HOA Drama Continues!

[PyroFL]

I had foolishly thought that this was water under the bridge but the drama continues here at our HOA.

To recap you can read what I had done over the past 2 years to get out HOA approval:

https://www.pyrotalk.com/bulletin/showthread.php?8575-Fireworks-and-Home-Owners-Association-(HOA)

New drama is, I had posted 2 days ago about our HOA fourth event/firework show meeting, I requested whoever was coming to RSVP.

Back on July 10th 2021 I started a new GoFundMe account for 2022 for the people in the community so they could start putting in money for next year show, which has now been up for almost 6 months.

Within 24 hours of me posting the fourth fireworks meeting I was band from GoFundMe for LIFE! Reason why, I had gotten 3 strikes in that 24 hours for trying to raise money for ?explosives? was the Complaint ... aka fireworks

I was so mad I text ?Tampa Rick? as I know he had the same problem last year.

The funny part was, I Think I hit a nerve he was more upset about it than I was ... LOL ... or he was having FLASH BACKS or a mix of both

I was telling Rick this morning I thought I could laugh it off last night but couldn?t fall asleep last night I was still mad as hell.

Very selfish people in this world that wish for the rest of us to bend the knee to the less then 1% ... NOT HAPPENING!!

Below is what I ended up posting on Facebook and I can tell you the response was overwhelming. People in our community were ready to get the pitchforks out and have a Burning at the stake last night!!

My brother-in-law lives 4 house away and when walking over a few moments ago I couple stopped me in the street to voice their strong option how we need to keep the show, another lady walked out of her house in her PJ?s telling me her and her husband were not planning to come to the meeting but now they are and they have our back.

NEVER GIVE IN!!!!

Facebook post;

Fourth of July at the Estates of Aurburndale is NOW CANCELLED!!

Unfortunately in the last 24 hours from our post about the Fourth of July meeting we have received 3 strikes from our HOA GoFundMe account and I am now permanently blocked from using GoFundMe forever.

Let that sink in everyone ... FOREVER! I am personally blocked FOREVER for doing something to celebrate the Fourth of July or anything else for the rest of my life!!!

I?ve been notified by GoFundMe the reason why is because we?re raising money for ?explosives? that was the groups ?complaint.?

So for that reason those few that organized together have successfully spoiled it for all of us in the Estates of Auburndale.Therefore, our Community event is now canceled.

**** SPOILER ALERT!!! ****

For the 3 we know about that filed and organized the complaint let me help you out a little.

Having a law degree I can save you $350 for talking to an attorney.

There are better ways to stop our Estates of Auburndale Fourth of July event but the downside is you will ALL be exposed and you will not be able to do it behind a keyboard in the dark of night.

What your group needs to do is file what?s called an injunction to stop the Fourth of July events and fireworks at the Estates of Auburndale.

As this is a personal event done by OUR family you will have to file against my family personally as the HOA has nothing to do with event but is only approved by the HOA.

Furthermore, fortunately Facebook still has all EOA posts from last year so we have a good idea who the few are.

I personally look forward to your group injunction suit so I can make public all names involved and file a Counterclaim for harassment with the Facebook posts from last year we also have screen shots from last year that will build a narrative of your long term intentions and harassment, also I would advise you not to delete your post as it will be seen by the court as guilt, but at the same time it will not make you look good.

That?s called a catch 22 but I?m sure your attorney will advise.

To all others in the Estates of Auburndale

THE SHOW MUST GO ON!!

Give our family 72 hours to setup another account on another platform.

Meeting is still on, Fourth of July events and fireworks show is still on ... Full speed ahead!

?LUDEMUS LUDOS??

Your lawsuit can be directed to:

Charles Denney
(Address)

God Bless America!

.....

End of Facebook post

.....

For those that didn?t go to catholic school and learn Latin, LUDEMUS LUDOS? Translate to ?Shall Play a Game?? ... from the movie War Games

[Engineer Cat]

FB post might be a little hardcore but I like your style. :cool:

I'm sure with a nice letter to gofundme with a bunch of signatures from your neighbors you can put together a compelling defense of why your account should be reinstated including that malicious actors were involved in having your account removed.

[Icooclast]

nice post :) can't you use loopholes to get your gofundme back? because as i remember it there is a legal difference between what are considered "explosives" and what are considered "fireworks" (even though they are still regarded as haz-mat)much like there is a legal difference in "fireworks" and "illegal explosives" i don't know i could be mis-informed or over thinking it. some times it's that simple. yeah, people in general suck, that's for sure. i remember about 6 years ago a few friends and i lit a regular old 1.75" shell and some older woman (looked to be about in her 60's) threatened to call the sheriff. over 1 shell.

i would like it if you kept us up to date with how this is going from now to just after this coming fourth, i'm curious.

