Minutes: August 20, 2016
The 08/20/16 face to face meeting of the Wisconsin Trapshooting Association Board of Directors meeting was called to order at Homegrounds at 3:20 p.m. by Jerry Farnsworth, President. Directors present were, S/E Jerry Kaszynski, S/W Dan Horkan, N/W Tate Barwald, N/E Don Chrapla, President Jerry (Dewey) Farnsworth, ATA Delegate Kevin Doerring, 2nd Alt. Delegate Fritz Thistle, Treasurer Jim Kroeplien, Shoot Coordinator Amy Jenkins. Absent for face to face meeting was N/E Pat Schuette.
Also present at the meeting: Fred Kasten, Ann Kasten, Joshua Kroeplien, Bill Marsden, Tom Bristol, Jeff Mainland, Chad Blanke, Sandra Jo Jack, Tony DeFrancisco, Arlene Otto, Dick Otto, Mike Pigusch, Mike Martin
Meeting started at 3:20pm at Homegrounds
Treasurer’s report by Jim:
Jim went through the report. He transferred the remainder of the money from Ray’s account to the checking account (left over from the original $100,000). The money in the River City Bank is money that is set aside for lighted trap field and bleachers. Current balance is $100,000 in the Homegrounds account. There are about 800 checks not cashed yet from the state shoot. Jim has not received a bill yet from Recob’s for the shells that were part of the trophies at the state shoot. Taxes have been paid. Dewey gave a recap about the grant money that we originally received from the NRA for a building. The contractors returned the money back to the WTA and it was put into a non-interest bearing account per the NRA’s request. NRA said that now that we have the money back in our account, we are eligible to apply for another grant. There is no timeline on how long we have to spend that money.
Tate made a Motion to accept treasurer’s report. Dan Horkan seconded it. So carried.
Fidelity Account:
Dewey received an email this week that there was $799,000 wired to River City bank from Ray’s account for closing the fidelity account. The money has been deposited in River City Bank. It is in a trust account with the WTA as a beneficiary. We cannot touch the money until the taxes are completed for Ray’s estate. The attorney said it would take six to nine months before we could have this money into the WTA account. Jim is working with the banks to see if we can get $700,000 deposited into our bank and leave almost $100,000 in the account to pay for the remaining outstanding items on Ray’s estate. Julie from Summit was on vacation, so Jim will follow up with her on Monday. If we can make the deal with Summit, Jim will post the updated information on the forum next week. Jerry F. contacted Linda at the bank yesterday to get information for Denny to get the taxes done that are still outstanding. Sandy Jack asked why Denny didn’t take care of posting the information when Ray passed. The death needed to be posted locally for 90 days in case there are outstanding creditors that money is owed to. That has been posted in the paper now. Sandy stated that Denny was set to receive 5% of the estate. Sandy stated that she doesn’t believe that someone should get paid if they didn’t do the job that they were supposed to do. The attorney is working on the back taxes right now. The nephew has the information but he won’t give it to us. Jim received an email that there is another account that has WTA’s name is on that has $34,000 in it that should hopefully be able to be transferred into our account; hopefully within the next week or so. Sandy said that a week or so before Ray died that he told her had $175,000 in his personal checking account. Last October, the WTA deposited approximately $99,000 into our account. Sandy is curious to know where the rest of the money went from Ray’s personal account.
Zone Director:
We have a member that said he would be interested in being a director from the southeast zone. Jerry K. nominated Bill Marsden for this position. This is the vacancy created from Phil Kubow. There is still a vacancy for the northwest zone.
Jerry K. made motion to appoint Bill Marsden to director of southeast zone; Dan Horkan seconded it. So carried. His term will be two years.
Manager Position:
Fred Kasten stated that there were credit card transactions that sat too long and Wind River stated that we likely will lose the money. One of them had a wrong number and the other one was insufficient funds. We believe that these are possibly entries that Denny keys in himself, rather than through the website. Fred didn’t have the exact details. It is estimated we will lose about $300 for this. Ann did a test entry on the website. She stated that she did get an error message when she tried to enter her credit card on the website and was unable to finish the transaction. Ann stated that Denny received the same list and was working on reposting the ones that he could.
We are paying about $160 a month for Denny’s phone. At this point Jim is uncertain what phone number this is for, but the charges are being directly withdrawn approximately every three weeks. Mike Martin suggested to turn it off and we will find out really soon what the number was for. Fred Kasten will follow up and try to find out what the number is for. If he can’t get the information, Jim will follow up.
Dewey stated now that Amy is handling all of the camping, she is unable to get on the website to see what sites are reserved. She talked with Denny in June and he would not give her the security rights to access the Homegrounds website. Elizabeth also contacted Denny to see if he would give her access to the website and he failed to respond to her. Amy contacted Interlink WebWorks and Joe Ebel requested a signed letter by the president in order to give Amy access to the website. Dewey will sign the letter and Amy will send it to Joe Ebel in order to get security rights for the Homegrounds website.
