Blake G Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 It should be pointed out that the 100,000 permits are purchased by customers of the OFSC, and these customers are not "members" of the OFSC. The members, with rights to information in considerable detail, are the 200 plus affiliated clubs. If a permit buyer (customer) wants access to financial or other information beyond that provided to the general public, the thing to do is become more involved at the club level. If a permit buyer is really interested, he or she can likely become a leader at the club level. The clubs I've investigated are desperately looking for more involvement on the part of the permit buyers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruteMan Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 36 minutes ago, PISTON LAKE CRUISER said: Actually the thread was started with one person's opinion of what he thought was going to happen this year. Only his opinion. Anyway I don't want the OFSC spending resources on duplicating information that already exists and I fully support raising the permit fee by a minimum of $25.00 as soon as possible. Have a safe and Happy New Year! Yep and this was your opinion on the matter i'm glad you feel your informed enough to support a $25 increase i just dont think the masses are going to support OFSC the same way you are. Which is obviously my opinion. all good and I did learn quite a bit from the thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake G Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 BruteMan, it is apparent that you are an avid snowmobiler, dedicated volunteer, and intelligent seeker of truth. You are not alone on this site. Glad to see you digging in. Have a good New Year, and ride safely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruteMan Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 13 minutes ago, Blake G said: It should be pointed out that the 100,000 permits are purchased by customers of the OFSC, and these customers are not "members" of the OFSC. The members, with rights to information in considerable detail, are the 200 plus affiliated clubs. If a permit buyer (customer) wants access to financial or other information beyond that provided to the general public, the thing to do is become more involved at the club level. If a permit buyer is really interested, he or she can likely become a leader at the club level. The clubs I've investigated are desperately looking for more involvement on the part of the permit buyers. Quote Ontario Snowmobile Trail Permits are an official licence product of the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) and the OFSC is the exclusive authorized sales agent. That quote is directly off the OFSC website they are a agent of the MTO this means they are accountable to the general public and not just the upper level clubs. as i also am a agent when we have design/build contracts with MTO and everything we do can be obtained at any time by the general public. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake G Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 I think they are accountable to the MTO, not the general public. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruteMan Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 10 minutes ago, Blake G said: BruteMan, it is apparent that you are an avid snowmobiler, dedicated volunteer, and intelligent seeker of truth. You are not alone on this site. Glad to see you digging in. Have a good New Year, and ride safely. Happy new year to you as well Blake and really i'm not trying to stir the pot so to speak just also not willing to walk blindly behind the next sheep in the heard at the end of the day we all want to ride and whatever that sticker costs is what it costs and that's the price to pay regardless how much we talk about it here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoso Posted January 1, 2018 Author Share Posted January 1, 2018 3 hours ago, PISTON LAKE CRUISER said: Not an intelligent statement to make without full explanation included on this or any other forum IMHO. Too Bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoso Posted January 1, 2018 Author Share Posted January 1, 2018 1 hour ago, Blake G said: It should be pointed out that the 100,000 permits are purchased by customers of the OFSC, and these customers are not "members" of the OFSC. The members, with rights to information in considerable detail, are the 200 plus affiliated clubs. If a permit buyer (customer) wants access to financial or other information beyond that provided to the general public, the thing to do is become more involved at the club level. If a permit buyer is really interested, he or she can likely become a leader at the club level. The clubs I've investigated are desperately looking for more involvement on the part of the permit buyers. This post is the exact attitude the average permit buyer hates when they ask about where their permit money goes. It is also the only answer ever given, and we wonder why so many do not get it. What is being hidden? Must be something being there is such adamant resistance to showing any financials to the public( the first thing that pops into a person's mind). Show them the financials, and then suggest if they are not happy about it, the way to change that is to join a club. Seems to be a better way to become inclusive and welcoming, something many clubs need a lot of work on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake G Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 If someone goes on a sledding trip and rents a hotel room for $190, they wouldn't expect to see the hotel's books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoso Posted January 1, 2018 Author Share Posted January 1, 2018 14 minutes ago, Blake G said: If