[esgrillo]

He is my 2 cents and I shoot on HOA property every year. I have never asked for permission to do so.

I have been getting donations for my show for many years. It is almost 100% funded with donations it is a pretty elaborate show and I collect around $9000. However I take a much different approach.

I along with another lead family solicit donations directly with individuals that I believe will be interested in donating. I have used a donation value of $500 per contributor for 10yrs with success. This may sound like a lot but in my case I started with all the neighbors around me. The show was originally just hand lit and people used to be asked to bring a firework cake to contribute so it was somewhat of a natural transition for a cash donation instead. Keeping the donation amount $500 does a couple of things. First you are not dealing with a massive contribution group and 2 you get to your goal quick and 3 there is essentially zero publicity about the show. I have used the same group as a starting point for donations every year and most people have contributed for 10yrs. It has become a huge event for all the families that face the shoot site with all of them having parties in their backyard with direct view of the show.

I think $500 for a fully scripted award winning pyromusical is a good deal especially when I do 99% of the the planning and set up. If you go to as stand and spend $500 you come out with a lot of BS nothingness so that has always been my comparison point. Also I send out multiple communications to the group via email so there is zero public social media presence about our show. In fact I make every attempt to keep it as low key as possible because it is a massive event with hundreds of people in attendance at different homes. I want the exact opposite of publicity. I do all the guest invites privately as well.

I call the group my "Fireworks Executive Committee" lol. To add a little to the "pot" for those contributors that do not live on my street, I offer parking in my driveway so they don't have to walk 1/2 mile (yeah it gets that crowded), and also some goodies like commemorative koozies. I even get a select group to help set up and ask for all hands on deck for clean up the next day. You just have to ask in a way that they can't refuse.

I have been asked about doing "public" funding via GoFundMe and even putting money in the hat the day of the show and chose not to do either. I avoided the GoFundMe because I suspected issues like you are having and the money in the hat idea always has turned me off because I do not want guests to feel obligated to pay to come to my house. Just the way I feel. I have however had many people after seeing the show become contributors for the $500.

Bottom line is my suggestion is forget GoFundMe and avoid the social media battle you are about to engage in. It is my humble opinion that that avenue will not help your cause in the long run. The outcome you want is to say f-em and do your show anyway. Figure out another way to collect the money and do it. That will give you and the people that want the show to go on the most satisfaction and piss the 3 a$$ clowns off the most. You engaging with them now only is going to stroke their ego that they have accomplished stopping the show and pissing YOU off.

If you do your show and don't communicate with them at all moving forward, on July 3 they are going to think they have "won" when in fact on the 4th they will be f-ing fuming!

--- one more thing, I always invite a lot of cops and fireman lol... just in case I get a visit that day.😎

[PyroFL]

Update

Well I managed to get the life band on GoFundMe reversed 2 days ago and just checked my email and see I can now post again for our firework show.

I didn?t get a direct answer about if we can say we?re raising money for fireworks but in there email it said I was ok to restart my gofundme event.

I?ve reworded my GoFundMe splash page so no wording says fireworks. Just says supplies for the day.

I should have it all going again in the next hour after this post.

......

Why are we having/had problems is our neighborhood? Is it used to be gods waiting room but in the last 5-6 years a lot of the families have sold off there parents retirement homes to younger families.

Most complaint the board has are:

- kids playing basketball at the basket ball court and the ball bouncing makes a lot of noise
- Children walking in the reserve area
- Residence having to many cars in there driveways when they have family over and they should carpool
- Driving in the neighborhood after 9 PM
- And so on ... it?s only a handful of people and it?s always something

......

Ed,

Fully understand your point and if I had the same property your family has I would do it the same way.

My situation is a little different as anyone can come watch our show for free by just seating around the pond or parking there car on the side of the road.

Our goal was to get people to put skin in the game to take ownership of the event with last year being our first year asking for donations.

We ended up raising $10,654 ... $8,000 was used for fireworks, MJG?s and fusing. We even had gotten a few corporate sponsors including the local Lowe?s, Sign My Yard, local brewery and a few small local businesses.

That said, we?re not just doing firework show like in years past, it?s a all day event ending with a firework show.

