Greggie Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 The OFSC has made an Equalization Fund payment to your district based on average costs for the past 4 years. Your district has decided to make payments to its clubs based on current trail length and grooming hours but that is not how the OFSC calculated it. No problem with how your district wants to calculate it but don't try to tell other clubs that they are getting the same payments from the OFSC. $10,000 repair costs can be a drop in the bucket for clubs located in rocky Muskoka and other such lucky areas. Warranties cover manufacturing defects not damage caused by rocks etc. You are wrong, at every FFC payment to the districts they updated the permit sales and at the march 15 payment they updated the grooming hours. I have the revised FFC calculation from March 15 to all districts in possession. What district are you and I will give you the numbers. Thanks Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gator Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 You are wrong, at every FFC payment to the districts they updated the permit sales and at the march 15 payment they updated the grooming hours. I have the revised FFC calculation from March 15 to all districts in possession. What district are you and I will give you the numbers. Thanks Greg What difference does it really make when there is a shortfall of 2.5 million? The numbers mean something if they can pay it all out. As it is now the numbers could be based on the numbers found on the back of a Fortune Cookie fortune and they just say "Ooops not enough money in the kitty". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggie Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 What difference does it really make when there is a shortfall of 2.5 million? The numbers mean something if they can pay it all out. As it is now the numbers could be based on the numbers found on the back of a Fortune Cookie fortune and they just say "Ooops not enough money in the kitty".Not true, the grooming payout went down from $65 to about $50 but if you groomed double the hours, you still get 50% more. I think that you not exactly understand ffc.Thanks Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gator Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Not true, the grooming payout went down from $65 to about $50 but if you groomed double the hours, you still get 50% more. I think that you not exactly understand ffc. Thanks Greg I don't think anybody truly understands FFC and all its ramnificatioins, not even you Greggie.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viperules700 Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Ok Greg! Is the ofsc going into debt inorder to pay the clubs for 50 percent more grooming hours? Just wonder where the extra money is coming from? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggie Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 I don't think anybody truly understands FFC and all its ramnificatioins, not even you Greggie.... Sorry, I understand it very well and yes next year there will be some changes. Not sure if the changes makes it better or worse, I think on longer term it will be better. But yes Snowcrest is in District 7. Overall for you guys it didn't make a big difference, only $8,000. Thanks, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2bsledding Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Not true, the grooming payout went down from $65 to about $50 but if you groomed double the hours, you still get 50% more. I think that you not exactly understand ffc. Thanks Greg Was FFC allotment per grooming hour not presented at 62.79?. IF it has been changed to $50.00 then there are entire Districts / clubs that do not know about this and have based their financials on the higher amount. IF it was reduced from what was presented and voted on, WHO has the authority to change it. Maybe silly question to ask though as there were some permit prices approved at AGM by the membership that SOMEHOW got changed this season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggie Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Ok Greg! Is the ofsc going into debt inorder to pay the clubs for 50 percent more grooming hours? Just wonder where the extra money is coming from? This moment, most likely, the OFSC is using their reserves to do the March 15 payments. As I said, there is a shortfall of $2,500,000 so every district get 80% of their revised trail funding! grooming hours and admin fee. Thanks, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggie Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Was FFC allotment per grooming hour not presented at 62.79?. IF it has been changed to $50.00 then there are entire Districts / clubs that do not know about this and have based their financials on the higher amount. IF it was reduced from what was presented and voted on, WHO has the authority to change it. Maybe silly question to ask though as there were some permit prices approved at AGM by the membership that SOMEHOW got changed this season. At the AGM, we approved the ffc forecast. There are out 3 revised versions, one at every payout of the OFSC to the districts. If you calculate the actual grooming hours of Feb 28 against the $62,79 or what it is, there is a shortfall. To solve hat, they decided to pay only 80% out. Thanks, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggie Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 The total amount for grooming went up from $4,750,000 to $8,106,000. So there is a shortfall of $3,356,000. Because there is already more money on