More On The Snow

[Nutter]

On another note, but associated to the conversation I found this Levi Levalle vid when I clicked on the #LaNina hashtag and got a good laugh out of it LOL  It's posted direct to FB so I hope this link works here. 
 
 
https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FPolarisSnowmobiles%2Fvideos%2F1246224402056449%2F&show_text=0&width=560

[grover_yyz]

I think an excellent target market is owners and family members of cottages. I think many have a snowmobile and just use it around the local cottage road or on the lake. The OFSC needs to convince these riders to break away from their local surroundings and explore the vast trail system. Maybe they already do this, and that's great.

 

Facebook and other social media is an excellent conduit to promote the sport to the younger generation. Print media and television still appeals to the older demographics. I am in my 50's and I see both sides of the promotional debate and still use both social and traditional media for my information.

 

Jerry

[slomo]

slomo, I too was a little surprised to learn about the existence of these promotional videos.

 

BTW, are you ok with us sharing your Snowmobile Song on Facebook? I don't want to put it out there without permission.....

 

facebook page 2.jpg

 

Thanks for asking - sure go ahead and post song on facebook. It's up on youtube for most people as well.

 

Now, back to researching the "vow of perpetual poverty" on the income tax form for those poor people not making any money doing Ontario Tourism videos.

Happy to help.

[bbakernbay]

Any more MOTS input as AGM is less than a month away?

[soupkids]

Any more MOTS input as AGM is less than a month away?

Our meeting is tonight at 7, will post tonight or tomorrow.

[sledjunk]

Our meeting isn't until next Wednesday.

[bbakernbay]

Our meeting is tonight at 7, will post tonight or tomorrow.

I presume STP would be in favor as your Clubs operate as a Grooming Association without regard to Club boundaries and with a Grooming Manager which is basically what MOTS proposes.

[Wildman]

I presume STP would be in favor as your Clubs operate as a Grooming Association without regard to Club boundaries and with a Grooming Manager which is basically what MOTS proposes.

obviously I have no insight on what stp is thinking, but looking at it from the standpoint that my district operates much like what MOTS proposes, my concerns are more with how the assets can possibly be manipulated from lets say, outside district powers. I have voiced my concerns to my club, the same as I have posted on here earlier, I have never heard from anybody how things work in respect to this. If I had a vote, it would be no, just because I don't have all the information. I am not on the club exec. anymore, I do sit on the district trail committee, and that is more then enough for me at this time. I guess it would really be fairly simple to get the answers, I just can't believe nobody else cares to know.

[soupkids]

First off let me say that MOTS is a living document/plan of action, which we as clubs/OFSC must participate in in order to survive, nothing is set in stone. 

There is a timetable for the actions that was not included in the MOTS document.

The whole focus MOTS is to reduce the grooming fleet so that replacement can be cycled to about 10% (25 units) a year.

In order to do this club boundaries must disappear to make grooming as efficient as possible.

With the district realignment and grooming handled by the district, your club will not disappear, if anything it will make it stronger.

your club will no longer have to worry about any costs of grooming, fuel, repairs, wages, etc.

your club will have input on when, where, how often a trail needs to be groomed.

your current operators will still likely be operating the groomer but on all the club trails not just yours taking that sense of ownership to all the trails.

The club no longer has to have massive fundraising events to purchase new groomers, all that money can be put into trail development.

I'm sure every club has a section of trail that needs some kind of overhaul that they have never had time/money to do, now you will. 

Now all your club has to worry about is the trails themselves.

Club incorporation vs chapters (this one is easy)

Does your club have a clubhouse/property or an event that you require a liquor license for ??

if the answer is yes than you must stay incorporated plain and simple. 

The idea of a chapter is to reduce the number of people that you need to meet the minimum standards set out by law to be incorporated, which many clubs are having a hard time with this.

if your club decided to be a chapter nothing you currently do changes other than any monies you raise is held in trust by the district.

Example your club has trail work done by a contractor and the bill is $5000 and your club had $10,000 held in trust, you give the bill to the district and they pay the bill, simple by my standards.