DJ all day, 2 18? water slides, bouncy house, Bicycle races, Cornhole tournament, sack race, 2 clowns walking around doing balloon animals, a lady doing face painting for the kids, beer tent, 2 food trucks, ice cream truck and the firework show.

Last year was the first year we had done events and in past year our family paid for and only did a firework show for our family and friends. Then we noticed our HOA people just started showing up each year the crowd was getting bigger and bigger.

There is 302 homes in our HOA and if I were to guess we had around 1,800 people last year at the firework show ... up from the year before of around 250.

I do like your idea of the minimal donation that I think I?ll try next year but as we?re still building up and getting people used to chipping in and only being the 2nd year I?ll do it next year ... it?s a great idea!!

As for inviting law enforcement I had to laugh a little. My Father-in-law is retired deputy sheriff so we have a lot of deputy?s show up, state troopers, we know half of the officers on the police force and the Fire chief lives 2 doors down. Got that covered!!

[Salutecake]

Hey PyroFL,

Maybe I mentioned this before, but my situation is similar but a bit different to yours. In my community my son and I have been shooting off fireworks for years. An yes for the most part shooting them of in a not legal state. It seemed most people really liked them, only a few complainers which you will always seem to have, but for the most part blowing them off for 1 night and before 11pm, even the local and state police didn't seem to care. So fast forward to about 6 years ago when I had a person come up and try to give me a few bucks, As I told him then, that, my son and I are not doing this for money and with or without donations come the fourth, fireworks are going off. He worked on me for a year, and what finally got me was his statement, Look around, every here plans family events around your fireworks, so really it's not your event anymore it's the communities. With that he had already collected a chunk of change and slammed it in my hand. He was right, and our community of about 250 homes easily draws in the 1800 and the local fire and ambulance people that cover our area even send over a firetruck and ambulance, and also direct traffic. There is also an ice-cream truck that makes it's rounds during the day. The ice-cream guy must do alright cause he gives us a nice size donation. That donation along with a couple of other donations went to the fire and ambulance people, who basically refused it but using the same tactics applied to me to take donation, they finally accepted the donation.

So, right now everything is great!

Keeping it great, hopefully remains easy. You know the pendulum swings both ways. Years ago it was tough, 1 person complains and the cops show up and shut you down, not because they want to but because it's the law. Now, the majority of my community participates in the whole concept, and those who complain are frowned upon. Quite the reversal of years ago.

So bottom line, give them a good show and keep the community engaged.

[PyroFL]

Agree salutecake

Now we have built a army of 4th warriors that will stand in the front lines instead of just our family.

The people that are negative (3-4) have stop saying anything at board meeting and no longer say anything on our private Facebook page ... didn’t turn out to good for them last few times.

Am sure they will try another way ... right before the 4th by doing something stupid which I will call them out again and then the warriors will handle it.

There was a reason why I had done the Facebook post the way I did with stating the 4th was cancelled, when it wasn’t. It was to rally the troops!!!

[Arclight]

Have any of you folks with HOA drama thought about running for the board? If you can get 20 people to donate to the show, you can easily get that many people to vote you in. Hardly anyone participates meaningfully in those elections.

[joed2323]

Have any of you folks with HOA drama thought about running for the board? If you can get 20 people to donate to the show, you can easily get that many people to vote you in. Hardly anyone participates meaningfully in those elections.

Awesome advice!!!

One of the best moves I ever made was moving my family out of that HOA "toxic environment"!!

[PyroFL]

Advice is noteworthy

Unfortunately with my schedule I do not work a 9 to 5 job and gone constantly. I think in the last six years that we?ve lived here I?ve made it to 2 meetings when I was home.

So my tactic is keep the board members glasses always full ... LOL

Our house is known as the whiskey house. I do every other month whiskey/wine tasting at our home which all but 2 board members come to.

Drunk and happy board members ... make your life easier

[Rick_In_Tampa]

Have any of you folks with HOA drama thought about running for the board? If you can get 20 people to donate to the show, you can easily get that many people to vote you in. Hardly anyone participates meaningfully in those elections.

Because of all the idiots in my development I ran for a board position from day 1. I was a board member for almost 10 years. Most of that time as HOA president. I was able to keep most of the morons at arms length. Some died. Some moved away. There's only one moron left from the original cast of fools. I gave up being on the board probably 10 years ago now. None of it would have helped our fireworks dilemma as until last year, fireworks were illegal in Florida.

