PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE | Continued
You might ask, “But that million-dollar capital budget seems arbitrary anyway. How did we come up with that number?” Good question. Twenty years ago, we commissioned an inventory of every last item in our capital asset base. Every tractor in our barns and every fork in our drawers. And every item was assigned a useful life and a cost of replacement. The report we received was both enormous and enormously useful. We were able, with that report as a guide, to estimate pretty well what our capital needs would be each year for a twenty-year period. That report served us well, but its useful life expired like everything else. Therefore, we commissioned a new inventory of our capital asset base to help us plan for the next twenty years of capital expenses. An organization called Club Benchmarking performed that work earlier this year and provided us with a new report. We can now reasonably estimate our routine -- that is, not optional -- capital needs going forward. And we learned a number of things. First and most gratifying: we are in very good shape. Second and attention-getting: we need to bring our budgeting and planning practices up to date so that we stay in very good shape. To no one’s surprise, we have a whole lot more assets now than we did twenty years ago. In 2014, we embarked on a clubhouse expansion project that radically changed the way we can use our Club. We have built a new indoor tennis and sports building. We moved our paddle courts and built the Hut. We now have a pool cafe. We have a short-game practice area and teaching facility. We have more dining, more racquets, more golf, more fitness … more everything than we had twenty years ago. And, of course, to no one’s surprise, everything costs more to maintain and replace than it did twenty years ago. So that million dollars that we hope to set aside each year after we pay for operations? It won’t be sufficient to pay for our capital needs going forward. We won’t be short by a lot, but every year we do not address this, the harder it will be to catch up. As a result, like almost every one of our peer clubs across the country, your Board of Directors plans to make a change to the way we do things. The change is not radical and it will not impoverish anyone. And the change will not involve an assessment…not now, not ever. Here’s what we plan to do starting with our January 1, 2025 bills. Instead of combining operating expense and capital expense in a single “Dues” bucket, we will break them into separately budgeted items. Starting next year, you will see one line on your bill every month for “Operating Dues” that will pay for the Club’s operating expenses. Instead of including capital funding in that figure, every quarter you will see on your bill a new item called “Capital Dues.” That will be a budgeted figure based on the capital expenses we anticipate incurring. Every member will see a charge: junior members will pay a relatively nominal amount and senior members will pay a bit more. We do not yet have budget numbers for next year, of course, so we can’t give you precise amounts. But based on the 2024 budget, we expect this change to result in an overall increase for senior members of less than $150 per month; for a family consisting of a senior, an associate and two junior members, the annual increase would be less than $2,500. And please know that the amounts will be no more than is necessary to keep our Club in the condition that we expect and to maintain our facilities at the highest of standards. But they will be enough to responsibly care for what we own. No one wants to pay more for anything and that includes the Club President, who pays dues like everyone else. But no one wants to be irresponsible either. We cannot ignore that we have a Club with unique characteristics that are expensive to maintain and replace. These changes are not optional. We need to make them if we want the Club to remain at the vanguard of full-service clubs across the country. And we do want that very much. Please understand one more thing. For many years, our dues -- which have covered both operations and routine capital -- have been largely in line with those at the other clubs in our community. That fact is astonishing when one considers how manifestly different our Club is from its neighbors. They are all wonderful clubs, but none compares to the breadth of offerings and level of quality across the board that we have at Wilmington Country Club. Our capital reserve planning must be updated to recognize that fact. You will have questions and we want to answer them. I come to you with this change now, so that you are fully informed by the time January rolls around. Be on the lookout for more communications on this. And please remember to let me know what is on your mind by emailing me at dwilks.wcc@gmail.com. I promise to respond.
04
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs