Club Business and Financial Management

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

We’d be interested in hearing what other clubs do by way of business management and financial reporting.

Our club (www.wimrc.ca) currently has 25 members, with an annually elected board of directors-President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary. The board of directors currently meet once a month to consider a preset agenda e.g. minutes of last meeting, actions, project status etc. On a quarterly basis a list of receipts and expenditures prepared by the Treasurer is reviewed and on the fourth quarter coinciding with the Annual General Meeting a formal financial statement is prepared and reviewed. Expenditures, apart for refreshments (paid out of the deposit jar) , require approval of two directors and are paid from of the club bank account by cheque (check). Details of our By-Laws are on our website.

For the size of our club it seems a bit too much like a for profit business we’re managing on a volunteer basis, however our system appears to work well for us. Comments welcomed. [:)]

2

I was in a club but left because the board was taking the money and buying engines for themselves

Howare you keeping your club from doing that?

3

I am a member of a club and the dues are $15 a month. If you buy something the club needs like a building for $30 then that counts as your dues for 2 months.

dekruif

4

Sounds pretty typical. Are you officially organized as a non-profit organization registered with the state? Don’t forget to check local & IRS laws concerning taxation on clubs and organizations.

5

Expenditures must be approved by any two Directors and are normally agreed by the four directors. So far we haven’t teamed up to buy each other locomotives [:D]

All members get to see where the money went at the AGM.

6

As a non-profit organization we’re not exposed to municipal, Quebec provincial or Canadian federal taxes. Hard to believe with those authorities lusting after our monies! [:)]

7

Our club has quarterly business meetings(usually about 1 hour long). Dues and ‘assessments’ are discussed a this time. The club is less than 2 years old and there is a heavy construction cost at this time. This is why we meet every quarter to review construction costs and set assessments. If a person buys materials that the club needs for construction, that can be deducted from their next assessment, or will be paid to the individual from the club treasury. This is NOT deducted from their dues - we need real cash to fund the rent/operation of the club.At some point the assessments will drop off as we complete the construction. Also, donation of your old ‘junk’ equipment gets no deduction from your assessments! This has work quite well for us.

Also, assessments build up ‘shares’ to the account of the member. These have no real value, but if the club is dissolved, the amount of ‘shares’ will determine what each member gets out of the liquidation. If a member leaves, he get no creat for his shares and they are deleted from the sum total. Also, no member can ‘own’ more than 49% of the ‘shares’, so you do max out and there can be no ‘dealer control’ of a possible liquidation.

As far as some members buying personal items(engines…), The president and the treasuer are the only ones who have checkbook control, and the quarterly meeting/financial statement should keep this under control.

Jim Bernier

8

At our club here in Ohio that I recently joined, our dues are $10/month or $120/year. To answer your question, I would recc. keeping fairly detailed accounting records for all of the reasons mentioned by others. Here in the U.S., non-profit corps (which we are) are required to file with the IRS–don’t know if requirements are diff. in Canada. We have a business meeting once/month, ? how often the board meets, ? quarterly?

Jim

9

Our club, est. 1938, has 60+ members. Our dues are $27 per month ($324 per year).

We have a 9 member Board of Directors: President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, Chief Engineer, and 4 Directors. This BOD meets monthly, and handles the daily operation of the club, like paying the bills and handling membership issues.

We also have a monthly member business meeting. This is the meeting that actually controls the club and approves all non-reoccuring expenses (not heating bills, for example). The secretary reads the minutes of the last business meeting and the last BOD meeting. If either one of these minutes are rejected, then the entire meeting that occured is stricken from the record like it never happened, and any money spent must be returned, etc. (it’s only happened once).

The treasurer then reads a monthly report, telling us the available balance in the bank, total expenses and total incomes for the last month, etc. Also, it’s reported at this time (if asked) if any members are in danger of being dropped from membership for non-payment of dues after 2 months.

Next, all committees must hand in a written report about any progress they’ve made or money they’ve spent (which must be approved by the membership before the chairman can be reimbursed). One of these committees is the Audit Committee. This is a one-man committee headed by a long time member who is also a CPA. He checks the treasurer’s books on a quarterly basis.

For the committees, they submit a proposed budget in March. Over the next couple months, we hack it out with the Budget Committee to determine who gets what. At the annual business meeting in June, we approve the new budget. Each committee then gets to spend up to the amount they are budgeted in any way they wish. However, in order to get the money from the club, they must get a check cut for them by the treasurer and signed off by at least o

10

Our four member board and business meetings are combined into one meeting each month.

11

That’s an impresssive system Paul, and an impressive budget! How do you get from 60 plus members at $324 per year to over $40,000 budget? (cheeky question, which you don’t have to answer).

Thanks for the detailed response. [:)]

12

Isambard,
How do you decide what to do with an even numbered BOD? How do you break a tie? I know we always have an odd numbered BOD because if it’s a tie, the President gets to break it (otherwise, he has no vote).

As far as our budget, obviously we get around half of that from dues ($324 x 60 members = $19,440). The rest comes from many sources, but the big one is our Spring Show and Open House in March, followed by our Fall Show and Open House in October. Over the last couple years, we’ve run a profit of around $10,000 to $15,000 combined for both shows. We also sell club cars (our last run got the club around $2700 in profit), have monthly raffles and yearly auctions, we take donations of soda/beer bottles and cans for the 5 cent deposit, etc.

But we have a lot of expenses. Gas and oil for heat, electricity for A/C, lights, and dehumidifiers, incorporation fees, post office box, and phone service, etc. And that’s not even counting what we spend on the layout. We’re also saving like crazy for a new roof for our 50’ x 200’ building, of which we are 12 years into a supposedly 25 year roof (last estimate was well into 6 figures to re-roof). This roof already leaks, BTW, in several if not many places (it was just repaired for the second time). We also have invested in Mutual Funds…which is how we got the money to fix up the building in the first place back in the 1990’s.

So while we have a large budget to spend, we have large expenses to cover as we must balance our budget every year.

Paul A. Cutler III

Weather Or No Go New Haven

13

What type of roof ???, unless it is slate or tile I would get a new estimate, and 25 year roofs are ussually asphalt shingles, job should go for under $50,000. Don’t get estimate in the rainy season and make a deal with the contractor ( for when ever you can get to it ), plan ahead, sometimes you can get the cost down by half as they only work on slow days over the summer. Last don’t rehire the last guy, of course I am assuming a pitched roof, flat roofs never last 25 years in your neck of the woods unless its a well done torchdown.

14

You raise an interesting point. So far we haven’t encountered a tie situation. Being gentlemen ([:)]) we always (well, almost always) seek consenus. But we should think about increasing to an odd numbered Board.

Another question, revealing my ignorance, what’s your club’s name/website?

15

rrebell,
The roof we have is asphalt shingles, and the pitch is very steep.

Because of the leaks, those people in the club who supposedly know what’s what about roofs, etc. say that we need a metal roof, as it won’t work the nails loose like the asphalt obviously does. The trick is that the building is an old WWI Navy Ammo above ground bunker and made to blow up. Therefore, the roof is much weaker, structurally, than an normal roof of that size. It’s made of 2"x12" toungue in grove boards at a 45 degree angle. Steel trusses are 15’ on center, with wooden stringers and joists to hold up the roof.

Personally, I’ve been told that a metal roof can leak just as much as a asphalt one can, so I can’t rightly say what the right answer is.

Isambard,
You can find our club’s website at: www.ssmrc.org That’s the South Shore Model Railway Club, Inc.

Paul A. Cutler III

Weather Or No Go New Haven