Whoever wrote the Florida fireworks law had HOA's in mind as the very last paragraph of the law states:

"(3) The Legislature does not intend for the application of this section to supersede any prohibition against the use of fireworks contained within a legally executed and properly recorded declaration of covenants or covenant running with the land of any homeowners? association pursuant to chapter 720. However, a homeowners? association, through a board of directors, may not promulgate rules that attempt to abrogate a homeowner?s right to use fireworks during a designated holiday or under general law."

So I no longer worry about my HOA fools. They can call the Governor if they'd like to try and stop me.

[Rick_In_Tampa]

Our house is known as the whiskey house. I do every other month whiskey/wine tasting at our home which all but 2 board members come to.

Drunk and happy board members ... make your life easier

Let me know when you're doing the Louis XIII tasting and I'll start drinking again!! :cool:

[PyroFL]

You got jokes Rick, Louis XIII at $4k a bottle ... The best we could offer is XO and Very rare Middleton which we don’t normally brake out until the holidays.

So you will have to stick with the gatorade in the frig ... you know where it is

[Rick_In_Tampa]

You got jokes Rick, Louis XIII at $4k a bottle ... The best we could offer is XO and Very rare Middleton which we don’t normally brake out until the holidays.

So you will have to stick with the gatorade in the frig ... you know where it is

I think the eye-drops size bottle is only $565! Such a bargain! lol...

That's okay. I'll stick with the Gatorade for now.

[SystemXpert]

He is my 2 cents and I shoot on HOA property every year. I have never asked for permission to do so.

I have been getting donations for my show for many years. It is almost 100% funded with donations it is a pretty elaborate show and I collect around $9000. However I take a much different approach.

I along with another lead family solicit donations directly with individuals that I believe will be interested in donating. I have used a donation value of $500 per contributor for 10yrs with success. This may sound like a lot but in my case I started with all the neighbors around me. The show was originally just hand lit and people used to be asked to bring a firework cake to contribute so it was somewhat of a natural transition for a cash donation instead. Keeping the donation amount $500 does a couple of things. First you are not dealing with a massive contribution group and 2 you get to your goal quick and 3 there is essentially zero publicity about the show. I have used the same group as a starting point for donations every year and most people have contributed for 10yrs. It has become a huge event for all the families that face the shoot site with all of them having parties in their backyard with direct view of the show.

I think $500 for a fully scripted award winning pyromusical is a good deal especially when I do 99% of the the planning and set up. If you go to as stand and spend $500 you come out with a lot of BS nothingness so that has always been my comparison point. Also I send out multiple communications to the group via email so there is zero public social media presence about our show. In fact I make every attempt to keep it as low key as possible because it is a massive event with hundreds of people in attendance at different homes. I want the exact opposite of publicity. I do all the guest invites privately as well.

I call the group my "Fireworks Executive Committee" lol. To add a little to the "pot" for those contributors that do not live on my street, I offer parking in my driveway so they don't have to walk 1/2 mile (yeah it gets that crowded), and also some goodies like commemorative koozies. I even get a select group to help set up and ask for all hands on deck for clean up the next day. You just have to ask in a way that they can't refuse.

I have been asked about doing "public" funding via GoFundMe and even putting money in the hat the day of the show and chose not to do either. I avoided the GoFundMe because I suspected issues like you are having and the money in the hat idea always has turned me off because I do not want guests to feel obligated to pay to come to my house. Just the way I feel. I have however had many people after seeing the show become contributors for the $500.

Bottom line is my suggestion is forget GoFundMe and avoid the social media battle you are about to engage in. It is my humble opinion that that avenue will not help your cause in the long run. The outcome you want is to say f-em and do your show anyway. Figure out another way to collect the money and do it. That will give you and the people that want the show to go on the most satisfaction and piss the 3 a$$ clowns off the most. You engaging with them now only is going to stroke their ego that they have accomplished stopping the show and pissing YOU off.

If you do your show and don't communicate with them at all moving forward, on July 3 they are going to think they have "won" when in fact on the 4th they will be f-ing fuming!

--- one more thing, I always invite a lot of cops and fireman lol... just in case I get a visit that day.��

Hi there. When you do your shows do you apply for a display permit from the fire Marshall's office? My neighborhood here in Richmond (about 25 miles away from you) has similar setbacks. I am working with my local MUD to approval to shoot on their land along Oyster Creek. My HOA is not thrilled about this, but there is little they can do as they don't control the land that happens to run through the middle of my neighborhood. This will be my first year doing an "official show" and I do plan to get donations...so I appreciate the advice you posted. Last year, I did a small unofficial show with just 54 cues. Now after getting my shooting license and going to a few PAT events I am planning to go larger.