Club rules: ownership vs. scheduling rights

I posted here recently that the club to which I belong in Northern NJ:

http://flyingclub.org

has some memberships available. Through an odd chain of reasoning (and
searching the 'net for comparable clubs), I came upon what I found to be an
interesting thought. But is it "good" interesting or "bad" interesting?

I'm curious if any clubs use anything like this, or if it is a completely
foolish idea.

The scheduling policy we're currently using involves 4 points. A booking of
up to four hours costs a point; a booking over four hours (up to the
two-week limit) costs two points. So a member can have four short bookings
scheduled, two long bookings scheduled, or two short and one long bookings
scheduled.

This is pretty basic, works well, and schedulemaster supports it.

Club members are also owners, having an equity stake (which is returned when
one leaves).

So here's my thought: Do some clubs have similar rules, but with the option
to "purchase" additional points by purchasing additional equity?

- Andrew

Andrew Gideon wrote:

I posted here recently that the club to which I belong in Northern NJ:

http://flyingclub.org

has some memberships available. Through an odd chain of reasoning (and
searching the 'net for comparable clubs), I came upon what I found to be an
interesting thought. But is it "good" interesting or "bad" interesting?

I'm curious if any clubs use anything like this, or if it is a completely
foolish idea.

The scheduling policy we're currently using involves 4 points. A booking of
up to four hours costs a point; a booking over four hours (up to the
two-week limit) costs two points. So a member can have four short bookings
scheduled, two long bookings scheduled, or two short and one long bookings
scheduled.

This is pretty basic, works well, and schedulemaster supports it.

Club members are also owners, having an equity stake (which is returned when
one leaves).

So here's my thought: Do some clubs have similar rules, but with the option
to "purchase" additional points by purchasing additional equity?

- Andrew

We (the Westchester Flying Club, www.wfc-hpn.org) also have rules
limiting reservations, as I'm sure every other flying club in the world
does. Our work differently than yours do, but we're "one member, one
vote", and "one member, one quota". I don't think the idea that a
member could purchase more quota would go over very well with us.

Scheduling is a rather contentious issue. We've had members almost
total airplanes and had less said about it than if somebody violates our
scheduling quota rules.

But, you say that what you've got works well for you. Given that it
works (which I define as keeping members from engaging in fist-fights at
meetings), I think you would be foolish to change anything.

Roy Smith wrote:

We (the Westchester Flying Club, www.wfc-hpn.org) also have rules
limiting reservations, as I'm sure every other flying club in the world
does. Our work differently than yours do, but we're "one member, one
vote", and "one member, one quota". I don't think the idea that a
member could purchase more quota would go over very well with us.

I've a concern that this would be the case for the PFC too, but I cannot
really get a sense of why. It seems so reasonable an idea.

Can you explain why you think it'd not go over well?

Scheduling is a rather contentious issue. We've had members almost
total airplanes and had less said about it than if somebody violates our
scheduling quota rules.

Laugh I suspect that the same would be true at the PFC.

But, you say that what you've got works well for you. Given that it
works (which I define as keeping members from engaging in fist-fights at
meetings), I think you would be foolish to change anything.

Yes, well, there is that.

But I've been thinking about my own "upgrade path". What would I do next,
and why? Owning on my own would be a *huge* leap. Partnership?
Perhaps...but I like that the club has multiple aircraft. I like the
choices, and I like the "backup" (ie. I can still fly if an aircraft is in
annual).

So it seems like one possible upgrade is simply to a club with "more
availability". And that caused me to wonder about instead having a club
with "variable availability".

Wouldn't that make a club more attractive, in that a wider pool of potential
members would find the club meeting their goals?

- Andrew

Andrew Gideon wrote:

So it seems like one possible upgrade is simply to a club with "more
availability". And that caused me to wonder about instead having a club
with "variable availability".


"More availability" for you means "less availability" for the other
members, unless the club is going to be adding airplanes as part of this
hypothetical initiative you are proposing. If 1/3 of the members bought
this "premium" membership that, say, doubles their scheduling rights,
the other 2/3 would be seriously impacted and basically see the value of
their shares decreased.

How about this: set up a system where members can buy and sell "points"
to/from each other. That way at least the people whose availability is
being decreased by your extra points can be compensated. Of course that
may not work because the club's fleet policy may be counting on not
everyone using all their points.

