Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

NdurN@xxxxxxx wrote:

> All committees took big reductions and the grants spending is suspended until 
> and If we get back to a positive budget.
>
> This has all been discussed on the AERC members forum ...nothing hidden even 
> tho you like to tell Ridecamp what a secret bunch we are

I have spent the better part of 2 days perusing the posts to the AERC members' forum 
going back to early August and must respectfully disagree that the issues of 
increasing fees and reducing either grants or committee budgets has "all been discussed".

First, Stagg didn't even post the agenda for the 13-Sep conference call till the 
evening of 11-Sep and then he prefaced it with, "This call will focuse (sic) on the 
2006 Budget. Items other than house keeping and time critical motions will be 
deferred until the October conference call."

Second, while there were numerous posts opposing the fee increases, there were no 
rebuttals or information forthcoming from the directors who supported those 
increases, UNTIL AFTER THE CALL AND VOTE HAD BEEN COMPLETED.

Third, there were several non-director posts pre-call suggesting that we should 
reduce grants and committee expenses and post-call jt was very concerned about the 
increase in committee expenses*, but there were no cogent responses from a BoD member 
explaining either the speedy vote to increase fees or the details of committee or 
grants cost increases except to say that without trails we have no rides and one post 
from Mike Maul stating, "...without trails - we will not have rides to keep records 
for. Without some believable studies and research about whether horses introduce 
invasive plant species into the wilderness - we will be banned from parks - and we 
will not have rides to keep records for."

Fourth, there were these conflicting statements of board members:
"the budget is over $700K...  Our shortfall in the draft budget, after hours and 
hours of discussion is down to well under $50K." - Laura Hayes
and
"...AERC is not in a crisis.  We have over $210,000.00+/- in reserve accounts.  We 
have many tens of thousands of dollars in incoming cash flow." - Randy

or as Angie posted:  It just seemed like first it was, "we've got too much money for 
a non-profit and that's a problem" then it was"we have no money and are raising rates".

*Randy Eiland posted these numbers:
1999 - $7,018.76
2000 - $13,407.11
2001 - $15,135.90
2002 - $23,279.99
2003 - $39,217.40
2004 - $43,444.24
2005 - $76,410 Budget

and jt said:
...selected expense items (in the range of 7k(1999) to 76k(2006) are presented, but 
it is not the complete expense picture (nor is there any description of the 3x 
expense growth 2003-2006).


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