DECREE ON FOREST FIRES

Due to the high risk of fires in Andalucia, the Mayor of Mijas Antonio Sanchez has announced that, according to the Environmental By-Laws, during the summer period 1st of June to the 15th of October it will be TOTALLY PROHIBITED to burn garden, agricultural and forest refuge. BBQs will be prohibited in public and forest areas, including recreational and camping areas, even if these are equipped for this activity.

Urbanizations, camping areas and installations or activities carried out near forest areas must have a SELF PROTECTION PLAN, which will have to be presented to the Mijas Town Hall.

Neighbours will also have to take into account that it will be prohibited all year to: throw or leave abandoned matches or cigarettes or any burning object. Nor throw litter, plastics, glass, garbage, flammable material or any residue that could provoke a fire.

Activities related to the launching of fireworks, hot air balloons or any other type of
artefact that contain fire must ask for special authorisation to the Governmental elegate of the Junta de Andalucia, who will also inform on the safety measures to be taken.

Neighbours must also be reminded that the area, when using soldering or weldering machines, electrical generators, explosion or electrical motors / equipment as well as electrical transformers, must have a fire break of a 5 meter diameter.

To protect the neighbours it is necessary that the populated centres, buildings, industrial installations and urbanizations have a fire barrier of 15meters wide free of residue, shrubbery and herbaceous vegetation, keeping down the density of bushes and trees in the area according to the Self Protection Plan.

Also remind private owners that are situated under low and medium tension
electricity cables should remove all vegetation (tree branches, shrubbery, pastureland) in a radius of 2 meters from the cables to avoid fire.

The Environmental Department reminds citizens that this announcement has been made to reduce the activities that produce forest fires; fires that happen every year and affect thousands of hectares of Andalucian forest land. The Mayor of Mijas asks for the collaboration of all the residents of Mijas.

Bank expenses for returning a direct debit

Our bank, like other banks, has increased the cost of returning a direct debit. As it is unfair that this cost is paid by all owners, we will have to add 6 euros to each bill returned. This quarter, we have had 5 bills returned out of 52 sent.

Minutes EGM 22nd May 2010

The minutes of that meeting had been sent by email to everybody in pdf format. If you haven't got them, or have problems to open it, please let us know (mario@mariobravo.com)

Kevan

The committee, after carefully considering the staffing requirements at FSA, has decided not to renew Kevan's contract as from friday 25th June, so he will no longer be working for us.

Daniel, the gardener, will continue working from 8am to 4pm, monday to friday.

In the next few days, we will send you some contact numbers in case of emergency outside the office hours. In the meantime, in case of problems, please get in touch with the administrator (Phone 952.463499, Email: mario@mariobravo.com).

Sevillana Endesa and the I.C.P.

The electricity supplying company, Sevillana-Endesa, is now sending letters to you all for various reasons:

1) First, if your contract is for more than 10kw, you MUST select a supplier. You can continue with Endesa, or you could choose a different one. But you must act, otherwise your bill will increase.

If your contract is for less than 10kw, then you CAN select a different supplier if you want to, but if you don't do anything, you will remain with Endesa.

2) Second, they are requesting you to have an ICP. This is a switch that controls the maximum power you can use at a time. The first thing you have to do is check whether you already have one. Go to your electric box and check for a part, similar to others, called ICP. It must have those 3 letters somewhere. If you can't find those letters, it looks like you don't have one.

The letter you are receiving from Endesa says that you can:

a) Find your own electrician and have it fitted, but then you have to call Endesa to seal it
b) Accept endesa's offer to rent it for less than 10 cents euro/month.

We recommend this second option, because it is easier and cheaper.

In any case, our advice is that:

a) You go to your electric box, usually at the entrance of the house, and check whether you have an ICP

b) Get one of your latest bils, and with that in your hand...

c) Phone 902.50.88.50. Then, just say "english please", until you hear someone talking in english.

It is useless to call if you don't have your bill in your hands and you haven't checked the ICP beforehand.

NEXT EGM, possibly 22nd May 2010

Dear Owners,

As you will be aware, a decision was taken at the AGM on 14th March to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting, in order to consider several matters including the painting programme, the future on-site management of the urbanization and issues around the Administrator’s services to the community.

Since the AGM, there has been much discussion within the committee and investigation of costs. For me, this has been by telephone and email. The original intention was to try to hold the EGM in April but it proved impossible to obtain all the necessary information in sufficient time to assess everything thoroughly and to send out papers to owners.

The intended date for the EGM is now Saturday 22nd May, in the morning. This should allow for papers to be sent to owners in good time.

However, it will be impossible to confirm this date until the current problems with air travel resulting from the volcano in Iceland are resolved. I myself have flights booked and was expecting to be in Spain from 21st April to 28th April, to discuss the various issues and assess the information which is available with some members of the committee and to meet with the Administrator. In particular we were intending to address the concerns over the gardens. This trip is now looking in serious doubt and I understand that there are forecasts of possible disruption to air travel for some time to come.

I will, of course, contact you again when we can be more definite.

Yours sincerely,

Graham Walker
President

Roof works

The company whose quote was accepted to carry out the roof repairs has the work well underway. They had hoped to complete the work this week, but due to the return of the heavy rains, it is too dangerous to be up on the roof-tops. Neal has confirmed that, weather permitting, he will return to the community to complete the work at the beginning of next week, with the intention to complete on Tuesday 20th. Neal confirmed that he has managed to obtain the same tiles (despite the model being an old batch). On completion, he will invite Kevan up to inspect his work and see all the repairs and replacements that have been carried out.