[queasy27]

Some would say The Daily Sun is Morse's PR. :-)

A friend and I were discussing the possibility of a mutual acquaintance buying a house in a restricted community -- she said, "Who would want to live in a place that won't let you paint your damned fence?" My reply was, "People who don't care what color their fence is."

Same thing applies here. The vast majority of residents seem to very much appreciate everything the developer has accomplished and provided; others chafe a bit under what they see as repressiveness.

I agree that Morse has plenty of marketing and PR employees, but most of their efforts are likely directed at potential residents and new home sales.

[asianthree]

visit and then you will have a better view of TV

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by ilovetv

There is no substitute for seeing and experiencing a unique place to which you might move in person, not on a chat board like this where a tiny proportion of the 90,000+ residents read here, much less post comments.

By looking at the Member List under Community, it shows 28,000+ people have a log-in on this board. Of that number, only a small percentage post here.

While a supposed concensus here might look representative of TV as a whole, it is not. It's an accurate sampling of people who care enough and take the time to comment, but many people do not even know TOTV exists....

TOTV is a private website; as pointed out earlier, it is NOT affiliated with TV! Are the postings on TOTV representative of Villagers? Maybe. But then again, maybe not in the least! As several posters have suggested--and I agree--come and visit. Spend a few days. Talk to residents. Listen to the sales pitches and the cheerleading on the trolley tours. Generally you'll find people friendly and willing to share their views of their community. (Some may not....) But the only way you're going to know for sure is to experience it yourself! P.S. I believe the population here now exceeds 100,000!

[LndLocked]

Their is a VAST difference between "PR" and "Marketing"

IMO ..... "The Developer" does an excellent job of marketing to new / perspective home buyers and it reflects in monthly sales volume. PR on current problems, not so much.

[Pturner]

Originally Posted by andercat

I have been following this forum for couple of months. I am considering retiring to The Villages because my only child has a job in Orlando. I would like to be close but not too close. This is just an observation I am making as an outsider. All my info comes from this forum. It seems like the developer (the Morse family) needs to hire a PR person. Example: when they decided to not support parades, people on the forum were up in arms. Why not get the people involved in running the parades together to discuss the problems and work out a solution to the problem before the change thus diffusing the situation ahead of time. It seems that is what they ended up doing but there was such an uproar that could have been prevented. The same type of thing occurred with the Veterans use of the polo grounds. I believe Mark Morse meets with the community once a year. That seems woefully little time. I know that the developer cannot give away all there future plans, but by being proactive and increasing communication their detractors would have less to complain about. Maybe they do this already and I just don’t see it on the forum. As I said I do not get all the information you folks who already live in TV do so this may not be relevant.

Hi Andercat,
You make good observations from the outside looking in-- and you've come to the perfect place to discuss and seek feedback on your concerns.

From my perspective, The Morse family has many venues of public relations: The Daily Sun, Villages Radio Station, Vmail, Recreation News, the Villages website, DVD, annual membership meeting, annual survey, Lifestyle Tours, trolley tours and personal contacts/relationships with interested prospective Villagers with sales agents to name a few.

Still, the developers cannot please all of the people all of the time. And of course, they are not infallible. Nor is The Villages perfect.

That said, there is no place on earth like The Villages and I mean that in the best way. For me, it's Lower Paradise for its beauty, fabulous and affordable amenities, the ease of making loving and caring friends here and the ease of being a loving, caring friend here.

Where else are you a golf cart away from live entertainment, hundreds of recreational activities, scores of restaurants, a lifelong learning college and all manner of service and health care providers.

And the people! Oh my. Sure there are unhappy people here. But I daresay you'd be hard pressed to find a larger concentration of happy, giving, inspiring and welcoming people anywhere.

Please come down for a visit. I have a feeling you'd be glad you did.

p.s., bring your checkbook.