permit sales, the shortfall is "only" $2,500,000. Thanks, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2bsledding Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Sorry, I understand it very well and yes next year there will be some changes. Not sure if the changes makes it better or worse, I think on longer term it will be better. But yes Snowcrest is in District 7. Overall for you guys it didn't make a big difference, only $8,000. Thanks, Greg I don't know where you get your numbers from Greggie, but we have kept FFC and our Financials under a microscope this year and had someone with accounting experience go over them. Snowcrest has lost over 24K this year. Hell 542 early early bird $180 permits sold online resulted in $16,260.00 less permit revenue due to the $30.00 hit on the lower permit price. Any savings in Admin due to online or increase permit sales including equalization payments didn't even come close to making this loss revenue up. There are the OFSC #'s and there are the REAL #'s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2bsledding Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 At the AGM, we approved the ffc forecast. There are out 3 revised versions, one at every payout of the OFSC to the districts. If you calculate the actual grooming hours of Feb 28 against the $62,79 or what it is, there is a shortfall. To solve hat, they decided to pay only 80% out. But you have been stating $65 and $50. Where are you getting these numbers? You now agree with the $62.79. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggie Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 I don't know where you get your numbers from Greggie, but we have kept FFC and our Financials under a microscope this year and had someone with accounting experience go over them. Snowcrest has lost over 24K this year. Hell 542 early early bird $180 permits sold online resulted in $16,260.00 less permit revenue due to the $30.00 hit on the lower permit price. Any savings in Admin due to online or increase permit sales including equalization payments didn't even come close to making this loss revenue up. There are the OFSC #'s and there are the REAL #'s. I have the numbers from the OFSC and your governor and district has them also. To calculate what you have list, you need to have the payout from district 7 to the clubs. This is different for every district. You can't say that you lost $24,000 because nobody knows the July payout. The 542x30 isn't the loss for Snowcrest. Take the ffc forecast and study the numbers. Thanks, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggie Posted March 27, 2014 Share Posted March 27, 2014 Next year ffc will not work with 4 year average...... Thanks, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggie Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 But you have been stating $65 and $50. Where are you getting these numbers? You now agree with the $62.79. It can be $62.79, was thinking $65. As I said the numbers are from the revised forecast ffc of March 15. Thanks, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gator Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 Next year ffc will not work with 4 year average...... Thanks, Greg It's not woking this year with a 4 year average that's for sure. Next year it could work better if this years numbers are part of the 4 year average, but the FFC needs a lot of changes to make it better for all clubs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggie Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 It's not woking this year with a 4 year average that's for sure. Next year it could work better if this years numbers are part of the 4 year average, but the FFC needs a lot of changes to make it better for all clubs. Changes such as? Can tell you that the richer clubs are doing well with ffc. The above average clubs are the clubs who loose the most. It is a system what need to work for most clubs in Ontario and as always, if one district/club get more money, another district/club will lose money. To make everyone happy, will not happen.... Thanks, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gator Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 Changes such as? Can tell you that the richer clubs are doing well with ffc. The above average clubs are the clubs who loose the most. It is a system what need to work for most clubs in Ontario and as always, if one district/club get more money, another district/club will lose money. To make everyone happy, will not happen.... Thanks, Greg 2 changes that were put forward at the AGM but rejected by OFSC as being too hard to implement are: - the cost for a trail needs to take in to account the type of terrain it goes over. It is much harder and costlier to groom over rock than a farmers field. - the cost also needs to take into account the volume of traffic that uses it. Muskoka is very popular with sledders from the GTA and we are blessed with good snow most years. Grooming hours needs to consider this volume. The number of hours that a club grooms should be at least partially controlled by the volume of traffic. More traffic, more hours allowed and these hours should be fully funded. These may be hard to track and implement but they are needed. Actually I shouldn't have said make it better for all clubs. It should be able to pay all warranted costs for all clubs. As you said some would go up and some would lose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggie Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 2 changes that were put forward at the AGM but rejected by OFSC as being too hard to implement