TTA Cherokee Driver wrote:

"More availability" for you means "less availability" for the other
members, unless the club is going to be adding airplanes as part of this
hypothetical initiative you are proposing. If 1/3 of the members bought
this "premium" membership that, say, doubles their scheduling rights,
the other 2/3 would be seriously impacted and basically see the value of
their shares decreased.

There are two different visions in my mind for how this would work.

The first possibility involves changing from a fixed number of members (my
club has 45) to a fixed number of shares. Any given member could own one
or more shares (perhaps with an upper limit like 2 or 4 or whatever seemed
appropriate). So availablility doesn't decrease.

The second possibility is to exploit increased equity to purchase additional
aircraft. The PFC did just that recently, and it has worked out extremely
well.

The first possibility is far simpler, of course.

How about this: set up a system where members can buy and sell "points"
to/from each other. That way at least the people whose availability is
being decreased by your extra points can be compensated. Of course that
may not work because the club's fleet policy may be counting on not
everyone using all their points.

I'm not clear on how this would work, but the idea does have a nice
capitalistic appeal to me. I suppose if I'd no need for a pair of points,
I could make them available for auction. Members that had an interest
could bid.

I guess this is not too different from my "shares" idea above, except we're
permitting the sale of share fractions.

- Andrew

Andrew Gideon wrote:
Can you explain why you think it'd not go over well?

Well, I don't know much about the PFC, other than having been aware of
it's existance for quite a while, so I can only guess that my
assumptions make sense in your environment. But, be that as it may,
here goes...

A flying club is a social organization.

Certainly, there is a financial aspect to it, in that people with like
interests have gotten together to pool their financial resources
allowing them to do things they couldn't otherwise afford to do. The
same is true of many kinds of non-profit clubs (yacht clubs, golf clubs,
etc, etc). But, that's not the only motivation.

There is real value in the social aspects of a club. You get to know
other people with similar interests. Some will become your good
friends, others you may not like very much at all. Most will fall
somewhere in between. If you allow somebody to buy more rights than
somebody else, the financial aspects quickly overwhelm the social
aspects.

Interestingly enough, my club recently reorganized itself to do away
with membership classes. We used to have 3 classes, based on which
planes you could fly. Class A only had rights to the 152, Class B had
rights to all the fixed gears, Class C had rights to fly everything.
Each class payed a different initiation fee and monthly dues, with the
intention that each class would be self-supporting.

Every member, regardless of class, had one vote on all club business.
If anything, this was the reverse of what you're proposing (people who
paid less got the same representation and scheduling quota). Yet, there
was still a certain amount of discontent. If we voted to buy a new
radio for the Arrow, the Class A & B members felt put out since we were
using club funds to upgrade a resource they couldn't use. In theory,
the classes were self-funding, but the discontent still existed.

A few years ago, we sold the 152, so we ended up with only two classes
(B & C). Then, about a year ago, a proposal was floated to do away with
the class structure completely. To my thinking (I am/was a C member),
it made no sense financially for somebody who only wanted to fly the
fixed gears to want to merge classes. They would end up paying more in
monthly dues and fly the same airplanes. Likewise, I would see a dues
decrease (the merged class dues would be roughly the average of B & C
dues) with no decrease in benefits. Surprisingly (to my thinking,
anyway), the proposal was wildly popular with B members, and passed by a
wide margin. I think that showed that the social aspects were a more
powerful driver than the pure financial ones.

I belong to an investment club, which, while somewhat penny-ante in
scale, is organized like a mutual fund. We all pay in varying amounts
of capital and have voting power proportional to the number of shares we
own. This is sort of what you're proposing. Interestingly enough, we
have some people in the club who are always looking for ways to limit
the power of a small number of people. Despite the fact this this is an
overtly and intentionally finance-driven setup, people still have a
deep-rooted feeling that a minority of the members should not be able to
impose their will on the majority. There's just something about human
nature that works that way.

I think you would find that if you allowed different people to buy
different numbers of shares, it would negatively impact the social
aspects of your club, and in the long run would probably be a mistake.
The same with allowing a secondary market in quota trading.

Now, as for your upgrade path, I have a suggestion. Come join the WFC.
Your costs would go up, as you'd be paying dues to both the PFC and the
WFC, but you'd have access to more planes, and get exposure to a wider
ranges of types. And, you'd enjoy greater scheduling availability since
you'd be able to draw on both your PFC and WFC quotas.