someone goes on a sledding trip and rents a hotel room for $190, they wouldn't expect to see the hotel's books. No, but that is not even close to the same, and you know that. Let me ask you this, why are so many so afraid to share information? If we were to share the financials without a giant hassle or some demand to volunteer, and even then good luck, then we would see most permit buyers feeling a sense of ownership and inclusion. This would lead to more people volunteering, less people having deluded thoughts of corruption, and an easier way forward in bringing permit pricing in line with costs and not having major outcry from the permit buyers. Now tell me the down side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruteMan Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 1 hour ago, Blake G said: I think they are accountable to the MTO, not the general public. Interesting and not related but the Permits are a MTO based classification why the hell do the OPP not enforce the bloody permits im hearing lots about insurance checks and ownership / plate sticker checks if your a Officer on a OFSC trail would you also not then be a enforcer for a MTO based permit system or is it more like our roads where they have to call in the green police on commercial trucks if they suspect something? though we don't have OFSC police Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake G Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 7 minutes ago, zoso said: No, but that is not even close to the same, and you know that. Let me ask you this, why are so many so afraid to share information? If we were to share the financials without a giant hassle or some demand to volunteer, and even then good luck, then we would see most permit buyers feeling a sense of ownership and inclusion. This would lead to more people volunteering, less people having deluded thoughts of corruption, and an easier way forward in bringing permit pricing in line with costs and not having major outcry from the permit buyers. Now tell me the down side. The hotel renter example seems pretty similar to me. As a permit buyer I have no right to be given confidential details about the OFSC, whether it be financial, legal, operational. The OFSC leadership gets to decide what they want to share with Joe Sledder. Joe sledder can see the published pie graph that shows the general categories of OFSC expenditures. The OFSC members (clubs) get access to more details, some of which are confidential and not for public consumption. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoso Posted January 1, 2018 Author Share Posted January 1, 2018 36 minutes ago, Blake G said: The hotel renter example seems pretty similar to me. As a permit buyer I have no right to be given confidential details about the OFSC, whether it be financial, legal, operational. The OFSC leadership gets to decide what they want to share with Joe Sledder. Joe sledder can see the published pie graph that shows the general categories of OFSC expenditures. The OFSC members (clubs) get access to more details, some of which are confidential and not for public consumption. That attitude has to change. Again, what is the problem, all you have is, Joe sledder has no right. Here is a fact you may not know, Joe sledder is not the enemy. There is no good reason not to share this information. hell, they make it a massive hassle when you are on a club executive, the guy that volunteers ten tays a year to brush trails will never see anything. This entire attitude has to go, and the sooner it does the better. Your tone when describing the permit buyer is a little offsetting tp say the least. Oh, and the difference between the hotel and the OFSC, there are thousands of hotels to choose from, there is only one permit seller in ontario. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viperules700 Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 57 minutes ago, Blake G said: The hotel renter example seems pretty similar to me. As a permit buyer I have no right to be given confidential details about the OFSC, whether it be financial, legal, operational. The OFSC leadership gets to decide what they want to share with Joe Sledder. Joe sledder can see the published pie graph that shows the general categories of OFSC expenditures. The OFSC members (clubs) get access to more details, some of which are confidential and not for public consumption. The ofsc should be more transparent with it's permit buyers, no doubt. We are all part of organization, since it is a not for profit one. Most of us buy one or two or more trail permits ever year, year after year. Be nice to know a little bit more, so we can understand how system works and if there are in deed funding short falls, we should be made aware and raise costs next season, so nothing comes as a shock. I remember one year luc the groomer guys fuel tanks ran empty in early march. Some local business and sledders such as skidoo dealer in Ayr donated some cash to ensure grooming was able to continue for a few more weeks that year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
