Member Resources and Services (Committees)
Quick Links to All Committees

The six ARCH Committees provide and support the depth 
and breadth of services to Members and the community by:

Serving Members      Member Support      Procurement      ARCH Community Issues

Supporting ARCH Operations      Member Communications      Web Resources      Financial Management

1. Membership Support: The great majority of Reston’s homeowner groups face certain common governance and administrative requirements and challenges. In addition, from time to time, homeowner groups are confronted with issues or initiatives that may affect the quality of life, safety, or property values of their individual neighborhood. The primary purpose of the Member Support Committee (MSC) is to assist General Members in these two critical areas. More specifically:
   
   1. Governance and Administration Group: This includes such areas as drafting or updating association documents (e.g. Bylaws), administering internal association rules and regulations (e.g. parking, pets), running association meetings, understanding and complying with the applicable external regulations (e.g. Federal, Virginia, Reston Association), and interacting with the RA Covenants Committee or Design Review Board.
      
      
   2. Neighborhood Initiatives Group: This area covers those issues where an individual General Member is confronted with an issue that requires interaction with government agencies or officials on matters affecting the quality of life, safety or property values of their individual neighborhoods. The goal is to equip the General Member to be able to deal with such situations more effectively.

   In providing support to the General Members, the Committee will endeavor to avoid "re-creating the wheel" by drawing on the practical lessons learned by General Members as well as the best practices of other groups providing information on association management such as the Community Association Institute, Fairfax County, or the Reston Association.
   
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2. Procurement Support Committee: Our Members generally have similar needs for certain key products and services: trash collection; paving; snow removal; roofing; painting/staining; street lighting; and (in some cases) professional management companies. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. We can help. How? Through our Procurement Support Committee (PSC) whose job it will be to leverage our Members’ experiences in these important areas. Its initial plans include creating a database of vendors/suppliers our Members have used to address these key needs. That database will also identify which Members have had experience with these vendors/suppliers, so other Members thinking about contracting or hiring to fill these needs can gain some first-hand insights. The expectation is to follow that up with a resource guide on the key components of any contract each Member should ask for when procuring these goods or services. There is also the possibility that, by leveraging the Member network and alerting Members when others are in the process of procuring a certain good or service, others who are also doing so at that time may be able to band together to obtain volume discounts or other benefits. In short, the power is the network.
   
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3. ARCH Issues Committee: In just the last year: (a) Fairfax County proposed to provide trash collection services as a County (and not individual homeowner or homeowner association) responsibility. Whatever the reasons or benefits of that proposal, this would likely have significantly increased costs (and perhaps reduced services in some cases) for many of our Members; and (b) the state legislature considered a bill to impose new and expensive reporting requirements on our Members. Both of these matters remain under consideration.  ARCH believes there is a critical need to provide a resource that is able to keep our Members informed on issues like these that will have direct and significant affect on our Members’ interests, and when appropriate to ensure that our Members’ voices are heard. The ARCH Issues Committee (AIC) has been created as the means to provide this key resource. 
   
   A set of review procedures has been carefully drafted to ensure the AIC considers issues in a fair, open-minded, and politically nonpartisan manner; its sole mandate is to assess whether an issue is of concern to our Members and, if so, recommend how, if at all, ARCH should  address that issue for the benefit of our Members. That may mean taking no action at all; it may sponsoring a "town meeting" to inform our Members, or providing a summary of the key issues and viewpoints pro and con; or it may mean advocating a specific position that is clearly in the best interests of the majority of our Membership. The bottom line is to provide an effective way for our Members to become better informed about key local issues affecting them, and to improve our collective ability to participate in the important dialogue with local, County, and State leaders who will be making the decisions.
   
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4. Member Communications: As with any coalition of individuals and groups, with common interests and issues, the key to success is effective and reliable two-way communications; inbound, outbound and within the membership. The ARCH Communications Committee (ACC) will be responsible for the overall flow of news and information from ARCH to our Members and the community. This group will manage the editing and production of periodic Member updates and, when needed, assist the various Member Support groups by editing their work product prior to posting on the web.
   
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5. ARCH Web Resources: All ARCH Member Support activities require a cost effective, reliable, secure, two-way method of communication and information sharing to facilitate periodic Member updates, and allow for immediate updates of important time critical news. The ARCH web site is the focal point for Members to access information and communicate with ARCH Committees and other Members. Electronic-mail will be used for the majority of our communications and broadcast of information sharing. The Web Resources Committee (WRC) shall design, implement and maintain the ARCH web site, RestonARCH.org, to organize and enhance communications and information sharing, internally within and between the Members, and where appropriate, externally with the community.
   
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6. ARCH Financial Management: Arch will establish and manage to a conservative annual budget, funding ARCH Member-serving activities within the available revenue. The only currently approved source of ARCH revenue is the Annual Dues paid by the Members. The Board, with the guidance and support of the Finance Committee, will not authorize annual expenditures in excess of available revenue, and ARCH will not accumulate a capital surplus. For each fiscal year, in the Annual Meeting of Members, the Treasurer will present a review of the prior year finances and a proposed annual budget. The Members must agree to and approve the proposed budget, including actions to reconcile any funding shortfalls or surplus. The ARCH Finance Committee (AFC), chaired by the Treasurer, will support these important tasks.

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