How to call the shots in your neighborhood

Step 4 Find the meeting

Don't worry, you don't have to be on time for these meetings. You can show up whenever and leave whenever, though obviously you'll get more out of it if you stay for the full meeting. They run anywhere from one to two hours.

Most neighborhood associations have their meeting at the same place every month, so they don't always go out of their way to make it easy to find simply because the board members are used to the location. So if you're going for the first time, give yourself five extra minutes to find the exact location.

I've been to meetings in bars, churches, schools, hospitals, libraries and storefronts. The meeting I went to for my neighborhood association was in a hospital and was actually hard to find, though it was just a hop and a skip from my home. I wandered around the hospital a bit looking for it, following signs to a different meeting, but I found it. You can always ask people in the building.