Soaring Club Financials

Haven't seen much discussion of this topic and I'm rather curious what the consensus is. I know of some clubs that did not open this year. Other clubs opened late and still others opened and just as quickly closed.

I'm curious what kind of shape that leaves the soaring community at large with to pay bills and survive to fly another year.

I can tell you from other organizations in which I serve we've seen revenue drop precipitously because people are no longer able to participate in person or because our normal fund raising has been shut down, likely to the end of the year. There's a limit on just how much you can cover by austerity and curtailment.

The absence of instructors has lead some clubs to decline new members which I think is a very ethical approach but how viable is that over the long term? Some clubs pay CFI-Gs a stipend while others re-imburse the costs of commercial --CFI-G. Note that I am not fitting either or both of these into the category of 'covid remedies', I'm only suggesting that they are a couple of means by which the dearth of instructors might be solved (there may well be others).

On Monday, October 26, 2020 at 12:04:41 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Haven't seen much discussion of this topic and I'm rather curious what the consensus is. . . .
I'm curious what kind of shape that leaves the soaring community at large with to pay bills and survive to fly another year.

Skyline imposed rather strict COVID guidelines and resumed partial operations after a short shutdown, and as of this writing has managed to launch in 2020 a little over half the 'normal' sorties we have done in recent years. Fortunately for us, our financial management structure (fixed costs covered by fixed income, operational costs covered by operational revenue in various cost centers) is one that has kept us afloat in lean as well as fat years for nearly 30 years, so while operating revenues are down in 2020, we have no serious problem there. The most significant financial impact has been to reduce our optimism for future capital expenditures.

The Willamette Valley Soaring Club was shutdown from several months in the spring, opening in late May. We followed a set of COVID guidelines, which included no intro rides to the public. Our location is right next to the highway and we get a lot of drive by customers for the intro rides. The revenue from those rides is sorely missed!

We did reduce our fleet insurance from flight to storage status, saving some money, and only had gliders on the field that were producing revenue to cover the added cost of flight insurance. Tow and glider rental rates were raised and overall we're going to end the year (closing this weekend) with what we hope is enough to pay expenses through the winter.

Next spring is going to need a gang-buster start to keep us solvent without asking a big donation from all the members.

MikeB

On Monday, October 26, 2020 at 4:11:10 PM UTC-4, wrote:
The Willamette Valley Soaring Club was shutdown from several months in the spring, opening in late May. We followed a set of COVID guidelines, which included no intro rides to the public. Our location is right next to the highway and we get a lot of drive by customers for the intro rides. The revenue from those rides is sorely missed!

We did reduce our fleet insurance from flight to storage status, saving some money, and only had gliders on the field that were producing revenue to cover the added cost of flight insurance. Tow and glider rental rates were raised and overall we're going to end the year (closing this weekend) with what we hope is enough to pay expenses through the winter.

Next spring is going to need a gang-buster start to keep us solvent without asking a big donation from all the members.

MikeB
Our club Treasure Coast Soaring , located in Vero Beach, Florida just released the financials for September, as to date we are in the best financial condition that our club has ever encountered. COVID has been to say the least a huge factor for all of us, but we are recovering. We are a bit short on instructors, but the future looks optimistic. The primary goal is to be safe and continue with social distancing . Just this week we had a visitor from the Philly club that was surprised at what he was seeing, a fast growing, active, great location relatively new glider club.

It all depends on the nature if your club. At Toronto Soaring we have had a fantastic season in part DUE to Covid! Out club does not have a lot of students so ****ting down dual training didn’t have a big impact. We mothballed one of our two 2-seaters to cut costs. However, the fact that people were unemployed, underemployed or “working� from hime meant that we were flying every good day we had all summer. We happen to have a contingent of airline pilots as members and they were always at the airfield, doing chores if not flying. The number of flights went up and club revenues have not suffered as far as I know. Not sustainable for the long run but this season was far from a write off.

Nearby York Soaring, which is a much larger club that traditionally has relied heavily on student training, would be in a completely different position financially. Their activity dropped significantly at a time where they had just made some significant infrastructure improvements that were financed.. I’m sure Covid has hit their books hard. So you can see that the financial effects of Covid depend a lot on the nature of your specific club.. Overall, however, I still think that weather has a greater impact!

Members invested in the futu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ptx...ature=youtu.be

Nice looking field! Is it the norm to land on the grass?

Dan
5J

On 10/30/20 7:29 PM, son_of_flubber wrote:
Members invested in the futu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ptx...ature=youtu.be

On Saturday, October 31, 2020 at 11:24:12 AM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
Nice looking field! Is it the norm to land on the grass?


https://sugarbushsoaring.com/about-us/our-airport

Glass ships touchdown on the pavement and veer off into the grass. The grass is very bumpy. There is a defacto 'grass runway' parallel and to the right of the pavement used for taildragger and Schweizer landings. Gliders stage to the side of the grass runway and tow onto the pavement. Gliders are usually in ground effect when they make the turn.