Information for new (all) Council members
It is your Club. Don’t be afraid to speak up. We are always looking for new ideas.
The Club has been transitioning in the past couple of years. We have been working on simplifying processes, reducing the load on volunteers, reducing costs where it makes sense and putting those savings into member benefits. In the last couple of years, we built a new website, reactivated social media, and eliminated some toxic programs. We added many new events and things like Ski Area Discount Cards and Mountain Collective Discounts.
Active membership increased from less than 150 to nearly 600. We still need to grow and reinvigorate our roster of event hosts.
As a Council member, we expect you to be a ‘working’ member. Not just attend Council meetings, read the agenda and vote. We know you are busy, but you joined the Council for a reason. Let us know what you want the Club to look like, what you like and what you would like to see differently.
Status
We are incorporated as a not-for-profit society under the Alberta Societies Act. We operate under a set of Objects outlined in our application for Society status - we updated those objects in 2020 as well. We are a general outdoor recreation Club with a focus on skiing. (both XC and DH). We are not a charity or a ‘service’ club.
Meetings We are trying to reduce the number of meetings to every other month, but for now, we have been meeting most months.
Agendas are put on the shared drive well ahead of time. You are welcome to pop in a discussion item or a motion. You are also welcome to add your ideas or thoughts on a particular topic or motion ahead of time.
Meetings are informal. We have an agenda and some formal motions, but we also try to have discussion topics to toss around ideas. Sometimes, it helps to mull things over and let ideas incubate.
Shared Drive & G-Suite
Google G-Suite -This hosts our email addresses like treasurer@calgaryskiclub.org. We can add email addresses as necessary, including shared ones with multiple login IDs.
We also hold some of the Club information on google shared drives. You will be granted access. There are many folders and subfolders, along with some general files.
G-Suite files are generally collaborative; you can add, edit, or take notes in real-time. Various access levels can be set per folder or file. Feel free to take a look in any of the folders. Please add comments in the ideas folder for future discussion.
Please don’t change anything in the Finance and Treasury folder.
Money
The Club previously dealt with TD Canada Trust and is slowly moving to ATB. ATB allows us to use e-transfers to reimburse expenses.
We also have a PayPal account to accept payments through our website. We are considering moving to Stripe or Square, which may be easier for members to use. However, we have made many changes, and PayPal works well for our treasurer, so we are holding off until we digest these changes.
We have a business account for day-to-day activities.
There is a small investment account called Council Surplus, which the Council can use or add to as needed. We dipped into this during COVID-19 to continue our programs and subsidies.
We also have a large Capital Fund formed by a special resolution many years ago. The fund can only be accessed in two ways.
- We have standing approval from a motion at an AM and approved by the membership to withdraw 75% of any annual gain each year. If we don’t take it, we lose the opportunity until the following year. We are also out of luck if we lose money in a year.
- The membership may approve a use for the money via a Special Resolution at an AGM or SGM subject to the terms of the original founding special resolution.
This fund began as a building fund, intending to purchase a Club House, and is still often referred to as a building fund. We amended the Special Resolution regarding this fund in the 2020 AGM to allow us to use it for other purposes.
We are moving the Council Surplus Fund and the Capital Fund from the TD Advisor to another provider. We plan to set up so the Club can use the dividend income each year for Club activities, and capital gains will be left to grow. Doing this will make our income stream more regular.
We engaged the services of a lawyer about four years ago to review our status as a not-for-profit, including the ski sale, our surplus funds and our capital fund. I am happy to discuss that with Council members but prefer not to have that open for public display as we paid good money for the opinions given.
The Loppet, Shaganappi, Jackrabbits & Casino
Several years ago, we turned the track setting of XC trails at Shaganappi to a dedicated Club called SNO. We gave them our equipment and the proceeds of a Grant to get them up and running. In return, they have to allow us to use the equipment for approximately three weeks each year for use in our Loppet.
This past Loppet 2023, we gave them a portion of our AGLC funds as permitted by AGLC in return for transporting equipment and supplying tracksetting volunteers for our Loppet. (rather than us fronting the cost of moving the equipment and training volunteers.)
We also formerly ran a program called Jackrabbits, which is a children’s learn-to-XC ski program.
We struggled for years to get volunteer support for these two programs, and they were an attempt by the Club to attract members. It never worked. The tail was wagging the dog.