Jim closed the post office box yesterday. All mail will be forwarded to Jim. Jim will need to get the keys from Dick, Arlene and Fritz. The bills were sitting in the mailbox and by the time they were forwarded to Jim, late fees had already been incurred.
Nekoosa Kids Pay:
Brian thanked WTA for letting the Nekoosa school district serve us. It has been a difficult summer and stated they have worked a lot of shoots. Brian sends an invoice after each shoot which completely details and accounts for every dollar. The deal was $50 per day for students (this was discussed back in April). For the state shoot, the students were paid $100 bonus if they worked all days of the state shoot, even though this was not discussed at the meeting in April. Brian stated that this was the practice that was done in previous years. All invoices have been paid. Brian stated that he has an additional bill for the state shoot as some kids were missed. Student lunches were never discussed. Brian realized that the kids needed to eat. They were told to come prepared and pack lunches; however the majority of the kids did not come prepared and Brian fed them. The administrative cost that Brian billed on the first invoice was $250 and this was to cover the meals that Brian paid for. Dewey stated that our only concern is the $700 for lunches. Brian was able to work with the school district and was able to get the lunches for $1.75 each. Brian paid for some of the lunches out of his own pocket, over $1000. To date, approximately $40,000 has been invoiced for Nekoosa kids working approximately 4721 hours. Further discussion was held about the number of students and that they need to work and know that they can be fired if they are not working up to the standards set. Tate explained that he felt there were too many kids sitting on the scoring stands which caused issues during the state shoot. He stated that there is no reason that 50 kids couldn’t cover the state shoot. Dick Otto said that there is no way that is possible and that it would be the biggest disaster that we have ever seen if we did this. Jerry K. asked what Brian thought we still owed him. Brian feels that WTA owes an additional $15,000 to $20,000 to the school district as a contribution to the Nekoosa Athletic Department to compensate Brian’s time, his dad’s time, etc. and to give money to the athletic programs. Dan H. stated that he doesn’t feel there is enough money in the budget to cover this additional money. Dan suggested that this be discussed at a future meeting with the Directors. Brian stated that if we did not want to utilize Nekoosa in the future, he would be more than willing to help look for a replacement. Brian was unaware that the Nekoosa kids worked six shoots last year. He believes the school was not aware of this and it possibly went through Jason. We are unsure how Jason handled it in the past, but it is possible that the kids were paid for the state shoot, but volunteered for the other shoots, which is how money was received for the athletic programs. There was never any discussion at past meetings about paying the kids for every shoot and then in addition the WTA would donate money for the athletic programs.
Fritz suggested that we table this discussion and people can go home and think about it. Dewey asked that we know what Brian has paid out of his pocket personally. Dan is stating that we are very happy with Brian’s performance however, we do not have the money budgeted nor have the money to pay it in our account. We will table the discussion for the $12,000 to $15,000.
Don Chrapla made a motion to pay $1296 for the money Brian paid out of pocket for the meals. The check will be paid to the Nekoosa School District and Brian will turn his receipts into the school for reimbursement. Seconded by Dan Horkan. So carried.
Jill Steckbauer, the Foundation Director at Mid-State Tech College was present to request a fundraiser at Homegrounds to raise funds for their foundation. She would like it to be sometime in October on a Friday when kids didn’t have school. The only date is October 28th and Fritz has stated it would be really close to when we are closing. They would pay the WTA the trap fees, etc., and have someone to cook burgers and such. It would likely be self-contained. She estimates about 75 shooters, but could be surprised at more. It is a family day for Wood, Adams, Portage and Juneau County. She will take the cost for a meal and shooting and upsize it from there. Kuwanis Club would be the vendor doing the food and they would sell beer at the social at the end of the day. The last one they did was at the Heart of Wisconsin and had 30 shooters and raised $4000. The parents will need to sign a liability waiver for their kids and WTA will not be held responsible for any injuries.
Dan Horkan made a motion to allow the Mid-State Foundation to hold a fundraiser on October 28th at Homegrounds. Targets will be $7 and shells are $8. Don Chrapla seconded it. So carried.
Around the Table:
Jim, Treasurer:
Jim received a contract from Michelle at Mueller Technologies for 2017, 2018 and 2019. It is for the same price as the previous contract. Mike P. stated that this year HAA and HOA was not posted in a timely manner. Michelle forgot to check two boxes in 3S to publish those scores. Mike suggested that she give us a copy of the entire list before she leaves.
Kevin Doerring made a motion to accept the contract from Mueller Technologies. Dan Horkan seconded it. So carried.