Did anybody know that the federal government has passed and enacted NFP legislation similar to what Ontario has waiting in the wings ?? I didn't.

Much of the district holding all the cards has to do with accountability to the government and MTO for the permits (not mentioned in the MOTS document) which we are just scraping by with I might add.

 

MOTS is a whole lot of information and actions that must me taken in but as a whole it is good and must be done.

Before the session I would have voted no to MOTS, after it is a high five yes.

 

Just on a side note STP/D12 is being used as a successful example of how MOTS works.

STP/ D12 is in the last stages of becoming one corporate entity (lawyer stuff)

Last year all the clubs in D12 (STP, Narin, Espanola, Manitoulin, Massey) all joined together, essentially becoming what MOTS is trying to do.

Did anything change as far as the clubs that joined, no, nothing except the new members did not have to look after costs of grooming.

Hell one area even got a new to them groomer to replace the very old troublesome one they had at NO cost to them.

STP/D12 is living proof that the concept of MOTS works, is it perfect, no, but what is ???

You work through the issues as a group and everybody wins.

 

Kevin Campbell

VP Nickel Belt Snow Spirits  

STP/D12

[soupkids]

Sounds like your District meeting with OFSC was very productive. I hope we all get to move forward with MOTS or a close variation of it.

In all reality we are operating at about 90% of what MOTS is trying to do

[dweese]

I posted some of the vids too our clubs FB page at around 9 last night before leaving for work, check out the amount of views they received in less then 12 hours, in August. Through people sharing it and using hashtags to associate to other posts it sure got a lot of exposure and still is. No doubt with some of it being seen by none sledders. Almost 2000 saw something about sledding in Ontario in the last 12 hours because I posted those, and it didn't cost a dime

And this is where your missing the point Nutter. That's not marketing, it's communication. Which is great for getting the word out to those who already know. But it's not helping to bring anyone in to the sport. Your just guessing some non-sledders saw it, which most likely did, but you didn't target them. It was dumb luck they saw it.

And I think that's where your getting confused with the power of the hashtag. It only works for those who know what to look for. It's not actually targeting new people, just helping communicate with those who already are part of the system. Which is great too, but it's not marketing.

[Nutter]

First off let me say that MOTS is a living document/plan of action, which we as clubs/OFSC must participate in in order to survive, nothing is set in stone. 

There is a timetable for the actions that was not included in the MOTS document.

The whole focus MOTS is to reduce the grooming fleet so that replacement can be cycled to about 10% (25 units) a year.

In order to do this club boundaries must disappear to make grooming as efficient as possible.

With the district realignment and grooming handled by the district, your club will not disappear, if anything it will make it stronger.

your club will no longer have to worry about any costs of grooming, fuel, repairs, wages, etc.

your club will have input on when, where, how often a trail needs to be groomed.

your current operators will still likely be operating the groomer but on all the club trails not just yours taking that sense of ownership to all the trails.

The club no longer has to have massive fundraising events to purchase new groomers, all that money can be put into trail development.

I'm sure every club has a section of trail that needs some kind of overhaul that they have never had time/money to do, now you will. 

Now all your club has to worry about is the trails themselves.

Club incorporation vs chapters (this one is easy)

Does your club have a clubhouse/property or an event that you require a liquor license for ??

if the answer is yes than you must stay incorporated plain and simple. 

The idea of a chapter is to reduce the number of people that you need to meet the minimum standards set out by law to be incorporated, which many clubs are having a hard time with this.

if your club decided to be a chapter nothing you currently do changes other than any monies you raise is held in trust by the district.

Example your club has trail work done by a contractor and the bill is $5000 and your club had $10,000 held in trust, you give the bill to the district and they pay the bill, simple by my standards.

Did anybody know that the federal government has passed and enacted NFP legislation similar to what Ontario has waiting in the wings ?? I didn't.

Much of the district holding all the cards has to do with accountability to the government and MTO for the permits (not mentioned in the MOTS document) which we are just scraping by with I might add.

 

MOTS is a whole lot of information and actions that must me taken in but as a whole it is good and must be done.