We have a Casino slot through AGLC that partially funded those programs. Our last Casino was in May 2022. We have no active programs to use the Casino funds. We do have approval to run senior ski lessons. It is a pain in the behind to administer Casino programs and to do the accounting. Our best action is to withdraw from future Casinos and disburse existing Casino funds to other groups. (just my opinion)
The Loppet is a `fun` and competitive mass XC race event held in Lake Louise each year on the first Sunday in March. 2022 was the 50th anniversary of this Loppet. The Loppet is an officially sanctioned event through Nordiq Canada, and we need proper licencing, insurance, permits and qualified race officials. It is a big volunteer commitment - 2 weeks prior; we have a Loppet Stomp to pack the snow on Lake Louise; then, the following weekend, we stake out the course on the lake. A further commitment is to redo track setting and grooming on the race weekend. We will borrow back the equipment we gave to SNO to do that. The equipment is many years old and past its useful life. We do not get any recognition for doing the Loppet. We are a recreational Club holding a competitive event.
Gerry G. and Lori D. took over organizing it in 2022 from long-time volunteers Alasdair and Helen. We have relied heavily on outside volunteers for the last few years.
At some point, the old equipment will no longer work, and global warming may be an issue with the ice on Lake Louise. Will there be a new set of volunteers to keep it going, and will it ever make money?
It was suggested it be turned over to the merchants of Lake Louise as they benefit the most. Gerry tried but failed to get approval to use Casino funding for a portion of this event. The Loppet is supposedly a fundraiser for the Club, but if we account for volunteer points, we have lost money for the last number of years. (and also the Casino money we paid to SNO).
It has never made the amount of money it should have, nor has it raised the profile of the Club.
Now you know how I feel :-). Others think it should continue out of tradition.
I wish I had known that.
If there is something that you wish you had known that is not here, please let me know, and I will add it for future directors.
Acronyms and Initialisms
You will hear lots of new acronyms and terms - here are some.
Sage - this is the provider of our accounting software. (formerly Simply Accounting) We are changing to Quickbooks, which can integrate with our website (for a fee)
Club Express - This is the provider of our website back office. They have a host of webinars and tutorials here https://www.clubexpress.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=0&module_id=257529#
These cover relevant modules on our site.
They have a help desk you or any member can call with technical issues.
We provide access to different aspects of the site as needed.
Zone 4 - This company out of Canmore collects fees for Clubs, providing timing chips and tracking software for races. We use them for our Loppet. Competitors sign up for the Loppe through their site and pay the fee to Zone 4. Zone 4 then provides timing chips and timing hardware.
We get a deposit to our account of the race registration fees, less their admin and credit card fees.
Some clubs use them to collect membership fees as well as race fees.
We pay for our Nordiq Alberta membership and insurance through them.
Nordiq Alberta - This was formerly known as Cross Country Alberta, and they rebranded to match XC Canada’s rebranding to Nordiq Canada. We pay an annual membership fee of 100.00, plus cover directors, some active trip organizers and key volunteers at 20.00 per person. This fee gives us Officers and Directors errors and omissions insurance.
PayPal - This is who we use to accept payment through the website. While it is not the cheapest option, it integrates well and gives us control over money transfers to our accounts.
CNUSS - You will hear this a lot. Calgary New & Used Ski Sale - We started this sale in 1963 and invited partners over the years as the sale grew too large for us. We are currently a 40% partner with the Calgary Zone Ski Patrol, holding 40% and the remaining 20% held by the Lake Louise Ski Club. We have fallen short in past years with our volunteer commitment and need to keep up our contribution to the sale - especially in operations and management positions. Because we have fallen short, we pay the cost of storage for the Sale equipment and provide phone and email responses to inquiries about the sale. We also take minutes at the meeting.
Tech Soup is an aggregator of software/hardware and other offerings(mostly technology) for not-for-profits and charities in Canada. https://www.techsoup.ca/?ts_cs_selection=11
They confirm your identity as a not-for-profit, and you can access offers for a reduced fee or cost. For example, we were paying over $1,000 per year for our GSuite. We now get it for free through Techsoup. Our Sage accounting software is 800.00 per year. We can get Quickbooks for about $150.00 through TechSoup if we switch. (currently trying to change).
Not all companies use TechSoup, so if we use a company’s services, we should check Tech Soup to see if they have a deal for not-for-profits.