are: - the cost for a trail needs to take in to account the type of terrain it goes over. It is much harder and costlier to groom over rock than a farmers field. - the cost also needs to take into account the volume of traffic that uses it. Muskoka is very popular with sledders from the GTA and we are blessed with good snow most years. Grooming hours needs to consider this volume. The number of hours that a club grooms should be at least partially controlled by the volume of traffic. More traffic, more hours allowed and these hours should be fully funded. These may be hard to track and implement but they are needed. Actually I shouldn't have said make it better for all clubs. It should be able to pay all warranted costs for all clubs. As you said some would go up and some would lose. Take into account the type of terrain, don't see that happen. You think that it is harder to groom over rock? What about a ploughed field? A small trail, 10,6 feet and your groomer is 10 feet? How to qualify this? Sorry... The cost of grooming is already by traffic, ffc is paying out actual grooming hours. If you have lots of traffic and groom your trails 4 times a week, you gave way more grooming hours and the district get way more money. Thanks, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gator Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 Take into account the type of terrain, don't see that happen. You think that it is harder to groom over rock? What about a ploughed field? A small trail, 10,6 feet and your groomer is 10 feet? How to qualify this? Sorry... The cost of grooming is already by traffic, ffc is paying out actual grooming hours. If you have lots of traffic and groom your trails 4 times a week, you gave way more grooming hours and the district get way more money. Thanks, Greg Like I said before, bring your groomers to Muskoka for a season and you'll see that grooming over rock is very costly in repairs. I didn't say it was easy but it needs to be included or else clubs with rocky trails are just subsidizing those with nice flat fields that are easy to groom. After all you're the one that says what FFC is providing you with enough funding and I'll bet you'd be hard pressed to find any Muskoka club that would agree with you. Narrow twisty bush trails is why we have to groom some trails with a Skandic but we don't get any grooming hours for that. FFC was partially implemented to cut the money that some clubs got when over the past few years they did little or no grooming and pocketed the money. If you don't consider volume you are helping to contribute to a similar problem. If a club grooms 4 times a week but doesn't have the volume of traffic to justify those 4 times they shouldn't get paid for it. If their volume justifies 2 grooms then thats what they get paid for. You may be right as far as your club is concerned but you need to get your head out of the sand and see that other clubs have problems and costs that yours doesn't. FFC has to be work for all clubs not just yours and by work I mean pay for all trail related costs (whether that's an increase, decrease, or the same as the old Status Quo). If it doesn't pay for the costs there will be clubs shutting down. Unless someone can come up with a completely different funding method from seasonal permits it will mean an increase in permit costs (probably substantial) so that there aren't shortfalls in good seasons like this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggie Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 Like I said before, bring your groomers to Muskoka for a season and you'll see that grooming over rock is very costly in repairs. I didn't say it was easy but it needs to be included or else clubs with rocky trails are just subsidizing those with nice flat fields that are easy to groom. After all you're the one that says what FFC is providing you with enough funding and I'll bet you'd be hard pressed to find any Muskoka club that would agree with you. Narrow twisty bush trails is why we have to groom some trails with a Skandic but we don't get any grooming hours for that. FFC was partially implemented to cut the money that some clubs got when over the past few years they did little or no grooming and pocketed the money. If you don't consider volume you are helping to contribute to a similar problem. If a club grooms 4 times a week but doesn't have the volume of traffic to justify those 4 times they shouldn't get paid for it. If their volume justifies 2 grooms then thats what they get paid for. You may be right as far as your club is concerned but you need to get your head out of the sand and see that other clubs have problems and costs that yours doesn't. FFC has to be work for all clubs not just yours and by work I mean pay for all trail related costs (whether that's an increase, decrease, or the same as the old Status Quo). If it doesn't pay for the costs there will be clubs shutting down. Unless someone can come up with a completely different funding method from seasonal permits it will mean an increase in permit costs (probably substantial) so that there aren't shortfalls in good seasons like this one. I know about rocks, about 1/3 of our trails is rocks. A expierence groomer know exactly where the rocks are and avoid them, less expierence groomer operators don't know them and yes they can break things on the rocks. We know from expierence. I was on vacation to Mexico and another beginning groomer operator lost the blade of the Trailbully. In the past there was never payouts on terrain and if we start thus, it will open another can of worms. You are complaining about visitors, how many