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The mule doesn’t have a street license or auto insurance either, so driving it somewhere wouldn’t be wise regardless.
I was under the car yesterday. There are 3 fuel lines that run under the car from the tank to the engine. All three lines are rusted really bad and one (I believe the pressure line) is the one that is leaking. All 3 will need to be replaced. You need a special tool to disconnect the lines and a lift would be preferable to work under the car. Online searches for having an autoshop repair it run into the $1000 range. I have a lift in my shop if we can somehow tow it to my house. Driving it is out of the question as fuel pours out when running.
Don
I was under the car yesterday and
see that a new fuel line was installed sometime in the recent
past. I did not troubleshoot to see where the leak is coming
from. I’ll do that in the next few days. This is not a 4 man
job. Two at the most is all that is needed and the second guy is
the tool getter guy.Don
All great comments. Larry Krengel posted a good history of the club and how things have been handled in the past. Aaron M. makes good points as well however I disagree with some of his points. I belong to a flying club which uses assessments all the time. Almost every quarter their is an assessment for something that needed repair or some other expense. For example; if their is not enough money in the mx fund to cover the annual inspection, all members of the club split the remaining cost. When the annual insurance premium is due, all members split the cost evenly to pay the insurance. No member loans of any kind.
Let’s take a look at the 2020 Sky Soaring engine fund starting from the beginning of January 2020. The year started off at $10,000 in the fund. Since my club dues for 2020 was $0.00, I personally donated $350.00 to the engine fund. The fund stood at $10,350 until I made a motion to the board in the September/October time frame to transfer $2000 from the general fund into the engine fund. That brought the engine fund to where it is today at $12,350.
If the club was only able to input $2000 over the coarse of the year, with all the flying that went on this year, the year of covid, it will take 10 years to pay off a loan for the engine rebuild.
I speak for myself as a club member, not for the board. I believe a special one-time assessment is the best for the club. It evenly distributes the fund to ALL members, not just the ones who fly most and pay full dues.
With that said, it will be up to the board to bring this to the membership. If it passes the board, the C&B states that any assessment must be voted on by eligible voting members and pass by three-forths vote. In the end, it will be the Regular, Patron and Honorary members that decides whether we do a special one-time assessment or go with the old traditional way of taking a member loan. If you are an Associate member, you may want to become a Patron member now so that you can vote on this important measure. Talk to Steve Synder to become a Patron member.
Respectfully Submitted,
DonI wanted to second Larry’s comments. I’ve been a member of two flying clubs and both had the same philosophy. Dues cover fixed costs such as the hangar, property taxes, utilities etc. All members pay those equally. Incremental costs related to the operations (gas, maintenance, engine overhaul fund), are covered by the rental rates, or in our case tow fees. It is done this way exactly because it is fair.
I believe that a special assessment to cover an incremental operation cost is far from fair. It is unfair to the members who are less active for whatever reason. At $30k for a 2000 hr recurring item, this should be costing members maybe $3 per tow. If this assessment had been in 2020, it would have been a $200 premium on each of my two tows (ouch indeed).
Now some may have strong opinions about less active members, but the fact is we are all different. Some live close to the field, some live far away. Some are students or are retired, some are toiling mid-career. Some have reason to take extreme Covid precautions, some are more relaxed about the virus. However, all are contributing much needed membership dues, and those who are unable to participate actively for whatever reason are probably those most on the fence about continuing to mail in those checks, so an assessment that unfairly impacts that group seems questionable.
Beyond less active members, this proposal actually unfairly treats all current members. Essentially by proposing an assessment rather than a loan, we would be asking all current members to overpay now, so that future members can underpay. I saw the proposal for 2021 joiners, but what about 2022, 2023 etc.
A special assessment of any kind is always problematic. It sends a signal to the current and potential future members that the cost of membership is unpredictable. Real estate people will always talk up the condo boards who have never had a special assessment. It shows consistent good management and makes prospective buyers more comfortable buying in. The parallels are obvious. There are some things in life where “zero times” is the only really acceptable answer (how many lifetime DUIs are okay for your kids’ school bus driver?).
Special assessments are typically only used in cases of dire need. If people have been willing to loan the club money, then this is an unnecessary special assessment. Possibly the main reason this is being proposed is that some people are naturally debt averse. However, particularly for a club like ours debt is actually beneficial in helping to offset assets. The club has assets such as the field and aircraft, and various loan liabilities. The assets minus the liabilities are our net assets. It can actually be problematic for an organization like ours if the net assets increase too much:
1. If net assets are high, the club is a more attractive target for lawsuits (day member accident?).
2. When net assets get too high there can be pressure to break up the club. When the net assets per member gets high, people start to question whether it would be better to cash out that equity. We surely have some protections against that in our bylaws, but all that stuff can change in the future. Nobody ever thinks it can happen until it does. A strong defense is to keep net assets low.
3. If net assets are growing, that means the current membership are overpaying (compared to stable low net assets). The result may be a debt free future, which sounds good from a personal finance perspective, but for an organization such as ours this just means that current members overpay so future members can pay less. Not exactly equitable.
