Der Gasser- Letter to Editor

[Brian Minkin]

emayer wrote:

Another way of looking at this is to ask:  Is an increase in membership fees necessary to help cover other programs and permit retention of some of the DE profit toward reducing instructor track fees?  I can feel flames already..... hock:

An interesting concept but again not an easy one to implement.  PCA membership fees are set by National PCA and paid to National PCA.  They distribute a portion of those fees to the regions quarterly. To accomplish this RTR would have to put a mechanism in place to collect local membership fees from members in addition to the National fees.  So just like the issue of opting out of receiving De Gasser in the mail, collecting local membership fees adds another layer of back office regiment to accomplish this.  It is hard enough to get members to volunteer to organize an event.  Now we will need volunteer office help as well.

[linda.erwin]

Another thought ...

 

Would it be possible to have two Red groups … Red Run and Red Instruct?  Red Run would pay the same fee as everyone else to drive, but not instruct.  Red Instruct would be for instructors only, not drivers.  Basically, all paying drivers would subsidize lodging and meals for the instructors who are volunteering their time. 

 

It seems reasonable and fair to expect instructors to make students their first priority, whether it’s the student(s) they’ve been assigned for the DE or another instructor’s student.  If you are a DE Instructor, your sole purpose is to teach and to lead … to help as many students as you can and to set a good example.  Your students are entrusting their lives and property to you, relying on you to give them good advice and to be their extra eyes and ears on track.  They need you.  And the Club is depending on you to give and to care.  

 

Linda

'03 996TT

[Mike Andrews]

ccm911 wrote:

Wow! Five pages of beating the living snot out of a point! Must be a new record.

For Tech - Just deal with it. When I was on the line, it was amazing what people tried to pass through as safe.

For Instructing - Deal with it. As the economy clears up, you will all be back to one student in no time.

For Financial Reporting - Go to the monthly membership meetings and ask questions.

Did I miss anything?

Yeah... you did.... peace in the middle east....

[emayer]

Thanks for the insight Brian.  There goes that idea!.....

That's a unique concept Linda.  The problem I see is that we may not have enough of an instructor pool for have that type of program.  Stephen King comes to mind: "Redrum!  Redrum!" when reading about the red run group....:dude:

[Mike Andrews]

larrybard wrote:

Mike Andrews wrote:

Larry,

The profit from the the track program is used to fund other club activities. Does that answer both parts of your question?

Sort of. And let me apologize if my questions seem too confusing and/or intrusive. And thank you for your efforts to patiently respond.

By definition, I suppose, any profits from one program will be available for all other club activities (including other expenses of all kinds, such as printing and accounting services, etc.).

More specifically what I was addressing was whether the club roughly calculates the net profits/losses annually for each of its key programs (e.g., not just DE but also AX -- though I am emphatically using that just as an example that comes immediately to mind), and if there is some policy as to the extent to which each such individual activity ought to at least break even (e.g., on average over a period of 3 years).

This may be a deeply flawed question, but if membership dues were enough to pay for general overhead (such as accounting services, where there are no associated revenues), and DE was producing $20k of profits, would the $20k be enough to permit each 2 student instructor to participate for half the normal fee, for example?

Larry

Larry,

I guess you could look at it like a multi faceted company that has many different groups. Some turn a profit and some don’t.



In the case of the club, we take each program (Track, Autocross, Social and so on) and ask the chairperson to budget their activities for the year and what they project to spend and then take in. PCA National also sends us a portion of you dues so that gets added into the mix as well. What we’ve done in past years (not sure about this year) is do a little give and take until we project zero growth. In other words, our expenses equal our income.

In a perfect world each of the programs would be able to stand on their own. Now to try and answer your question. We set (or raise) the DE fees to balance the bottom line of the budget so I would assume if we had more revenue from other places then we would price the DE’s accordingly.



I don’t know if that answer your specific question….



Let me make a comment on your two students per instructor question. Our goal is to get back to one student per instructor. Two students (even when the instructor drives for free) is not fun.










emayer wrote:

larrybard wrote:

Mike Andrews wrote:

Larry,

The profit from the the track program is used to fund other club activities. Does that answer both parts of your question?

Sort of. And let me apologize if my questions seem too confusing and/or intrusive. And thank you for your efforts to patiently respond.

By definition, I suppose, any profits from one program will be available for all other club activities (including other expenses of all kinds, such as printing and accounting services, etc.).

More specifically what I was addressing was whether the club roughly calculates the net profits/losses annually for each of its key programs (e.g., not just DE but also AX -- though I am emphatically using that just as an example that comes immediately to mind), and if there is some policy as to the extent to which each such individual activity ought to at least break even (e.g., on average over a period of 3 years).

This may be a deeply flawed question, but if membership dues were enough to pay for general overhead (such as accounting services, where there are no associated revenues), and DE was producing $20k of profits, would the $20k be enough to permit each 2 student instructor to participate for half the normal fee, for example?

Larry

That's a very interesting line of questioning, I hope we're not out of line for engaging in this discussion. Brainstorming like this doesn't seem reasonable or practicable at a monthly meeting either.

Another way of looking at this is to ask: Is an increase in membership fees necessary to help cover other programs and permit retention of some of the DE profit toward reducing instructor track fees? I can feel flames already..... hock:

Eric,


You're not out of line... it's your club and you have every right to know the details. There have been a number of comments in this thread and as I said, if you guys will ask questions I'll answer them (or do my best).



I don't think it's (just) an instructor thing. We are curretnly at 1 to 1 for Pocono but our blue group attendance is way down. So is our black run group. So there are fewer people across the board.



To your question. More income, however it gets there, reduces the load from the revenue producing programs.

[George3]

 

Mike, can you tell me a little bit about the Speed Council? 


1. Why was it formed? 
2. How many people serve on it? 
3. Who are those club members serving on it? 
4. How long are their terms? 
5. And, how and by whom are they appointed?


Thanks!

 

 

[ninjabones]

Mike Andrews wrote:

Let me make a comment on your two students per instructor question. Our goal is to get back to one student per instructor. Two students (even when the instructor drives for free) is not fun.

Mike:

I'm not sure every instructor would agree with you (that is according to my unofficial poll of a few instructors this past week). It appears that having the option to select either one (at 1/2 price) or two students (free registration) was very appealing to them. Distributing the students proportionally to those more willing to have extra workload may help offset the current shortfall.

G

[Mike Andrews]

George3 wrote:

Mike, can you tell me a little bit about the Speed Council?


1. Why was it formed?
2. How many people serve on it?
3. Who are those club members serving on it?
4. How long are their terms?
5. And, how and by whom are they appointed?

1) It was formed to get all of the people involved in the track program together. It was determined that a group of people offered insight to issues that one person alone may not immediately be aware of. But I guess its primary function is to open lines of communication.

2) Eight people and Steve Meenan In all seriousness, The track Chair, the chief instructor, the registrar and safety are the positions. Currently we have more than one person involved in those positions.

3) Let's see... The track chair is Myles and I'm his assistant. Jack is the Chief Instructor and Rick (and Jim) assist him. Paul is safety and his assistant is Steve. And then Kevin at registrar with Stephen assisting him.

4) Their term runs until the chair person replaces them or they get tired of the abuse. Basically, when I was the chair person, at the end of the year I asked if everyone was going to continue in their position the following year and if they said no we looked for a replacement. The track Chair is an elected position and is voted on every year.

5) They are recruited by a variety of methods but ultimately the Track Chair looks (or is pointed in the direction) for capable volunteers and asks them to serve.

[Mike Andrews]

Glen,



I don't doubt that there are a few people that would rather run for free and have an extra student.



As I suggested earlier.... let's put together a series of suggestions and we'll look at them. With only two events left this year, and one of them this weekend, I don't think it's something we want to try to incorporate into this years program. So... let's see what ideas are out there and we can discuss them.







ninjabones wrote:

Mike Andrews wrote:

Let me make a comment on your two students per instructor question. Our goal is to get back to one student per instructor. Two students (even when the instructor drives for free) is not fun.

Mike:

I'm not sure every instructor would agree with you (that is according to my unofficial poll of a few instructors this past week). It appears that having the option to select either one (at 1/2 price) or two students (free registration) was very appealing to them. Distributing the students proportionally to those more willing to have extra workload may help offset the current shortfall.

G

[larrybard]

Mike Andrews wrote:

Let me make a comment on your two students per instructor question. Our goal is to get back to one student per instructor. Two students (even when the instructor drives for free) is not fun.

Mike, I don't disagree at all about the goal of one student per instructor. My point was that since we're talking about scarce resources (instructors and money), maybe, roughly speaking, if DE revenues net of direct DE expenses were something resembling $20,000, then a back of the envelope calculation might indicate that RTR could have reduced by 50% the entry fee paid by each instructor with two students during this season. (I know, I know -- there are all sorts of flaws with such a calculation, including that it is a dynamic model; reduce instructor fees and presumably there would have been more instructors, and a different number of students too.) It was just meant as a starting point for illustration/calculation. If there are six events, $300 fee per event, 15 instructors with two students at each -- I'm picking the numbers virtually out of the air -- then that's $13,500 to pay for half the cost of every one of those instructors. That's the sort of calculation I had in mind. Change that to 22 instructors -- maybe now with one student apiece -- and $20,000 is more than enough to subsidize each of the instructors to the tune of 50%, using the above numbers.