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VCC and ACAV, together on the sand??? 21-Sep-2019 At 12:05:06 PM Crepuscular

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On 20-Sep-2019 mountaineer wrote:
>On 19-Sep-2019 Crepuscular wrote:
>
>>The club appears to be just squirreling money away for no justified reason
>>- i.e. they could be charging members less than half what they do and
>still
>>be in the black.
>Not really.
Not really? I'm sorry but where's your explanation? Here are the figures from last year's VCC accounts: Income from membership fees = $20,887. Net income AFTER all expenses = $10,904. In other words if the club had only charged people half of what it actually did so that membership income was only $10,443 there still would have been a (small) surplus (or do you want to tell me there's a problem with my maths?). Other club activities such as maintaining bouldering walls are NOT a net cost to members - the club receives council grants for those activities and actually makes a small profit on them.

The point is this has obviously been going on for quite a few years to the point where the club is now holding a substantial amount of cash. Even if you discount the value of guide book stocks which are probably only worth 1/10th of what is claimed (the club really should get out of the guide book business) the club had over $90K net in cash as of last year. As there would have been no expenses for the AE Officer or for Argus for half of this year I'd expect this years surplus should be even higher than last year.

This is a problem. First, VCC membership is now very poor value for money and I'm sure many dozens, perhaps hundreds of climbers don't even consider joining mainly for that reason so instead of a club that is broad and open and genuinely representative of the wider climbing community we have one that is small and inward looking and has every appearance of being run by a clique of perhaps little more than half a dozen people.

Second, continually accruing large surpluses each year with a small membership and no apparent plan with what to do with the money makes you a target. So now the current VCC committee is apparently all in a panic because some 'bad dudes' are coming to take over. Well who's fault is that? As I said, I have no association with the ACAV. It may well be that their approach is a bit too hot headed. $100K is a lot of money & I'm concerned that it is put to good use and not that a large proportion of it is wasted on fruitless legal fees and I certainly don't want the climbing community to be tainted by right wing nut jobs like the Liberal Democrats. But at the same time I think the VCC is well overdue for a shake up. The idea that if the climbing community is simply meek and patient then Parks Vic will surely deal with us in good faith all in good time is just a fairy story. The situation has fundamentally changed this year and it's high time for the VCC to recognized that.