ORIGINAL: PilotFighter
The amount of equity is a matter of opinion. Many believe it is actually negative. Hard to borrow when you are upside down. I personally believe there is real equity, but it is nearly equal to the amount of concrete poured at the site to date. Kinda break even, if you will.
Sprawl only gets you kicked out. You only gain if you do have equity and can move . And right now, we are so far out of town, that a faction broke off and formed a new club closer to town on city land. So maintaining an adequate membership becomes more difficult the farther out of town you move. Some of our members now drive over an hour even though there are clubs closer to their homes, God bless them. We loose many more and the we could default on the loan and it would revert to the seller/ financer.
It would be very nice if our situation was as you describe.
The main point of my post above was that time is not on our side. To maintain our membership and keep the club strong , we need to offer a top notch facility, as Horrace mentioned.
If a second mortgage was possible, which I doubt it is, we could use any theoretical equity to improve the site. I would certainly support this. But our present dues are consumed by the first mortgage now. How would this work ? How do you borrow more, when you can barely afford your payments?
If higher dues would allow this to happen, as I said above, I would support it. IF there is another way to extract this 100k that you mention, please tell us how.
Barney, you and I seem to get along very well when we are at the field at the same time. I am somewhat surprised at you blaming me for the things we do not have, such as the hard surface runway. When I wrote Mr. McCoy a check for $250,000.00 for 100 acres of land, that was definitely my dream to go on a par with BB Weber, the man of Bomber Field.
I said on par not in competition. BB Weber is definitely one of the finest gentlemen that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.
Yes we received some donations from Violet Jet models and Dub Jet engines, however over the years and over my objections those funds were simply moved into the operating funds. I am a trouble maker.
Unfortunately, I could not be both banker and officer of Jetero. My attorney wanted me out of that officer job immediately, however I gave it a year to get things going. After that, Jetero was on its own, made a go of it, even though the Fighter Field (Chartered under Lone Star RC Club) bunch tried every trick in the book to hold us back. (For the uninformed: Jetero broke into two factions: Jetero RC, Inc. which was a true club with elected officers, and Lone Star RC which was 10 guys providing a bare facility for profit, with "members"
having no say in the administration thereof.)
As the time passed along, after about 6 years, the Jetero officers became more interested in a so-so club for their benefit with little or no concern for maintaining a first-class club. Since you do not normally attend meetings, don't come to events, and I don't recall you attending any work-days, LIKE TODAY, how do you, Barney, compensate for not being there fighting for a hard surface runway? I definitely want one. I have tried to sell it but now Jetero is just a run-of-the-mill club with a bunch of sport fliers. Dues have remained the same for some 8 years now, and the current Executive Committee will not consider an increase.
To the best of my knowledge, there are no fliers in Jetero that really want a hard-surface runway.
Even with the big profits resulting from the first two annual Pattern Contests, the Ex. Comm. doesn't now support the CD, insuring adequate help available and that event is turning down fast. Have you been there to help, Barney? Have I cooked you one of my fancy hamburgers?
Today we had a big work day and tomorrow is another. We had some 20 of 112 adult members show up to work. It went far better than I imagined. We recovered, separated, cut beams, and piled a whole lot of scrap metals for ready to be hauled off. The Kitchen area is reset. The water well still works using a generator. Where was Barney? Maybe tomorrow?? We have 3,700 sq. ft. of concrete without a shelter. The 1000 sq. ft. kitchen has it's shelter, but repairs are needed although now safe to use.
Barney you say you will support a dues increase. Last night after the meeting, I spoke with the Pres. et al. that I would provide up to $25,000.00, no interest, for a rebuild if Jetero placed an assessment on the membership to provide repayment in one year. That is actually a Promissory Note, no collateral. It's up to them.
This past June, Jetero paid the annual note of slightly over $11,000.00. That covers Jetero intil June '09. There is now a CD in the bank to cover that one. That covers Jetero until June 2010. There is a CD in the bank to cover that note. That means that Jetero is solvent until June 2011. Dues income for 2009 will soon be coming in. Dues for 2010 will come next year. Then dues for 2011 will come in the fall of 2010. 3 years of dues, say 100 members at $150.00 per year, $15,000, equal to $45,000 income before the 2011 note, of $11,000.00.
Where the _ell is the panic?
Jetero RC, Inc is NOT near any default for its land. Maybe, Barney, if you don't listen so much to those that have no financial savy outside the news media's stock market reports, you could sleep better.
