The pavilion, club financial status, and our future

[Dan Barley]

Wow, never in my 23 uninterrupted years of membership have I seen this much contention and unrest among the general membership. And mostly it saddens me greatly as everyone that is or has been in the club I consider my friends.

Many of you newer members do not know me well as currently I am content with being a club volunteer and member of the Board of Directors rather than being an active hang glider aviator. For those that do not know me, I published the club newsletter in the early 90’s, have served as Secretary, Vice President, Treasurer, Assistant Treasurer and Director at Large on the Board of Directors. I actively support all that we are doing to improve the LZ, safety improvements, and now the completion of the Pavilion.

As a club member, I am one of those that proposed to keep the Pavilion expense down to a reasonable financial number. During my tenure as Treasurer the club amassed a comfortable reserve of over $60K which continued to grow as Katherine succeeded me. I hated the thought of seeing that reserve reduced to zero as we worked so hard to get to this level of financial security. But the financial reality is that the reserve was actually becoming less valuable due to low interest return and the effects of inflation. It was and is the right time to think about doing major improvements to the LZ during this time when more attractive costs to do so can be achieved. It has been the right time to replace our decaying shade structure. It was also time to think about adding more onsite hang glider storage as the existing two storage containers were full.


The Pavilion

This has not been an easy process. I was there for all of it as a member of the BOD. But persevere we did. I personally wanted something cheaper and of less grandeur but also saw the merits of the final design and structure decision. It was obvious to me that we were not going to stay within our original spend plan. But when you combine the original expense with future income producing storage use assessments, the final design became acceptably attractive. A plan was in place with blueprints and all. But the building permit process was not friendly. The front door, good guy approach, did not work. We got slapped down because of no legal status to build anything on the property they said. We even tried the front door, good guy approach, with a hired consultant which was still not successful. It wasn’t until we got tough with all of our political backing and putting pressure on the permit approval folks through the back door that action started to take place. And finally we got action. A permit to build a pavilion from the blue prints presented was approved.

Our next major hurdle was making the pavilion become a reality. Initial thoughts of this being a club volunteer built structure with only material cost hitting the treasury was just not going to happen. The initial build work was going to require someone with contractor status and time availability to be on the job full time. The BOD wanted to see the structure built to the steel uprights by a full time contractor.
It has been said that the BOD did not act in a professional manner in this regard. I do not see it that way. Acting professionally in a not for profit club that has less than $50K income per year takes on a whole different level of expectation versus an organization that has multimillion dollar projects going on. The latter requires a strong contractual and legal department and can afford to have dedicated staff to provide same. SHGA management is done by volunteers and the dollars at risk in this case is considerably less.

Based on my professional experience of dealing with multimillion dollar contracts and my personal experience with dealing with contractors for home improvements of similar dollar amounts to the Pavilion construction, I feel that the BOD did act in a prudent and responsible manner in selecting the initial contractor. The cost for completion of the initial phase did not meet my expectation of what it was going to cost but I also knew that this initial cost was going to be more than what we had planned for. Based on my experience, I estimated that this Pavilion was going to be in the $100/sq. ft. range ($100K total) and that is just about what it is going to come in at.

While personally I would have preferred a much more simple structure concept for the pavilion, I also embrace the merits of the structure as it is. It is really coming together beautifully and it will enhance our future financial viability with added glider storage assessment income. Those that have participated in its construction and put forth dollar contributions to its construction should be proud of what has been built. I know I am even though my hours are few in comparison to many others.

Club Financial Status


I have heard it said that our club is bankrupt. It isn’t. We have no unpaid payroll, unfunded retirement programs, unpaid bills, or debts that which we cannot meet the repayment terms. We are financially solvent but at the present time we have no significant reserve. This is not a new situation to the club. When I took over Treasurer financial duties, we had a couple of thousand dollars extra and that was it. We survived, paid the bills, had water, had electricity, a phone, etc.

There is reasonable income coming in for necessary budgetary items and the like, so impending doom is not anything that should be even thought about. While my personal desire is to once again get the club reserve healthy again, I also recognize that unless interest rates on savings return to some reasonable level, having too much in reserve is not very smart. It is better to put excess dollars to use improving the property and making the clubs presence and right to be there in the community for the purpose of hang gliding known and accepted.

We have come a long way to the better from the dirt lot of the 80’s.

Future

Once the pavilion glider storage compartments come into demand (of which many have already been occupied) and the expense outflow to the final phases of construction to the pavilion there will once again be excess income over expenses.

All of the above is my personal opinion and not an official statement from the BOD.

Come on everybody, let’s play nice. The pavilion is beautiful. We are financially okay. We are all here to soar and fly high in a manner which no other sport can offer. We are all friends and everything that has been done on the pavilion was accomplished with only the best of intentions in mind.

Thanks for reading.

Dan Barley

[Fat Fred]

Dan, Thank you for your well worded post on this subject. You have been there from the beginning and know better than anyone else on the board the struggle this whole project has been. This is the first time that I have seen the whole pavilion project discussed in its entireity from day one. Thank you also for your volunteer labor on the pavilion. I also wish to thank everyone else in the club who gave of their time and labors to bring this project to friution.

-Fred-

[WingNutz]

What Dan doesn't say is that he has been out working on the pavilion practically every, day tying rebar, digging dirt, lifting 8x10's and anything else that the project needed. Dan's over 70, folks. He kicks ass.

[phkao]

Dan,

Thank you for sharing your opinion. I appreciate everybody’s hard work but if we had taken a different route, things could have been easier and smoother. I am saying this per my experience and yes; it is also my own opinion. What we bring in through the front door is what determines how easy the process of obtaining the permit will be. I was told that none of our friendly politicians and building officials was willing to put anything in writing when it came to the use of our land as a hang gliding site. Now that we have gone through the back door, we are limited what we can do in the near future. This subject was discussed in the September 2011 board meeting.

Please come to my next three presentations and you will get a whole picture of what I am trying to point out.

[phkao]

I recently had two jobs out to bid. They both were about $500K each. One came back 25% lower than the cost estimate and the other 36% lower. This is possible by bidding. If there is a next time, we should definitely use the bidding process. With my experience, it seems to work very well.

My next subject is “Cost Estimate and Bidding�. It will have more details about what we are discussing here.

[Jim]

Well done, Dan. You have been a true and complete gentleman throughout the years and this process.

I hope you may spend more time with us.

And...

[OP]

Well, I disagree. This entire gazebo to secure the unlimited use to permit hang gliding on our land is a giant scam. Another 5 years of permitting process to have a limited permit, was a better route.

The 1%ers of thermals devised this scam. While the 99%ers will have no rising air to climb in.

[Jim]

Opie,

As one of the 1%ers, I have been secretly conspiring to increase the H4 requirements, too. Now that you've lifted the veil from my other dastardly deeds, I'm redoubling my efforts with you in mind.

How about 1000 hours at sites other that Kagel?

Kiss Towers launch and topless gliders good bye!

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