“Offline” status

Due to power or weather conditions, the weather stations frequently go offline or fail to report data for a long period of time. I was in the LZ a couple of weeks ago, and several pilots were talking about the current conditions that the Marshall station was reporting. I had to let them know that the data was over an hour old, as it wasn’t obvious on the charts that that was the case.

I put a check in the new graphs (and the compass gauges) to show an “Offline” message if the last data received is over an hour old. I think this is too long still, but wanted to start with low impact first.

Should this timeframe be lowered, and how much?

Discussion about membership dues specifics:

Since we have very little historical data to look at (membership dues, how much is visitor vs general membership, where visitor pilots are from – locals or out of towners, etc), this first year on the new website is going to require experimentation on finding the right balance of membership dues and terms. With our new method of record keeping (all memberships paid for and tracked on the website), we will be able to look at all of this in detail as the year progresses.

For now, we felt that the optimal mix that would impact revenues the least (since change is required) is the following:

• General memberships – $100 for one year (from date of purchase); to encourage on-time payment and so we can do away with the complicated proration method, introduce a $25 signup fee for brand new members (this sign up fee is only paid once – as long as you pay on time every year after that, it is waived); all current members will, of course, not have to pay the sign up fee
• Associate memberships – $50 for one year (from date of purchase) – same signup fee idea as above, but obviously less
• Limited membership – $25 for one month (this is the new “day use”)

Also, since all of this will now be fully automated (including buying/tracking storage container slots), all dues are now good for the term stated (one year for general memberships and storage, one month for limited, etc) at the time of purchase – this greatly simplifies the proration issue and also makes it much clearer to everyone exactly when your membership is up (since you can see the exact date on your “My Account” page once you buy your subscription).

Discussion about allowing the board to adjust membership dues:

The current bylaws, as they stand now, require the following in regards to dues/memberships:

• Dues be paid on a specific day every year (June 1)
• Dues have a proration schedule if they are paid at a different time than the normal membership time
• Changes in dues are allowed only by an in-person general member vote
• Amendments must be sent out to members 30 days prior to a meeting

Since 30 days are needed to allow everyone time to vote on important issues, this means that any change to bylaws or dues requires 60 days to pass. Online tools (this discussion forum, election/voting tools, etc) are already in use to help us all facilitate discussion and voting, so there is little reason why we can’t be a bit more agile.

There are many reasons why the board is suggesting to be allowed to adjust rates. Here are a few:

• The specific issue that we encountered this year (RRRG demanded a change to how we charge visiting pilots which required quick action; we could not address this demand in a timely fashion without changes to the bylaws since the term of that membership type was specifically defined)
• Ability to “dial in” on the best combinations of fees and terms for all pilots; as the board conducts reviews of club finances on a regular basis, we may discover from accounting data that adjustments are needed to address things such as increased club expenditures, lower visiting pilot revenues (possibly because prices are seen as being too high, COVID-19, increase in out-of-town vs local SoCal pilots paying the visitor fee, encouraging local pilots to sign up for the annual membership instead of the visiting, etc)
• Promotions/attracting visiting pilots – if the board wants to run, let’s say, a week promotion with a reduced visitor fee to attract visiting pilots, that would currently require a bylaw change
• Board members pay membership fees too (no free lunches) – we have no incentive to raising rates for anyone (member or visitor) other than to ensure the club (which is barely breaking even) stays afloat

Yep – all good! Definitely worse ways I could have spent a Sunday. Every launch is good practice.

Saga continues – after a great day of flying yesterday, a spectator in the LZ had their dog off-leash and as I was folding up, I looked over and the dog was sitting on my wing. Owner didn’t seem too concerned about it, and I was lucky this time that I didn’t have new holes.