Before the session I would have voted no to MOTS, after it is a high five yes.

 

Just on a side note STP/D12 is being used as a successful example of how MOTS works.

STP/ D12 is in the last stages of becoming one corporate entity (lawyer stuff)

Last year all the clubs in D12 (STP, Narin, Espanola, Manitoulin, Massey) all joined together, essentially becoming what MOTS is trying to do.

Did anything change as far as the clubs that joined, no, nothing except the new members did not have to look after costs of grooming.

Hell one area even got a new to them groomer to replace the very old troublesome one they had at NO cost to them.

STP/D12 is living proof that the concept of MOTS works, is it perfect, no, but what is ???

You work through the issues as a group and everybody wins.

 

Kevin Campbell

VP Nickle Belt Snow Spirits  

STP/D12

 

Excellent synopsis Kev 

 

 

And this is where your missing the point Nutter. That's not marketing, it's communication. Which is great for getting the word out to those who already know. But it's not helping to bring anyone in to the sport. Your just guessing some non-sledders saw it, which most likely did, but you didn't target them. It was dumb luck they saw it.

And I think that's where your getting confused with the power of the hashtag. It only works for those who know what to look for. It's not actually targeting new people, just helping communicate with those who already are part of the system. Which is great too, but it's not marketing.

 

 

13 other people/groups shared just one of the posts, it's been viewed by more then 2000 people as of this morning, total views of all 3 posts is almost at 3000 views as of this morning. You're correct, it is a guess at how many saw it that are none sledders, but with the post being shared by other people and groups (one group a non sledding related community group) to their feeds I'm betting it's a pretty good number. There's no guarantee that newspaper articles or TV commercials target any better. 

 

If someone is viewing another post that has even just one of the same #hastags eg - #LaNina, #warmgloves, #snowshovel, #ChevSilverado,  #Polaris, #Skidoo -  and so on, and they click on that hashtag they will see all posts that have that #hashtag, including mine. In essence it's another link to your content thats now being linked to your content by everyone else using that same hashtag. When I was first introduced to hashtagging and started using it on the PPSC FB page, we received a substantial jump in post likes and post shares, and full page likes and page followers.

 

I don't know if you manage a public FB page ? With public FB pages you can see where your reach is, sex, age, country of origin, time/date, what was liked the most pic or link, vid or article .....ect,  you can also adjust the time frame you want to see of that info - All time, years, months weeks days. With this you can see when your best times to post are for what content.  If managed correctly this is a very powerful marketing tool, even not being used to it's fullest FB will yield good results. With this info you can follow trends in your posts and know exactly what to post and when to post it to hit who you want to market your content to. Best of all you can do it all for free.  Getting your brand out there and seen is marketing your brand, and marketing our brand is marketing sledding in Ontario. 

 

Here's a few screen shots of some of the insight views from the last few days of the PPSC FB page, these are fantastic numbers considering that it's August. It shows me that the reach of those vids to go further than just our page is quite strong, it also shows those vids attracted 7 new people to now follow our FB page and receive notification of each time we post something to it, and which vid attracted the most. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nutter]

Also I'd like to add that Facebook isn't limited to Facebook users. The PPSC Facebook page is open for anyone to view (as most public pages are set that way) and comes up as #3 when you google Snowmobiling in Port Perry. 

[Greggie]

First off let me say that MOTS is a living document/plan of action, which we as clubs/OFSC must participate in in order to survive, nothing is set in stone.

There is a timetable for the actions that was not included in the MOTS document.

The whole focus MOTS is to reduce the grooming fleet so that replacement can be cycled to about 10% (25 units) a year.

In order to do this club boundaries must disappear to make grooming as efficient as possible.

With the district realignment and grooming handled by the district, your club will not disappear, if anything it will make it stronger.

your club will no longer have to worry about any costs of grooming, fuel, repairs, wages, etc.

your club will have input on when, where, how often a trail needs to be groomed.

your current operators will still likely be operating the groomer but on all the club trails not just yours taking that sense of ownership to all the trails.

