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Disappointing to read this.


ZR SLEDHEAD

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1 hour ago, SteveB said:

This was lifted off the Tourism. Cultural, Sport web site when it comes to funding amount. Like the OFSC and districts there are 13 regions within this sector. I know people say "I have tried but got know where with the government" and I understand that. The alternative is to hire a firm to do this for you and pay them based on performance. If it cost you 15% so be it as these firms spend a lot of time preparing the application for approval. Many international companies do not try to write the business plans for government funding because of the time involved and expertise that is needed to get the application correct for consideration. The likes of Tim Hortons, Nestle, Dairy Farmers of Ontario, Coke all pay outside services to attract government funding. As you can see $38K was allocated in the 2017-18 year to support tourism. Someone with the OFSC would need to sign a contract of performance for an outside firm to act on behalf of the OFSC.

I am retired and do not need a job as stated earlier. But i will help to direct those interested in trying to access these funds. This really should not be done on a public forum but I do not know who to approach at the OFSC level. I really think this type of funding has to start with the OFSC. There is common ground with 13 tourism regions and the blend of 16?? snowmobile districts. You need the OFSC to pull this together as a team with tourism Ontario. It is political posturing. and will take time to build the relationships.  Anyway thats all I can do from here at this time. I hope it helps.

Funding

How much funding is the province providing to the tourism regions?

The Ontario government is supporting the tourism regions with $38 million in annual funding in 2017-18.

How will the funding for each region be used?

Tourism partners will use this funding to enhance destination marketing and management. This will help tourism in each region continue to grow and support local jobs and businesses.

Who decides how these funds are used?

The Regional Tourism Organizations (removed apostrophe) are independent, not-for-profit organizations governed by the Board of Directors. The board is responsible for developing annual business plans and determining how to use the region's funding. The business plans are reviewed by the ministry and funding is provided in accordance with the transfer-payment agreement requirements.

How does the regional tourism approach affect municipal support for tourism?

Tourism is an important economic driver in communities across the province, and the ministry encourages municipalities to continue supporting tourism as part of their communities' economic growth strategies.

It is important for municipalities to work with their Regional Tourism Organization to further local tourism growth and economic success.

 

SteveB here is some info for you. The OFSC executive elections are being held at the Board of Govenors meeting on March 24. So there will be a change in leadership at the top and that person may be interested in hearing your pitch. I am sure there will be some sort of announcement so it should be easy to get contact info. 

 

Personally i I think that the Ministry of Tourism has already decided that snowmobiling gets $1.0 million of the $38 and that’s it. (Note: every penny of TDF funding has been spent by clubs in the last number of years and I believe there were projects that did not get approved as the funding was already committed) Snowmobiling despite its large economic benefits to the economy just goes not fit the Governments  anti Motorsport agenda. And given that the snowmobiling population of let’s say 100,000 are too dispersed and uncoordinated to mount any political influence.  Should we be getting a bigger share. I would say yes especially when you look at some of the projects that did get funded. 

 

And a final note. The MOTS agenda included 6 new regional positions at the OFSC. 4 were to be operationally focused (trails/grooming) while the other 2 were business focused with an emphasis on finding and obtaininfo those elusive government grants. Despite budget allocations in the last 3 years, none of these positions have been hired. Maybe an opportunity for some post retirement income. 

 

So have at it. I wish you the best but I am not holding my breath waiting on a bag full of new money. 

 

PS: going to be accused of being in the old boys club and resistant change but in fact I would prefer to spend my energies in areas that have at least a fair chance of succeeding. 

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12 hours ago, Big Pete said:

The OFSC executive elections are being held at the Board of Govenors meeting on March 24. So there will be a change in leadership at the top

From what I understand this position is going to only pay $150K per year. That is not enough money to attract the talent required to steer the OFSC in a direction of leadership change. I know of corporations that pay their purchasing and or marketing managers this amount of money. Director of Marketings income for a major corporation exceeds $250K plus it has an incentive bonus attached if goals are met.