BTW, what made you guys move out of TEB?

Andrew Gideon wrote in message gonline.com...
I posted here recently that the club to which I belong in Northern NJ:

http://flyingclub.org

has some memberships available. Through an odd chain of reasoning (and
searching the 'net for comparable clubs), I came upon what I found to be an
interesting thought. But is it "good" interesting or "bad" interesting?

I'm curious if any clubs use anything like this, or if it is a completely
foolish idea.

The scheduling policy we're currently using involves 4 points. A booking of
up to four hours costs a point; a booking over four hours (up to the
two-week limit) costs two points. So a member can have four short bookings
scheduled, two long bookings scheduled, or two short and one long bookings
scheduled.

This is pretty basic, works well, and schedulemaster supports it.

Club members are also owners, having an equity stake (which is returned when
one leaves).

So here's my thought: Do some clubs have similar rules, but with the option
to "purchase" additional points by purchasing additional equity?

- Andrew


How often are the 4 points renewed?

Andrew Sarangan wrote:

How often are the 4 points renewed?

One always has 4 points, some or all of which may be committed at any given
time to scheduled bookings. When a booking "expires" (ie. one flies), the
points may be allocated to another booking.

- Andrew

Roy Smith wrote:


Interestingly enough, my club recently reorganized itself to do away
with membership classes.

That *is* interesting, as you've moved in exactly the opposite direction
from what I was considering. That speaks to this being a poor idea. Oh
well.

[...]
Surprisingly (to my thinking,
anyway), the proposal was wildly popular with B members, and passed by a
wide margin. I think that showed that the social aspects were a more
powerful driver than the pure financial ones.

Indeed. You've a fine example there of my idea failing. As I wrote: Oh
well.

[...]
Now, as for your upgrade path, I have a suggestion. Come join the WFC.
Your costs would go up, as you'd be paying dues to both the PFC and the
WFC, but you'd have access to more planes, and get exposure to a wider
ranges of types. And, you'd enjoy greater scheduling availability since
you'd be able to draw on both your PFC and WFC quotas.

Joining an additional club was part of how I fell into this (recall I wrote
about having searched for other clubs in the area?). So that's certainly
an idea.

However, HPN is a little far for me. CDW's proximity has done a terrific
job of spoiling me.

However, all this is a little out in the future for me. As you'll see
below, I've only been in the PFC for under a year. My consideration of an
upgrade path wasn't something at which I was looking for the immediate
future, but just a bit of speculation as to where I'd be going when I go.

BTW, what made you guys move out of TEB?

I don't know the entire answer, as I joined right after this occurred. In
fact, my checkride was out of Teterboro, but my first flight out of
Caldwell. I know that this was at least partially financial, and that the
move make purchase of an additional 172 more feasible.

I also know that this was a tough decision, and that it involved some very
late meetings on the topic.

- Andrew

I suspect that the person who "counts" the points will quickly grow
tired of the task. The small book keeping that you agree to in the
begining ends up being a pain years down the road. Do you expect to
have a lot of problems in the partnership?
In mine, we created limits on the number of whole weeks you could
schedule per year but have never inforced them. We all work together
pretty well.
Also, if you compute your flight hour price and fixed montly price
correctly, no one will care how much the plane is flying unless they
want it at the same time.
-Robert


Andrew Gideon wrote in message gonline.com...
I posted here recently that the club to which I belong in Northern NJ:

http://flyingclub.org

has some memberships available. Through an odd chain of reasoning (and
searching the 'net for comparable clubs), I came upon what I found to be an
interesting thought. But is it "good" interesting or "bad" interesting?

I'm curious if any clubs use anything like this, or if it is a completely
foolish idea.

The scheduling policy we're currently using involves 4 points. A booking of
up to four hours costs a point; a booking over four hours (up to the
two-week limit) costs two points. So a member can have four short bookings
scheduled, two long bookings scheduled, or two short and one long bookings
scheduled.

This is pretty basic, works well, and schedulemaster supports it.

Club members are also owners, having an equity stake (which is returned when
one leaves).

So here's my thought: Do some clubs have similar rules, but with the option
to "purchase" additional points by purchasing additional equity?

- Andrew