Minutes: September 30, 2023
WTA Meeting
September 30, 2023
Homegrounds
The 09/30/23 Board of Director’s meeting of the Wisconsin Trapshooting Association was called to order at 9:05 am by Ken Michels, President. Directors present were N/W Ken Michels and Tate Barwald, S/E Steve Downs and Bob Ebbers, N/E YZ Weisensel and Andy Wondrash, S/W John Reding and Tyler Buchanan, Executive Assistant/Shoot Coordinator Amy Jenkins, Treasurer Wanda Barwald, S/W & Alt. Delegate Tyler Buchanan, 2nd Alternate Delegate Gary Witzke. Absent: ATA Delegate Kevin Doerring.
Also present were: Kevin Schutz, Bruce Wiegmann, Al and Laura McCord, Jeff Goering, John King, Rick Tesker, John, Julie & Sarah Atkielski, Crystal Wondrash, Chops, John Coniff (phone)
Meeting started at 9:05 am.
Treasurer’s Report:
Account balances are as follows: Checking account $239,939, Camping $62,448, Savings $13,516, Expansion fund is $62,649. Fall Classic was $10,460 and paid the trap help $2312; total $8147.
John made a motion to approve the Treasurer’s report. YZ seconded. So carried.
Secretary’s Report:
Camping forms are still coming in for 2024. They are due on October 31. There is already a waiting list of approximately 30. Daily camping has been very good this summer in the campground. Camping for fall classic shoot was very good.
Friends of the WTA report:
There is $73,334.49 in the checking account.
Youth grant requests have been received from the following teams/clubs: Wilmot, Winneconne, Wisconsin Lutheran, Clinton, SPASH. New Berlin. Let John know if there are others that are looking for a grant.
The 125th anniversary logo is in development. Draft will be provided to the board within 30 days. Friends fund raising planning meeting tentatively scheduled for Oct. 30, likely in Green Lake or Ripon area. They will approve the logo. Discussion on both T-shirts and Polo shirts for sale at the state shoot = Polo shirts by pre-order only; how to judge how many T-shirts; too many 10-year shirts were left over.
Preliminary discussions for 125 anniversary Kolar have taken place with Jeff Mainland. Discuss going to 500 tickets as this will be a one of a kind.
Old Business:
Loan Update:
The loan has been renewed at 7.5% and has a balance of $608,703. The loan was extended for another five years. Bruce asked if there was a pre-payment penalty. John asked if we should consider doing a bi-monthly payment instead of monthly. Ken suggested trying to find a way to pay extra on the loan which would come right off the principal.
New website person:
Information from the current website person:
The most common thing I do is review the webmaster email. Otherwise, I make sure the site’s software and plugins are updated. I know there are a few plugins that are not getting updated because they are no longer in the WordPress library. I have not had time to research replacement programs. I think the calendar app you use for shooting events is one of them. There should be an app running monthly backups, but if/when you switch hosting companies, I would see if they can help with the backups. Our company just switched hosting companies and redid our website. One of the things the new design team did was set up monthly backups so I don’t have to do it manually anymore.
Amy will talk with John’s daughter. John A. will see if he knows anyone. Jeff will talk to his daughter as well.
Storage Building:
Chops met with Town of Rome and Adams Zoning yesterday. The site plan that he had will not be accepted. He said it is from 2012 and there is too many unanswered questions on it. Things on the plan are not listed correctly. They suggested to put what we have here now on the plan and what we would like to build. The town suggested to attend the January meeting when it is not so busy (November meeting will be at least three hours). Chops suggested not pouring the concrete for the building until the spring. In addition, there are at least two sites in the campground that want to pour concrete pads. The site work and tree removal can all be done yet this fall. Andy suggested pouring a handicap accessible sidewalk on both ends of the main building at the same time.
Steve said that Amy missed information in the previous minutes stating that the storage building is a two-phase plan. The plan is for Bruce to pay to build the storage building first. The second phase down the road would be to build a hall of fame building. Thanks to Bruce for his generosity for this plan.
Lead Reclamation:
Ken said that they were supposed to be here in the past two weeks. Al McCord said that he called the same company last week to see if he could get them to come to Gateway and he was told that they have no plans to come to WTA in the near future. Ken will reach out to them to get an update.
Ducks Unlimited:
They will be holding their shoot on October 14th. Right now they have about 150 signed up. DU will be here at noon on Friday to set up. They will get us a list of names so we can get them into the computer system ahead of time. Directors coming that day: Steve and Mary Downs, Ken, Tate and Amy, Wanda, YZ, Andy, John Reding, John Kind, Jeff and Deb, Chops. Update: Shoot has been canceled and will be moved to the Spring of 2024.