The club no longer has to have massive fundraising events to purchase new groomers, all that money can be put into trail development.

I'm sure every club has a section of trail that needs some kind of overhaul that they have never had time/money to do, now you will.

Now all your club has to worry about is the trails themselves.

Club incorporation vs chapters (this one is easy)

Does your club have a clubhouse/property or an event that you require a liquor license for ??

if the answer is yes than you must stay incorporated plain and simple.

The idea of a chapter is to reduce the number of people that you need to meet the minimum standards set out by law to be incorporated, which many clubs are having a hard time with this.

if your club decided to be a chapter nothing you currently do changes other than any monies you raise is held in trust by the district.

Example your club has trail work done by a contractor and the bill is $5000 and your club had $10,000 held in trust, you give the bill to the district and they pay the bill, simple by my standards.

Did anybody know that the federal government has passed and enacted NFP legislation similar to what Ontario has waiting in the wings ?? I didn't.

Much of the district holding all the cards has to do with accountability to the government and MTO for the permits (not mentioned in the MOTS document) which we are just scraping by with I might add.

MOTS is a whole lot of information and actions that must me taken in but as a whole it is good and must be done.

Before the session I would have voted no to MOTS, after it is a high five yes.

Just on a side note STP/D12 is being used as a successful example of how MOTS works.

STP/ D12 is in the last stages of becoming one corporate entity (lawyer stuff)

Last year all the clubs in D12 (STP, Narin, Espanola, Manitoulin, Massey) all joined together, essentially becoming what MOTS is trying to do.

Did anything change as far as the clubs that joined, no, nothing except the new members did not have to look after costs of grooming.

Hell one area even got a new to them groomer to replace the very old troublesome one they had at NO cost to them.

STP/D12 is living proof that the concept of MOTS works, is it perfect, no, but what is ???

You work through the issues as a group and everybody wins.

Kevin Campbell

VP Nickle Belt Snow Spirits

STP/D12

Kevin,

How about the assets, permit and fundraising accounts?

All the money what is from permit sales or is collected as fundraising in the name of snowmobiling belongs to the OFSC and not the club?

You think that the clubs can tell the district how often the club trails have to be groomed?

Who will do the repairs small to big of the groomers?

You tell me please

[Nutter]

Kevin,

How about the assets, permit and fundraising accounts?

All the money what is from permit sales or is collected as fundraising in the name of snowmobiling belongs to the OFSC and not the club?

You think that the clubs can tell the district how often the club trails have to be groomed?

Who will do the repairs small to big of the groomers?

You tell me please

 

 

Greg we don't have our meeting till a week today, but from what I understand from reading the MOTS plan is clubs that stay incorporated keep their assets in their name, and incoming funds from permits are held in district accounts under an MOU (Memorandum Of Understanding) where those funds are allocated for that specific club, nothing changes for fund raising accounts all fund raising funds stay in the clubs account. For clubs not staying incorporated will have no assets in their name, ands will have a similar MOU for both permit and fundraising dollars allocated for that club held in a district account.  

 

I would like to think that a grooming committee made up of members from each club would be able to make sure trails are groomed according to need. In some cases we have clubs that over groom and some that don't groom enough. Hopefully with the district working collectively this will provide more consistent grooming. 

 

For repairs it sounds like it can go either way at the wishes of how each district want to handle it. The district groomer coordinator and or groomer committee handle it from start to finish or the club where the groomer is does it.

 

I could be way off base here, but thats my understanding from reading the latest AGM MOTS draft   

[Bigfish]

Greg we don't have our meeting till a week today, but from what I understand from reading the MOTS plan is clubs that stay incorporated keep their assets in their name, and incoming funds from permits are held in district accounts under an MOU (Memorandum Of Understanding) where those funds are allocated for that specific club, nothing changes for fund raising accounts all fund raising funds stay in the clubs account. For clubs not staying incorporated will have no assets in their name, ands will have a similar MOU for both permit and fundraising dollars allocated for that club held in a district account.  