02Sled Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 5 hours ago, Spiderman said: Your sled insurance is under an oap, show me where in there it states anything at all about open or closed trails? Or trails at all.... What does it say about closed roads in your car insurance? Like I said I don't want to be a test case. Hit a tree down across a closed trail. Make an insurance claim and your insurer files against the OFSC for a hazard on the trail. Then they come back with the trail being closed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake G Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 Sorry if my tone's offensive. Unintentional. Trying to be straight up about how I view things. I have nothing to do with OFSC and am not on the board of my local club, by the way. Trying to juggle a few other things while writing to you, so my diplomacy may be lacking right now. As a volunteer with my local club, I feel I should be allowed to get our club's financial info at least once a year, at our agm. Even if I didn't volunteer I would hope to be filled in at the club agm. However I don't feel I have the same right to access the financials of the other 199 clubs. I respect the right of the OFSC to determine the appropriate level of sharing of provincial level information. Having said that, I've attended the OFSC AGM on my own dime for the past couple of years, and didn't feel that stuff was being unduly hidden. What I haven't yet said is that I actually agree with much of what you've been saying. I believe I've said those very things myself in the past few years. I feel that things would be better if there was more openness at all levels of sledding. But I respect the leadership. They have accepted the huge liability and responsibilities on our behalf, so I will try to be supportive. Zoso, I respect your view. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoso Posted January 1, 2018 Author Share Posted January 1, 2018 1 hour ago, 02Sled said: What does it say about closed roads in your car insurance? Like I said I don't want to be a test case. Hit a tree down across a closed trail. Make an insurance claim and your insurer files against the OFSC for a hazard on the trail. Then they come back with the trail being closed. You are arguing with a claims adjuster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Pete Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 17 hours ago, bbakernbay said: This is not correct. Permits sold by a particular Club now creates very little revenue to that Club. The $$$ go to the District which fund grooming operations on the basis of the actual amount of grooming hours and to a lesser extent on the kilometres and type of trails being groomed. There is a lot of formulas used to take into account running averages so as to smooth out highs and lows from one year to another. The one thing the OFSC needs to do is publicize in a clear and concise method as to how the grooming funds are allotted to each District and how the Districts are supposed to fund grooming. This is probably one of the biggest mysteries to most and everyone should have a basic understanding of the funding. Big Pete, a great contributor here on OC and a CPA, has the best understanding of the funding formula. Hopefully he could chime in and explain the process in the simplest terms. Brian, thank you for the kind words but I am not s CPA but I do have extensive experience in finance having spent the last 35 years with a major FI in commercial lending and in divisional finance department. I know my way around a set of financial statements. Like the OP, I too have concerns about the system running out of money before we run out of snow. There have been many comments about the surpluses from previous seasons being available this year. What most seem to miss is that the BoG transferred those surplus funds to the groomer replacement to fund the new groomers over the last 3 seasons. If memory serves me correctly those transfer have totalled more than $10 million. The EQ fund has a surplus of $750k in it right now. That’s about 13,000 hrs at the current rate of $58/hr. What people have forgotten is that this scenario has already been played out. In the first year of FFC the whole province had a great season. In fact the province groomed about 125% of the 4 yr average. Because there was no reserve at that time the OFSC reduced the rates paid for trails and grooming quite significantly. So while you might have planned on getting $58/hr this year it has the real possibility of being significantly less. How much less we will not know until Msrch 31 when the final reconciliation is done. So I hope clubs/districts have some working capital in reserves just in case. couple of common misconceptions. Clubs do not receive permit money directly. Under MOTS all the permit money goes to the District. Even the 10% direct permit sales. It’s the District that decides how operations are funded. They can decide to fund operations based on the clubs contributions based on permit sales, trails, and grooming hours or they can come up with system that has no bearing permit sales by club. The only reason permit sales are tracked at club level is for OFSC membership eligibility (still based on minimum 50 permits). A simple change to the membership criteria could eliminate the whole “pick a club” nonsense in the permit system. A permit buyer could simply sign in and buy an Ontario Permit. As long as the permit is sold it should not matter where it is sold. Permit sales have nothing to do with Groomer fleet size, allocation to districts or replacement. If there is a place for more transparency and openness it is this area. As I understand the “new” criteria the replacement criteria is 5,000 hrs and/or 16 yrs old. It gets complicated because there is now a cascading feature in that if your District is putting more than approx 300 hours per year on a groomer you are effectively consuming it too quickly. The solution is to cascade that unit after a few years to a district that would groom less than the 300 hours per year. That way you end up meeting the 5000 hr/16 yr average. But here’s the problem. It took about 3 minutes to figure out that if you want new groomers you need to groom a minimum of 300-350 hrs per year per groomer. I have heard stories of groomer operators being told to groom even though conditions do not warrant a grooming run (groom in the rain, groom smooth trails just get your hours in). I just don’t see how this system promotes efficiency. As to finacial