I have not seen any other social media site that has the commitment to an industry or the passion of it's membership that I see coming out of this site. I have looked at the social media sites of the likes of CAA, Costco, Loyalty Card programs and even private golf course membership sites and nothing comes close to this snowmobile forum. CAA does not have members passing their ideas along on services, Costco does not have their members advising on product selection, Loyalty Card programs do not have their members commenting on the cost of point redemption and the golf course members are not telling the greens keeper how to grow the grass. But the Ontario snowmobile industry has compassion and loyalty like I have never seen. When you see the camaraderie at lunch tables with groups excited for their brand of snowmobile over another is amazing. Other than Harley Davidson (and this is debatable) sledders are loyal to their brand without exception and loyal to the industry. So it is understandable that people want to voice their ideas and opinions and this site is the only one that allows them this freedom. Even if a small crumble of an idea gets picked up and acted on from this web site it is well worth the effort of everyone trying. Kudos to Ontario Conditions.

The reality is this sport is expensive to get into and expensive to keep running. I believe that there are more people leaving the sport due to many factors (age, lack of money, other interests) than there are entering it. The OFSC would know by the permit sales year over year. The issue with attrition is the costs do not go away or down because of ridership decline. The riders in the sport still expect groomed trails regardless of the funding issues. The only way to keep the funding available is to raise money from a third party source or increase trails pass fees. If there is no effort or money coming from ANY third party source we have no other option but to expect the trail pass fees to go up.

Keep the ideas flowing and the positions you have for positive change, as it at the very least, allows you to vent your frustrations on a forum that has followers who care. The OFSC has a stronger voice than many think with 30,000 plus??? paid members in the province. The one thing politicians like and need is votes. Show a politician you can help them along the way and they will return the favour.  

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On ‎2018‎-‎02‎-‎24 at 11:51 PM, zoso said:

I saw this exact situation coming ten years ago. I resisted a push to centralize control and to be more prudent with any and all monies spent on anything but grooming trails,

 and due to that position was treated like crap. Any money spent on marketing, flying in people for meetings, awards, or any other cause that does not allow groomers to move is simply ludicrous when we see this happen. How can anyone argue this now, not sure, but they will, and the spin will sound like a speech from Trudeau. Cue Nutter to point the finger directly at the club and absolve those that created a system destined to fail.

Clubs need to take some responsibly also, I know of some clubs that where always broke, no paid groomer ops, same number of kms then similar clubs and traffic and some how the club is broke every year.  They where paid the same as the other clubs around.  Some people suck at managing money running a club.  But we blame the OFSC head office for that. 

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3 hours ago, SteveB said:

From what I understand this position is going to only pay $150K per year. That is not enough money to attract the talent required to steer the OFSC in a direction of leadership change. I know of corporations that pay their purchasing and or marketing managers this amount of money. Director of Marketings income for a major corporation exceeds $250K plus it has an incentive bonus attached if goals are met.

I have not seen any other social media site that has the commitment to an industry or the passion of it's membership that I see coming out of this site. I have looked at the social media sites of the likes of CAA, Costco, Loyalty Card programs and even private golf course membership sites and nothing comes close to this snowmobile forum. CAA does not have members passing their ideas along on services, Costco does not have their members advising on product selection, Loyalty Card programs do not have their members commenting on the cost of point redemption and the golf course members are not telling the greens keeper how to grow the grass. But the Ontario snowmobile industry has compassion and loyalty like I have never seen. When you see the camaraderie at lunch tables with groups excited for their brand of snowmobile over another is amazing. Other than Harley Davidson (and this is debatable) sledders are loyal to their brand without exception and loyal to the industry. So it is understandable that people want to voice their ideas and opinions and this site is the only one that allows them this freedom. Even if a small crumble of an idea gets picked up and acted on from this web site it is well worth the effort of everyone trying. Kudos to Ontario Conditions.

The reality is this sport is expensive to get into and expensive to keep running. I believe that there are more people leaving the sport due to many factors (age, lack of money, other interests) than there are entering it. The OFSC would know by the permit sales year over year. The issue with attrition is the costs do not go away or down because of ridership decline. The riders in the sport still expect groomed trails regardless of the funding issues. The only way to keep the funding available is to raise money from a third party source or increase trails pass fees. If there is no effort or money coming from ANY third party source we have no other option but to expect the trail pass fees to go up.

Keep the ideas flowing and the positions you have for positive change, as it at the very least, allows you to vent your frustrations on a forum that has followers who care. The OFSC has a stronger voice than many think with 30,000 plus??? paid members in the province. The one thing politicians like and need is votes. Show a politician you can help them along the way and they will return the favour.  

