don't own in this group of resorts, one important general principle in timesharing is that you NEVER want a board controlled by the developer or management company. Worldmark is now afflicted with a developer controlled board, made worse by the fact that the developer is now Cendant/Wyndham.

''Working together'' is NOT what I would look for at all in a candidate in such a situation. Translated that means being a toady for the developer. The qualitiies I would look for are an independent mind, being willing to stand up forcefully when necessary for owners against the developer, and a lot of backbone.

Member/owners should control timeshare boards, NOT developers or management company. The latter situation is a huge conflict of interest, and if you want to see what it results in, look at what is now coming out in the Bluebeard's Castle HOA lawsuits against Fairfield. Its too bad owners did not get in control there earlier. And one of the court rulings has been to prohibit Fairfield from monkeying around in HOA elections or appointments. Hooray for the judge!

Posts attacking individuals, other owners and other candidates are deleted, I will agree with you on that one. It would be the same on this site.

I would suggest to owners that want to make an informed decision to visit ALL the forums to read what candidates are writing and, among other things, determine how well they would be able to work together with others....Many postings are on the www.worldmarktheclub.com forum that give a very interesting insight to the candidates along with their bios if owners want to read.

An owner should be as informed as possible, especially if giving up their right to vote for the candidate THEY want.

[roadsister Member Find all posts View Profile Close roadsister]

"While I don't own in this group of resorts, one important general principle in timesharing is that you NEVER want a board controlled by the developer or management company. Worldmark is now afflicted with a developer controlled board, made worse by the fact that the developer is now Cendant/Wyndham."

I appreciate your comments as a non WM owner...

I have not written anywhere that I think the board should be 100% controlled by the developer - I would like to see more people on the board that are owners only, with no ties to resales of any kind, or TW. I do think that owners need to read about the current BOD to get the facts about whether they work for TW or not.....there is a lot of misinformation out there spinning. But I also think we don't need a BOD without any developer personnel on it....I think we need a diversity with members that can work together, not calling each other names, never being able to come to some sort of agreement on items that are important to owners because of personal agendas.

Jack is retired...do I think he may lean toward the developer? I can only speculate - my GUESS would be probably.

Gene is retired....I believe for the last 10 years he has been a staunch supporter for owners, I KNOW John has.

I do not think we need to overthrow the board as some would want. Nor do I see everything is the way I would like it to be.

My post is aimed at making sure, as Philip has said many times on the forums, that owners are informed....and to get ALL the information they need they must read the forums, form their own opinions, and vote. And remember, ALL those on the Worldmark Board of Directors ARE owners. I can't believe they would always want to screw themselves, but maybe they do.

[3Js Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 3Js]

There is a printable ballot for those who don't want to wait for the mail. One could assign the proxy votes on Item 2 Option B. The ballot can be accessed on www.onlineproxy.com/worldmark.

[roadsister Member Find all posts View Profile Close roadsister]

3Js,
You have to have your control number (which in on the mailed ballot if that is the way you opted to receive it) in order to vote.