reporting to members or permit buyers we need to do a better job. I am my clubs treasurer. I report st every meeting as to the balance sheet and income statement along with cheque registers and bank statements. Any member is welcome to a copy. At Our AGM everybody in attendance gets a copy of the year end financial statements. I use the Standard OFSC accounting model with all the detail shown in the Ops Report. And it’s a year over year comparative report. What i I would like to see is a similar format used by the New York State Association. The annual report of the state Association contained a brief out line of each club, its vital statistics (miles of trails, hours groomed, permits sold) along with a summary financial report. No secrets, no speculation. It’s all on the table. If we were to adopt a similar presentation I think it would put us in a better position to show permit buyers were the money goes, how under funded the system really is and why permit prices need to go up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Pete Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 5 hours ago, Blake G said: It should be pointed out that the 100,000 permits are purchased by customers of the OFSC, and these customers are not "members" of the OFSC. The members, with rights to information in considerable detail, are the 200 plus affiliated clubs. If a permit buyer (customer) wants access to financial or other information beyond that provided to the general public, the thing to do is become more involved at the club level. If a permit buyer is really interested, he or she can likely become a leader at the club level. The clubs I've investigated are desperately looking for more involvement on the part of the permit buyers. Blake, have to disagree. The 100,000 odd permit buyers are members. They are Class C Members and while they don’t have voting rights they are still members and should be treated as such. We have contact info including email addresses for everyone of them. What if the OFSC put the Annual Report on the website and sent the link to every member. Virtually no cost to give access to every member. And as an aside, if the new NFP legislation is ever enacted there will be situations where non-voting members will get to vote. So don’t discount them too heavily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
02Sled Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 5 hours ago, zoso said: You are arguing with a claims adjuster. I am asking a question and saying I don't want to be a test case. My insurance company ANd as reported on the news have said if you choose to go down a road that has been closed (often bad weather /snow) you won't be covered. I have come across adjusters in the past where not all have shared the same opinion. Some may be more "forgiving" in their interpretation than others. Then are you sure once the lawyers get involved will the situation not change. I. E. Trail is closed due to a significant hazard. You are severely injured and sled is written off. Will it just be a claims adjuster involved or will the insurance company go after the OFSC to recoup what they are paying you. Now the OFSC insurance company and their lawyers are likely involved. I suspect they will look at every possible angle and say the rider was trespassing on a closed trail and shouldn't have been there. Perhaps it all ends up in court Just asking the the questions that seem obvious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake G Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 Big Pete, I stand corrected. Thank you for bringing more knowledge and clarification to the discussion. I had forgotten that permit buyers were Class C members. I don't know what that means, though, in terms of our rights to club information, or to OFSC information. I do agree that clubs, districts, and the OFSC should be more transparent. I like the sounds of your sensible suggestion, about how to accomplish this in a way similar to the New York State Association. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muskoka Man Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 I think class C members means you don’t get to know what goes on behind closed doors ,lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake G Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 14 minutes ago, Muskoka Man said: I think class C members means you don’t get to know what goes on behind closed doors, lol You might be right. It would be interesting to know the membership rights of each level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spiderman Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 7 hours ago, 02Sled said: What does it say about closed roads in your car insurance? Like I said I don't want to be a test case. Hit a tree down across a closed trail. Make an insurance claim and your insurer files against the OFSC for a hazard on the trail. Then they come back with the trail being closed. Says nothing, open or closed has no bearing at all on your first party coverage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulslund Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 11 hours ago, zoso said: Too Bad. Actually no... not "Too Bad".. Posting that image of riding 100kms on a closed trail without indicating you had special club permission to do so is irresponsible. Clearly one new member here has gotten the wrong idea and without clarification may have sent him off riding on closed trails and putting him in danger. Riding on closed trails is considered trespassing and can lead to fines. Not to mention they may not be clear of debris or other hidden dangers. Unless you are working with the club, closed trails should not be used. Period! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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