Well said Steve.    We to push for more trail permit enforcement, have those freeloaders using the trail system without helping pay.  This year is a bad year for people openly selling permits on facebook.

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3 hours ago, The Groomer Guy said:

Clubs need to take some responsibly also, I know of some clubs that where always broke, no paid groomer ops, same number of kms then similar clubs and traffic and some how the club is broke every year.  They where paid the same as the other clubs around.  Some people suck at managing money running a club.  But we blame the OFSC head office for that. 

Different clubs also have different fixed operations costs as well.  How do you compare a club that does not pay or pays a minimal cost for a groomer shop to a club that pays all costs (heat/hydro/taxes).  With the groomers being as complex as they are having access to a space to thaw them out is important for longevity.  Our club needs to pay full costs for our facility and conversely we while not broke need to pinch pennies to the extreme, comparing us to a club that has free access to space and has extra at the end of the year.  We are paid the same for our grooming but our costs vary wildly for performing the same task.  Does that make us bad at managing money or just unlucky?  In our case the decision was made years ago when economics were very different( heating fuel costs were 30-40cents/litre not 1.20/litre now. 

 

As well costs are not the same for all club in similar situations.  We have to heat with Oil when you compare us to a club that can heat with natural gas our heating costs are substantially more expensive but we have no other options.  Again bad at managing money or unlucky and have to make the same amount of money go further?  I don't know what the answers are but treating everyone with a one-size-fits-all approach is not ideal and creates discrepancies. 

 

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Matt are you saying that the costs for the groomer building comes out of the $ per km that is paid to operate? As you said there are variables from one club to another. Our groomer building expenses are paid for by the district. It however is on township property with a low cost long term lease and we paid for the construction by and large from fund raising activities and donations. We have a furnace but only heat the space when required. We don't have hydro but do have a diesel generator we can run when required.

 

Prior to that the groomer was parked outside all the time and we were fortunate enough to be able to make use of the township service garage space after hours when we really needed to.

 

Like you said there are so many variables.

 

A good goal and that is what I believed OFSC is trying to achieve is to standardize business practices wherever it is feasible and makes sense. Things like a groomer building having the operating expenses covered at the district level.

 

You may have some scenarios however where there are discretionary decisions that are made which are not practical. Is it necessary to heat a groomer building all the time or do you heat it up when you need to do work. Things like that.

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1 hour ago, matt17 said:

Yes in our district clubs pay all operating costs out of our per hour district funding.  

 

That is where there needs to be some clarity then and uniformity from one district to another and the clubs within the district. I can see conceptually where it would be a mess to manage. One club has two groomers and another has one groomer. Both are paid by hours of grooming. One has breakdowns on two groomers, another may be lucky and go without breakdowns or only one or two minor ones.

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20 hours ago, 02Sled said:

That is where there needs to be some clarity then and uniformity from one district to another and the clubs within the district. I can see conceptually where it would be a mess to manage. One club has two groomers and another has one groomer. Both are paid by hours of grooming. One has breakdowns on two groomers, another may be lucky and go without breakdowns or only one or two minor ones.

02 could you finish your scenario. The club with 2 groomers has a breakdown on each and let’s assume the club has a track record of  excessive repairs. The cost exceeds their available budget at the district.  The club with one groomer has no breakdowns and has a surplus sufficient to cover the other club. But if they should suffer a breakdown there is not enough to cover them. 

 

What do you do?

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Now Jackpine is posting on Faceplant:

 

29101043_1720526401340647_73140768898600

 

Quote

 

Found this on the OFSC site. Mmmm riding our trails and looking at our bank account, think they missed the boat.

 

Timmins is grooming & no grumbling @ least online. Both are in the same district so what is the issue?

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On 3/7/2018 at 12:19 PM, The Groomer Guy said:

Clubs need to take some responsibly also, I know of some clubs that where always broke, no paid groomer ops, same number of kms then similar clubs and traffic and some how the club is broke every year.  They where paid the same as the other clubs around.  Some people suck at managing money running a club.  But we blame the OFSC head office for that. 

Well I rode in your area last week for 4 days, We stayed at Magpie Relay the whole time and I must say you definitely groom a lot and the trails are the best I've been on. I think the key is the clubs working together in each area, and money management. The northern clubs burn more fuel because of the temperature, I think the hourly rates should reflect that.

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