[DeTomaso] POCA Club Financial Balance
Himes, Terry (397C)
terry.himes at jpl.nasa.gov
Sat May 2 15:37:27 EDT 2015
Asa Jay, Jeff and Will,
Thanks for being the voices of reason. As a small business owner (ExBO) myself, you explained it perfectly.
I would like to add that I would like to see a "Members Only" part of the POCA website where we can see all
that information easily. Being paperless, I would love see the Newsletter downloadable in PDF format
from the web. I understand people also like the hard copy, so I'm only suggesting that as alternative. ;-)
Thanks for your thoughtful and no-drama response.
Terry
"Sometimes I think the surest signs that intelligent life
exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried
to contact us!"
Terry W. Himes [cid:84B84040-EB38-4FE5-B855-BF1C80E25F2B]
JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory
InSight Sequence Team Lead
Rosetta/MEX Sequence Team Lead
Phone: (818) 393-6261
Cell: (818) 653-8213
Fax: (818) 393-3147
thimes at jpl.nasa.gov<mailto:thimes at jpl.nasa.gov>
🇺🇸
From: Asa Jay Laughton <asajay at asajay.com<mailto:asajay at asajay.com>>
Date: Saturday, May 2, 2015 10:00 AM
To: "detomaso at poca.com<mailto:detomaso at poca.com>" <detomaso at poca.com<mailto:detomaso at poca.com>>
Subject: [DeTomaso] POCA Club Financial Balance
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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-------------- next part --------------
Asa Jay, Jeff and Will,
Thanks for being the voices of reason. As a small business owner
(ExBO) myself, you explained it perfectly.
I would like to add that I would like to see a "Members Only" part of
the POCA website where we can see all
that information easily. Being paperless, I would love see the
Newsletter downloadable in PDF format
from the web. I understand people also like the hard copy, so I'm only
suggesting that as alternative. ;-)
Thanks for your thoughtful and no-drama response.
Terry
"Sometimes I think the surest signs that intelligent life
exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried
to contact us!"
Terry W. Himes [cid:84B84040-EB38-4FE5-B855-BF1C80E25F2B]
JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory
InSight Sequence Team Lead
Rosetta/MEX Sequence Team Lead
Phone: (818) 393-6261
Cell: (818) 653-8213
Fax: (818) 393-3147
[1]thimes at jpl.nasa.gov
From: Asa Jay Laughton <[2]asajay at asajay.com>
Date: Saturday, May 2, 2015 10:00 AM
To: "[3]detomaso at poca.com" <[4]detomaso at poca.com>
Subject: [DeTomaso] POCA Club Financial Balance
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
([5]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
******************************
[6]http://www.racingagainstautism.com
[7]http://www.teampanteraracing.com
[8]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
_______________________________________________
Detomaso Forum Managed by POCA
Posted emails must not exceed 1.5 Megabytes
DeTomaso mailing list
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To manage your subscription (change email address, unsubscribe, etc.)
use the links above.
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No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2015.0.5941 / Virus Database: 4339/9677 - Release Date:
05/02/15
_______________________________________________
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References
1. mailto:thimes at jpl.nasa.gov
2. mailto:asajay at asajay.com
3. mailto:detomaso at poca.com
4. mailto:detomaso at poca.com
5. http://poca.com/index.php/club/by-laws
6. http://www.racingagainstautism.com/
7. http://www.teampanteraracing.com/
8. http://facebook.com/racingagainstautism
9. mailto:DeTomaso at poca.com
10. http://poca.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso_poca.com
11. mailto:DeTomaso at poca.com
12. http://poca.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso_poca.com
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