[DeTomaso] POCA Club Financial Balance

Sat May 2 13:00:59 EDT 2015

Jeff,

First, thank you for taking some time to put some sense into what has 
grown into a small storm of resentment.  Now, to give a personal 
accounting of what I believe is behind this so called "insane" amount.

Whether right or wrong, I was forwarded a copy of what appears to be the 
club's balance sheet.  As people in accounting would understand, a 
balance sheet is a summarized accounting of all assets and liabilities 
to date which would include all bank balances.  For POCA this does 
amount to approximately $125K as of the date of that specific balance sheet.

What is in the March 2015 Newsletter is more of an income and expenses 
statement, NOT a balance sheet.  What the income and expense statement 
does is show what was TAKEN in and what was PAID out over the year.  
 From that you can see that some $57K was taken in from member dues 
alone, in 2014, along with some $37K in receipts (unspecified so I don't 
know what these are) and another $5K from the Fun Rally.  Then for 
expenses, you can clearly see some $32K was spent on Hotel charges 
(presumably the Fun Rally), $16K on publications (newsletter and 
Profiles) and $10K for postage.  If you take the time to analyze it a 
bit closer, it should be easy to see that POCA cycles through nearly 
$60K a year and therefore needs to have that reserve Jeff spoke about.

Anyway, the income and expense report clearly shows the volume and scale 
of both money IN and money OUT.  At the end of 2014 POCA ended the year 
with a net income of about $12K.   Also listed in that same accounting 
is 2013, which shows an income of about $6K.  That's an average of about 
$9K per year over the last two years.  What it doesn't show, is the 
total bank balance that $12K or $6K contribute to each year.

Now, without going back year over year, let's assume POCA makes about 
$9K per year and let's assume POCA started with a zero (0.00) balance.  
To reach the $125K currently listed in the bank, would take POCA nearly 
14 years.  ($9K per year times 14 years = $126K).  Now, what some of you 
may not recall (as I had to be reminded myself) is that POCA purchased a 
$25K CD many years ago, and as I recall it -was- published in the 
newsletter.  So for the sake of this argument we -could- remove that 
$25K but we won't.

So it took about 14 years for POCA to build the $125K currently in the 
bank.  But POCA has been around since the early 70's, meaning more like 
40 years.  Yes, income in the early years was probably paltry and has 
ebbed and flowed ever since.  But are you understanding the basic 
premise here?  In theory, it's not impossible to conceive the club 
having even twice the amount they do today.

Even though some years membership goes down and others it goes up, I 
personally am not "surprised" the club has that much money in the bank 
after reviewing both the balance sheet and income statement (they are 
two different things).  I would say the club is in healthy shape for at 
least the next few years.

Now, to address the discourse over the disclosure.  POCA is a non-profit 
club; it's board meetings according to the by-laws 
(http://poca.com/index.php/club/by-laws) are open to everyone, please 
see article VI, section 4.

Next please see Article VI section 1 which states that regular 
membership meetings will be held "...with notice given to the regular 
membership by publishing in the Newsletter."  I believe the POCA BOD may 
have fallen behind in this matter.

Article IV pertains to the various officer positions.  Section 6 covers 
the duties and under sub-section (c), the Secretary holds the 
responsibility for publishing various club artifacts which could be 
construed to also publishing minutes of the Board meetings.  Such 
publication as outlined in the by-laws is to happen at least quarterly.  
(Jeff, please note I'm not placing any fault with you).

On the surface, it appears as if the POCA Board has simply fallen behind 
in it's fiduciary duties to help the membership be better informed.  
This isn't meant to accuse anyone of malfeasance, but to point out there 
are many details in the by-laws that for whatever reason may simply be 
overlooked.  It's true many of the board members have been re-elected to 
office many times.  It's also true in many circles that familiarity 
breeds contempt, whether by intent or accident.  I would venture some on 
the board have simply become comfortable and forgotten the true nature 
of communication with the membership at large.

With that in mind I would simply encourage the POCA Board to take an 
inner retrospective look at their actions and reflect on what the best 
actions are to keep the membership well informed; to reduce suspicions 
and earn trust.  As Jeff pointed out, silence is not what the membership 
expects.  Leadership is a quality sprinkled with communication, a bit of 
honey -and- humility in addition to strength and integrity.

I would personally like to see the BOARD meeting dates published on the 
inside front cover of each newsletter to inform the membership of when, 
where and -how- they may attend.  In addition, I would like to see 
meeting minutes from each board meeting (to include the agenda) 
published quarterly in the newsletter immediately following the 
President's message.  Might I also recommend the clubs Balance Sheet be 
published alongside the Income and Expense Statement once a year.  It's 
our club, let the membership be a larger part of it.

Sincerely,
Asa  Jay

PS.  As an afterthought, I'd also like to remind POCA members that the 
Fun Rally is managed by a committee, and -not- the POCA Board of 
Directors; though the committee may have a board member on it, and the 
committee must report to the board.  Therefore if you have a Fun Rally 
question, it would be good to address the Fun Rally committee, and if 
you have a POCA question, is would be best to address the POCA Board of 
Directors.

Asa Jay Laughton, MSgt, USAFR, Retired
&  Shelley Marie
Spokane, WA
******************************
http://www.racingagainstautism.com
http://www.teampanteraracing.com
http://facebook.com/racingagainstautism

On 5/2/2015 8:03 AM, Jeff Detrich wrote:
>     Okay, time to clear this up since no one else on the Board wants to
>     step up and talk about it. For some reason, they consider it to be
>     privileged and confidential information even though it is published as
>     part of the yearly financials. Yes, POCA does have a large amount of
>     cash. Over $100,000. The actual balance varies month to month based on
>     dues received, expenses for each month, and so forth. Right now, the
>     fund balance is much more than $100,000 because it includes Fun Rally
>     registration fees that will be used to pay for the Fun Rally expenses
>     right after the Fun Rally ends.A
>     So, realistically, how much excess money does the club actually have?
>     For the sake of argument, let's just say we have $100,000. Prudent
>     financial management would have us set a reserve for unanticipated cash
>     needs. There are things other than our recurring expenses that would
>     typically be considered when setting a reserve, primarily for uninsured
>     risks, shortfalls in revenue, and unanticipated expenses.A  Currently,
>     club expenses are running about $40-45,000 a year. So it would not be
>     unreasonable to set that as the reserve.A That would leave excess cash
>     of about $55,000. A
>     Some may ask, why do we have so much money? That is relatively easy to
>     explain. For several years we were accruing expenses for the POCA
>     Profiles Magazine and dues were set accordingly. Unfortunately, we
>     didn't publish as many as we planned. As a result, the cash balance
>     grew. The good news is that our new Profiles Editor, Mike Haney, seems
>     to be on target to publish more regularly, with the one caveat that all
>     of us continue to support his efforts by providing newsworthy articles
>     for him to publish.
>     What should the Board do with this excess money? First of all, let me
>     state that the money belongs to the members. Both myself and Bob Reid,
>     the Treasurer, have repeatedly brought this up and that we should
>     consider reducing the dues. To date, the rest of the Board has tabled
>     any consideration of this issue but I expect that it will be brought up
>     again after the Fun Rally. The good news is that the club is growing
>     which mitigates some of the issues involved with setting the dues. As a
>     result, even with dues at $60 per year, the club would essentially
>     break even.A
>     I hope this clears things up. We work for you. See you at the Fun
>     Rally.
>     Jeff Detrich
>     Secretary, POCA
>
>
>
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