 

I would like to think that a grooming committee made up of members from each club would be able to make sure trails are groomed according to need. In some cases we have clubs that over groom and some that don't groom enough. Hopefully with the district working collectively this will provide more consistent grooming. 

 

For repairs it sounds like it can go either way at the wishes of how each district want to handle it. The district groomer coordinator and or groomer committee handle it from start to finish or the club where the groomer is does it.

 

I could be way off base here, but thats my understanding from reading the latest AGM MOTS draft   

That's the way I read it also, Rick

[dweese]

Yes very nice stats Nutter, but you're still not getting it. That's not marketing, its still just communicating to your current users. Your not actively targeting new people. Your 2000 views are from people already following your hashtags and public pages. Anyone else who does see it, it's simply because of dumb luck. Luck is not marketing...

[Nutter]

Yes very nice stats Nutter, but you're still not getting it. That's not marketing, its still just communicating to your current users. Your not actively targeting new people. Your 2000 views are from people already following your hashtags and public pages. Anyone else who does see it, it's simply because of dumb luck. Luck is not marketing...

 

In the last 4 days as of right now, 2079 people were reached with those posts, only 1017 people like/follow the PPSC FB page, so anything above that 1017 is absolutely guaranteed to be someone thats not already seeing our page or posts. 

[soupkids]

Kevin,

How about the assets, permit and fundraising accounts?

All the money what is from permit sales or is collected as fundraising in the name of snowmobiling belongs to the OFSC and not the club?

You think that the clubs can tell the district how often the club trails have to be groomed?

Who will do the repairs small to big of the groomers?

You tell me please

I will do my best Greg.

Assets will go to the district, primarily Large grooming equipment will go to the district, smaller equipment, saws, stay with the club

now the key is if you keep it it must be funded by the club not permits, IE fundraising, so if you have a ATV/UTV/ARGO, sled, you have to decide if it goes to the district or stay with the club and fundraise to maintain it.

Any permit money must be sent back/forfeited to the district, fundraising $$ the club keeps, going back how far I don't know, so get your treasurer to go back and be able to show the separation between the two.

I think this covers question 1 and 2.

Yes the clubs can tell the district when and how often the trails need to be groomed, the clubs are the district.

As for the last question let me give you an example of how we operate in D12/STP, which the OFSC is basing the District model in MOTS on.

STP and D12 have not been officially merged as one yet so I will refer only to STP at this point.

 

we have 12 clubs (Espanola and Manitoulin Joined last year) and 13 groomers (I could be wrong on this number).

no club has a "groomer" of their own, except the island due to geographical boundaries

each club president sits on the board and has a vote in the goings on of STP.

now there is a grooming committee that consists of the groomer coordinators and a rep from each club.

this is where the nuts and bolts of grooming come together, each club asks that their trails be groomed on certain days and time, we try very hard to have all grooming done at night where possible except the opening of the trails system.

we have it down to a pretty good science here as we have been doing it a long time, its not perfect but it works.

as an example my club trails are groomed by 4 different groomers due to geographical boundaries, lakes/swamps/rivers.

continuing on, the coordinates look after pretty much everything with the groomers, repairs, fuel deliveries, consumables etc.

Now the coordinators are hired by the operations manager (hired by the board), as well the operators are hired by the manager, the coordinator my be an operator, maybe not.

coordinators and operators get 2 different rates of pay, more responsibility for the coordinator of course.

now the repair payments part (this is the easy one) all bills for repairs go to STP for payment.

coordinators buy whatever needed to repair the groomer and the bills go directly to STP for payment.

if the repair is a major repair, blown engine, drive assembly, etc the operations manager is brought into the loop to aid in the decision making process and whats best to do with the broken groomer.

 

now this is where the benefits of MOTS comes in, groomer A is broken for 2 weeks, other groomers in the district are rearranged to cover the broken groomers trails (we do this now)

are all the trails groomed, yes, with the frequency wanted/required maybe not but they are groomed.

The grooming committee meets every 2 weeks during the season to revisit any issues that have come up, schedules, problem areas etc.

problem areas is where the club comes in, club is informed of area by groomer coordinator and club fixes the problem, trail get groomed.

the clubs are the heart of the system, without them there would be no district and in the end no sledding (D15 is an example of this, oh ya no D15 anymore).