In our case overhauling the engine increases the value of the plane (not 1:1 for sure), but a special assessment of $20k would unnecessarily increase the net assets of the club. A more balanced financial approach would be to offset the increase in value of the plane with a loan to cover the cost of the overhaul.
I apologize for the overly long email. I get that it is only $400, but it strikes me that this proposal is not a good direction for the club, and people should clearly understand the downside.
I do agree with Don’s point about there being many members of the club who end up making little to no financial contribution after instruction/tow credits. Maybe the credits program is too generous and should be looked at again? Obviously the instructors and tow pilots are critical to the success of the club, so radical changes are probably counterproductive. Perhaps credits should be capped at some agreeable percentage of dues (50% say). I can’t imagine anyone would instruct/tow until they reach their credit cap, then stop doing so. Arguably instructors and tow pilots are still individual members of the club, so should also pay their share of the fixed club costs. Instructing or towing is still flying for free, which is a pretty big benefit in itself. I wonder how do the other glider clubs approach this?
Aaron
Marked wrote: On a similar note, how will this effect prospective members?
Thanks for that good question Mark. I would propose to the board that new members pay the special one-time assessment on a prorated bases of $1.09 per day based on remaining days of the year. For example; If a new member joins on July 1, 2021, their are 183 days left in the year. $1.09 X 183= $199.47. The new member would have $199.47 added to his prorated membership dues for the year 2021.
I would like to reply to the posters that are expressing concern about hardship paying an additional $397.85 for the 2021 year. I speak only for myself and not the board.
I understand that we may have a few members that will find it difficult to come up with the shared payment. I am not trying to be a hard ass however, as I stated in my first message, “If you can’t afford $397.85 over the course of a year, you probably can’t afford to be a member of the club.” I’m sure the board would look at hardship cases. I don’t think they want to lose any members just like I don’t.
On to a little harsher subject. We may have some members that feel if they go on inactive status they will not have to pay the one-time special assessment. This is true however, the Constitution and Bylaws addresses this in Article IV Section 7. “An inactive member who is reinstated as a Regular member shall pay a reinstatement fee as determined by the Board of Directors.”
In my opinion, our engine fund needs to be shared by all. I think it would be pretty lousy for a member to go on inactive status just to get out of paying his fair share. Let’s all chip in and get this done. In the end, every member will benefit from this and we will have a tow plane with an engine that will last for years and years.
Respectfully Submitted,
DonFrank Smith wrote: “Incidentally; is the club gonna have that engine shipped to an overhaul repair station or rebuild it in house?”
Frank, the ideal way would be for us to fly the Pawnee to Poplar Grove airport which is only about 20 miles northwest of Sky Soaring and have Poplar Grove Airmotive rebuild the engine for us. They are a very reputable engine rebuild company. In the event that we are not able to fly it there, we would have to remove the Pawnee engine ourselves and take it Poplar Grove for rebuild. When complete, we would pick it up and re-install it.
Tim wrote: $400 a year represents an almost 50% increase in dues for most people whose livelihoods and wages are impacted by a pandemic.
Tim, this is a one-time assessment for 2021. It does not extend into any following years.
As an instructor here I have worked very hard to earn the credits for my dues because I know the combination of graduate school and the reality of life in 2020 might make discretionary spending an untenable luxury.
Tim, thank you for your instructional work at the club, it is truly appreciated. Our Policy and Procedures manual stipulates in; “1.9.6 Yearly Junior Membership – no application fee or buy in required (over 13 and under 21) or enrolled in school.”
If you are enrolled in school, you would fall under a Junior membership. Your yearly dues would drop to $250. With your instructor credits your dues would be $0.00. That means you would contribute only the $397.85 to the engine fund. That comes to $33.15 per month.
I know of many members who just joined this year, some of whom I train. They feel that some of the maintenance problems we’ve experienced have caused too many aircraft to be unavailable. Paying $900 for broken aircraft every year has made many rethink the wisdom of joining this club, and a financial burden of this size would likely push them further in this direction away from us.
Our club ships flew 726 flights totaling over 293 flight hours as of October. That’s a lot of up time. Yes, there were times that one or two ships were down for mx for brief periods however, there were always aircraft available to fly. No one has approached me as Mx Chair about broken aircraft other than to report items that needed repair or attention.
For your first move as a new board to be demanding an increase in dues by almost 50% sets a strong precedent that I’m not sure you fully understand the implications of.
The board of directors has a fiduciary responsibility to the membership and to keep this club viable. It doesn’t matter that this is a new board of directors. We still have to make the tough decisions. One of those decisions is funding the engine rebuild or nobody will be flying.
Sincerely,
DonRe-sending this message as it didn’t go out the first try.
GOOD NEWS!!! After 2+ years of road work at our Sky Soaring entrance, the work is finally complete. Our new entrance is now open for use. Traffic is flowing in both directions on route 20 and the traffic light is gone. The old temporary entrance will be closed off to through traffic.
Don
Glad and relieved that both of you are safe. We all have to be prepared for an unexpected emergency like the two of them encountered. The first thing, and Steve will tell you, is to fly the airplane. In this case Steve was able to fly while Andy was able to reach for the canopy and close it. A distraction like that can have grave consequences but the two of them handled it well. We will get a new canopy, not a problem.
Don
