Club Management Issue

Paul Tomblin wrote:

Another time, however, a club member had a mechanical problem in Colorado
on a Sunday. He had three options:
1 - Abandon the plane and fly home commercial
2 - Call out a mechanic at Sunday emergency call out rates
3 - Wait until Monday and have it fixed at normal shop rates.
If he'd chosen the first, he agrees that he would have been responsible
for covering the costs of bringing it back. If he'd chosen option 2, he
feels the club would have covered the cost, and he's probably right about
that. So he chose option 3, and billed the club for the cost of his hotel
room for Sunday night. Now this caused a lot of dissention in the club,
because some of us thought it was his responsibility to cover expenses
caused by delays, since delays are a natural part of flying small aircraft
over long distance, and other people took his side, that the hotel was a
lot less than the amount we would have had to pay to get it fixed on
Sunday, so the club came out ahead. Eventually the club paid his hotel
bill.

Then the club did the right thing. The club was on the hook for the costs of
option #2 as soon as the mechanical problem occurred. Anything that the club
member did that reduced that obligation was gravy to the club. IMHO the club
should've picked up his meals, too, to the extent that the total outlay
(Monday's repair costs + hotel + meals) didn't exceed what option #2 would have
cost.

Russell Kent