The incorporated/unincorporated I think is meant more for the weaker northern clubs that simply do not have the people to do the job s that are set out by the laws of incorporation, may apply to some southern clubs as well.

 

I hope this helps answer your questions and then some greg.

 

Kevin.

[sledjunk]

Kevin

 

A couple of comments and questions.

 

Sounds like a lot of paid positions.  How does that result in 'more' on the snow.

 

It also sounds like a lot of meetings for the volunteers from the club.  Are these meetings 'virtual' meetings or do they require travel?  If so, is the travel reimbursed?

 

Who does the actual repairs and are these paid hours as well?

 

Thanks

[soupkids]

Kevin

 

A couple of comments and questions.

 

Sounds like a lot of paid positions.  How does that result in 'more' on the snow.

 

It also sounds like a lot of meetings for the volunteers from the club.  Are these meetings 'virtual' meetings or do they require travel?  If so, is the travel reimbursed?

 

Who does the actual repairs and are these paid hours as well?

 

Thanks

Do my best to answer with how we do it here

 

We have always paid our operators here and always had enough money to do everything that needs to be done and even extras.

 

the grooming meetings amount to 2 a month, worst case 8 a year (December to  March).

currently all the clubs are within an hour of the location so travel is not a big issue but once district realignment happens it will be and issue (one of the questions I asked at our meeting and didn't really get an answer)

Currently Manitoulin doesn't attend most grooming meetings due to the fact they are kind of on their own island HA HA HA HA, well maybe not so funny.

As far as reimbursement I think the coordinators get milage  anybody else is a volunteer ie club reps etc.

as I said earlier in a post the coordinators and operators do the repairs depending on the severity of the breakdown.

tracks, cleats, belts, hoses. idlers, that kind of thing they do, blown engines (it does happen, we've had a couple) major welding we have contacts that we have do the work.

Some volunteer some get paid, obviously if the groomer blows a hose, idler on the trail and to operator fixes it, he/she is getting paid.  

Wages are not our biggest budget item fuel and repairs are jockeying for top spot most years.

The biggest thing with paid positions is its easy to fire an employee, not so much with a volunteer.   

 

Nope I answered all your questions sled junk.

 

Kevin.

[Claire Voyant]

"...the clubs are the heart of the system, without them there would be no district and in the end no sledding (D15 is an example of this, oh ya no D15 anymore).

The incorporated/unincorporated I think is meant more for the weaker northern clubs that simply do not have the people to do the job s that are set out by the laws of incorporation, may apply to some southern clubs as well.

 

I hope this helps answer your questions and then some greg.

 

Kevin."

 

 

Yikes! My morning coffee just came out my nose.....No D15?  See how much influence just one little number can have when you post. Get your facts straight, bud.

[dweese]

In the last 4 days as of right now, 2079 people were reached with those posts, only 1017 people like/follow the PPSC FB page, so anything above that 1017 is absolutely guaranteed to be someone thats not already seeing our page or posts.

What ever dude, keep beliving your touching all these new people and that a view means a diffrent person.... As long as you think your right that's all that matters. Don't worry about listening anyone that might actually have a little bit of education in marketing, because clearly you already know it all and that's why the OFSC is going to sell 25% more permits this year.

[reevester]

What ever dude, keep beliving your touching all these new people and that a view means a diffrent person.... As long as you think your right that's all that matters. Don't worry about listening anyone that might actually have a little bit of education in marketing, because clearly you already know it all and that's why the OFSC is going to sell 25% more permits this year.

Why don't you volunteer to help then if your so vastly experienced in marketing?

[dweese]

Why don't you volunteer to help then if your so vastly experienced in marketing?

I have a little, and would love too do more, but I don't have the time.. And I'm not vastly experienced. But I do have some knowledge on the subject that I have been trying to share. But it seems some are just too hardheaded to listen. If someone refuses to have a discussion, but instead wants to simply go on about how great of a job they are doing, what can you do?