I was one of the ones who did not feel comfortable in voting in a raise at
this time so voted against it. AERC has over the past few years consistently
made a profit. I thought were told we needed to spend money in appropriate
programs or we could be in danger of losing our non profit status. Now the
BOD just found out (Aug. 27-28) that we are not looking so good for this year or
next with our budget. This took most of us by surprise since we
had thought how great we were financially and we were still spending.
As we looked at our budget during the past month, we should have
(and did) cut the budget way back but then instead of raising dues
now, I felt since we still have a large amount of
reserves, we should see how our finances are looking around the
time of convention and then at that time, if we felt we still need an increase
in income, we could have a couple of months ahead of the convention to discuss
some issues, we could have a round table talk with all the BOD members face to
face during the convention, which hopefully all you would be there
too. We should not be surprised and then asked to vote of something in
a knee jeck panic situation. I know the BOD does need to protect our business
but there are many ways this can be done. I do feel every BOD member made their
decision for what they feel is the good of AERC and don't want you to
think otherwise, it is just a difference in opinions on how we want to achieve
the balance.
I voted the way I did for our ride managers and in turn the riders. I
am chair of the ride managers committee and we opposed this fee hike. Members
from my MW region must not have the money that other regions must have
because many of our rides offer very inexpensive ride fees but even still
many of them have small attendance. Many of them make little to no profit. Check
the number of riders on the 5 (7) day Shore to Shore Ride, do you
think the ride manager can afford to lose another $30.00 or so a
day? How much more would he be willing to pay in order to keep that 5
day ride alive for you? ( He said if he can not get more riders, he will have to
let it go). If our region lose dedicated ride managers like
Wayne, where would the our riders be? How many rides can they put on taking
a risk? I am sure they will have to raise their fees but some are afraid
the smaller rides may be the ones to suffer or disappear which will make us
driving further to rides. We also get another important service from our
ride managers, they clear our trails and try to keep a good working relationship
between with our land managers and endurance riders. I hope you can
understand our dilemma over all the finance issues. Connie
Caudill