permit buyers has Snowcrest from outside you club area? In the past, you got nothing for a grooming hour, now in ffc the district is getting money for every grooming hour. I think ffc must work better then status quo. Again, you are still complaining that you don't have enough money, explain me if you can't survive, how can the clubs survive who sell less then 300 or 400 permits? Again, you guys are looking what works for you and you want more money, please send me the financial Excel sheet and I like to go over it and see how frugal Snowcrest us with their money. I can say also, we don't do a landowner supper because we don't have the money. I am driving at least 5000 km for the club and get nothing. I am volunteering about 400 hours a year and use my equipment, such as truck, dump trailer and excavators and get paid nothing. To do fine, you need to be frugal with your permit dollars and be transparent how you guts are spending your permit dollars. I have no problem to tell guys how we are spending our money. As I said earlier, our club was almost bankrupt in 2004 and having not one working groomer, I came on the board in 2003 and became president in 2004, went over all the spending, cutting cost of $15,000-$20,000 a year. Now we have four groomers and they are all paid off. To solve the problem if we have a couple of bad years, we have a line of credit of $40,000. This year we are up in permit sakes from 600 to 800. We, I and the otter board members and volunteers are doing something right. Thanks, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gator Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 I know about rocks, about 1/3 of our trails is rocks. A expierence groomer know exactly where the rocks are and avoid them, less expierence groomer operators don't know them and yes they can break things on the rocks. We know from expierence. I was on vacation to Mexico and another beginning groomer operator lost the blade of the Trailbully. In the past there was never payouts on terrain and if we start thus, it will open another can of worms. The FFC was a change. Just because it wasn't done in the past doesn't mean it shouldn't be done now. It could not be worse than what FFC has already done. You are complaining about visitors, how many permit buyers has Snowcrest from outside you club area? In the past, you got nothing for a grooming hour, now in ffc the district is getting money for every grooming hour. I think ffc must work better then status quo. Again, you are still complaining that you don't have enough money, explain me if you can't survive, how can the clubs survive who sell less then 300 or 400 permits? Again, you guys are looking what works for you and you want more money, please send me the financial Excel sheet and I like to go over it and see how frugal Snowcrest us with their money. I am not complaining just stating a fact. We get lots of visitors because of our trails and proximity to the GTA. But it costs money and there is currently no compensation for it right now. We enjoy having the volume we get they help to make our club great but we can't pay the bills without proper funding. As Muskoka is a prime vacation/cottage area most of our permit buyers do not live here. Do you seriously believe there was no funding for grooming under Status Quo. That was one of the major complaints about FFC is that the grooming funding was drastically cut. If you look at the Status Quo document distributed with the FFC the reduced hourly fund for grooming was $120/hour. Maybe clubs that only sell 300 0r 400 permits need to do some drastic changes to survive under lower funding. If you look at District 1 there are 1 hell of a lot of trails. Many of them need to be rationalized and if the volume is not there they should be eliminated. I can say also, we don't do a landowner supper because we don't have the money. I am driving at least 5000 km for the club and get nothing. I am volunteering about 400 hours a year and use my equipment, such as truck, dump trailer and excavators and get paid nothing. To do fine, you need to be frugal with your permit dollars and be transparent how you guts are spending your permit dollars. I have no problem to tell guys how we are spending our money. As I said earlier, our club was almost bankrupt in 2004 and having not one working groomer, I came on the board in 2003 and became president in 2004, went over all the spending, cutting cost of $15,000-$20,000 a year. Now we have four groomers and they are all paid off. To solve the problem if we have a couple of bad years, we have a line of credit of $40,000. This year we are up in permit sakes from 600 to 800. We, I and the otter board members and volunteers are doing something right. Thanks, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blizzard Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 Tell us Greggie the real truth on hear and how much money do you walk away with from your club every year tell us all you make. volunteer my ass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggie Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 Tell us Greggie the real truth on hear and how much money do you walk away with from your club every year tell us all you make. volunteer my ass. I get paid as contractor for grooming $15 a hour, that is it. Thanks, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterules Posted March 28, 2014 Share Posted March 28, 2014 What would be the ideal permit price where all costs would be covered , we need to stop this permit nightmare . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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