Jim received payment to add more speakers for the PA system; this was money donated by a few members. Jim received 3 bad checks at the state shoot; one of them has been taken care of, the other is in progress. Jim got a thank you from the Town of Rome Fire Department. Jim received a letter from Chase Bank that Ray had a balance of $4300, which should be able to be transferred to our bank. Jim will follow up. Jim has more issues with unemployment. He received a bill for $8800 stating that we currently have two employees (treasurer and secretary). Two days later he received a call for an audit. He responded that we had an audit last year, so this should be resolved as well. However, they want to come out and do another audit of Homegrounds so Jim will follow up with that. Jim had over $400 in late fees of bills due to the mail sitting in the PO Box; which is why he closed it. Jim has not received any payment from Cheesemakers. Fritz said that Connie apparently billed them. Jim stated that the invoices need to be sent out from him. The pods were ordered via telephone by Dewey. One was to be delivered in June and the others were to be delivered early July. They asked when they could pick them up and Dewey said any time after the Monday following the state shoot. Dewey received an email last week that the pods were not picked up. Basically, we are looking at $1300 extra for these pods sitting here not being used. The pods should be picked up early this next week. Hopefully they will eat the extra fees since it was not our fault they didn’t pick them back up. Jim asked if anyone has any idea how we are going to make it through the end of the year. We will be out of money again by the end of October. Arlene asked if Denny has been paid yet; he has not. Don asked if we have talked to the bank about not making payments during the offseason. Jim said they will talk to us after the fidelity money is in the WTA account. WTA taxes are done; Homegrounds are not. Jim needs to know what we want to pay and what we don’t want to pay. Arlene asked if there was any progress on selling the 40 acres that was discussed. Jim stated that we are just selling off assets to pay the bills. Sandy stated she would try to sell it and the next meeting Connie said that she would take care of it and that was the end of it. If the land was sold it would go right to the mortgage; it would not be able to be used for paying bills. A couple members have been working with the Town of Rome regarding the taxes. However, Jim said that changes need to be made for the entire tax year so it wouldn’t be until 2018 likely if we did get a revision made.
Fred Kasten:
As of December 31st, he will be 3 years into his 2 year term. He will not be renewing his secretary, treasurer position that he has held for Homegrounds.
Kevin Doerring:
Kevin gave an ATA update. Expenses have been cut. Preliminary week was up and the Grand week was about the same. Gary Lassh passed away. Grand dates for 2017 are August 2-12. Prior to that are the Central zone, Iowa State and WI State (backwards). The Wisconsin State shoot will be July 11 to 17, 2017.
Fritz:
One of our youth bunker shooters did very well at the shoot in Colorado. The bunker folks would like to have a major event on October 8th which is during our fall classic. They would not require anything from us. They would like to do it this weekend to gain exposure for their sport.
Dan Horkan made a motion to allow them to shoot Bunker on October 8th. Don Chrapla seconded it. So carried.
Fritz would recommend not having any shoots on Fridays or Mondays unless it is a holiday as it is too hard to get help. Fritz talked with someone at Greenway who would like to help us with marketing. Fritz will try to get him to come to a meeting soon. Fritz said there was not a single article in any local paper for the state shoot; however, when he is at the Grand, there is an article in the paper every day. Dewey received a call that there is a TV station that would like to come out and do a segment on us. What is our long term and short term plan for running this place? Fritz said if we told him if were weren’t going to pay Denny, he wouldn’t quit; he is above that, but he can’t keep doing this forever. Fritz will not be able to work next Saturday. He also will be gone September 24-25 as he is going on an honorary flight to Washington DC.
Dick Otto:
We need a program for the fall shoot. Do we want $27 with a $3 payback or $28 with a $4 payback. The added money is $1000 per day for Saturday and Sunday. The program will charge $28 for targets with a $4 payback and the $1000 added money will be paid daily by class. Cashiering will open at 8am and shooting will start at 9am. There will be a general membership meeting after the shoot on Saturday.
Josh Kroeplien:
Josh suggested talking about the long-term plan with the manager position. We keep saying we can’t afford a $70,000 manager but we never make a decision on what to do. Maybe we put the grounds on a volunteer basis and now could be a great time to make this decision going into the winter. Tate said this winter we really need to work on getting a camp host for next summer. Mike P. suggested getting some of the camping magazines so that we can try to get added in to them for people making their plans for next summer. Dick stated that they see Denny weekly and they are so happy with his improvement. He thinks that it is possible that he will be back for next year. He is a guy that has all the knowledge. He doesn’t want us to write him off completely but things are looking up. Josh is asking if we can discontinue Denny’s ½ salary at the first of the month. Kevin Doerring suggested that we get a gate put in at the west end so that campers are sneaking in. Tate suggested measuring and putting up a couple gates. Tate and Fritz will look at it this weekend. Lengthy discussion about what to do with paying bills and still incurring charges for paying Denny his ½ salary. Dewey will go and talk to Denny about the possibility of him resigning because we can’t afford him. However, we would like to keep Denny if he was willing to donate his time.
Mike P.
Mike stated if we closed the PO Box, addresses need to be changed on the websites.
Next meeting is October 8th after the shooting is over for the day. This will be a general membership meeting
Jerry K. made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Bill seconded it. So carried.
Meeting adjourned at 7:14pm.