New Business:
HOA to 900 targets:
Tyler suggested getting the membership involved in this. The Board would propose three alternatives for Thursday/Friday targets and present these options next year at the zone shoots (similar to the by-law process this last year). Then vote on the change at the annual meeting or possibly try to do a vote at the zone shoots or online and the present the changes at the annual meeting. Suggestion to move the annual meeting to Sunday with the all-state team recognition. Discussion held to possibly combine the HOF banquet with the all-state team recognition. Banquet has to be moved to Tuesday night due to the venue being booked already. There will not be a marathon Monday.
Tyler made a motion to move the annual meeting to Sunday at 8am and the Hall of Fame banquet to Tuesday night. John seconded. So carried.
Closing Grounds:
The campground will be closed on Saturday, October 21. Ken will stop and reserve the compressor. The following will be here to close: YZ, Ken, Chops, Andy, John King. John will pick up the compressor on Friday night. Any others that can help, please let Amy know.
State Shoot workers – Plan for 2024:
Tate said that Jimmy isn’t really willing to take the responsibility of this. Discussion was held about talking with the Nekoosa team about stepping up and helping us at some other events. We will need to continue to work on this plan in the next month to determine what we are going to do for workers for the 2024 season.
Committees:
Discussion held about creating committees to better manage the organization so one person isn’t handling all of the tasks.
Administration committee – Wanda, Kevin Schutz
Campground committee – Amy, Jeff, Tate
Staffing/Worker committee – Steve
Maintenance committee – John King, YZ, Andy, John Reding
Expansion committee – Chops, Andy, YZ, Tyler
Fundraising/Grants committee – John, Tyler
Increase Registered Shooting committee – Steve, Al McCord
Amy will send out the list of committees in the minutes and people should sign up on the committees that they are willing to work on. Discussion will continue at the next meeting and discuss a lead person for each committee.
2024 Calendar of Events:
Ducks Unlimited – Date to be determined
**May 4 & 5 – WTA Registered shoot
**May 11& 12 – WI Junior Olympic Qualifier (15 athletes)
May 18 – Kettle Moraine
June 8 & 9 – High School Clay Target League
June 21, 22 & 23 – WI SCTP Championship
July 9 to 14 – WI State Shoot
July 26, 27 & 28 – Central Zone
July 17 – Cheesemakers
**August 17 – Mid-State Technical College
September 28 & 29 – WTA WI Fall Classic
**Represents proposed dates but have not yet been confirmed
Round Table
John A.:
Is there a way to get two more lighted fields. John King said that the Midway USA grant is due in February. We will look into this more.
He asked if we could should think about changing the number of trophies for event 2 and 3 to increase the number of All American points. It would go from 11 to 28 trophies. Amy stated that the sponsorship fee would need to increase on event 2.
YZ made a motion to increase the state sponsorship fees to $750 (Tuesday singles), $1000 and $1250 for championship events. Andy seconded. So carried.
John made a motion to change event 2 and 3 to full resident and non-resident trophies. Andy seconded. So carried.
Bob:
He has been reviewing insurance policies. Secura came in $3000 less than our current policy. Bob provided a breakdown of costs between West Bend and Secura. Discussion about adding an umbrella policy. Discussion about worker’s comp and employees. It would also include UTV/golf cart insurance if someone hits a car with one of our carts. Bob will check on the volunteer coverage. Kevin will gather some information on the benefit or cost on a using an outside service for employees.
Andy made a motion to change to Secura Insurance with a $2,000,000 umbrella policy. John seconded it. So carried.
Steve:
ATA has given two options to determine how we want the trophy package for the 2024 shoot. Steve and Mary will determine what is best. We are trying to get rid of all of the old trophies that people have not picked up. Discussion was held to keep trophies for 2 years and if no one claims their trophies they will be added to the silent auction; everyone agreed with this plan.
Chops:
He was very disappointed with the help for the hot dog feed pig roast. His family served at both events and no one else was there to serve. There will need to be a sign up next year.
Al McCord:
He contacted Mike N. regarding the shoot calendar and he will be contacting Amy. Al is willing to be the point person with the WTA with him to get it rolling.
John Reding:
He asked if he should pursue his ideas on possibly buying a tractor and mower. Andy got a price on a 2018 5075E for $50,000. Used lawn mower is $15,000 for a 15 foot batwing. YZ said we can do a lot more with a lot less.
Jeff:
Jeff did some alterations to the canopies on the scoring benches. He made a couple different options and the board will review to see which works best.
Andy:
He would like John King to come up with a budget for traps. He would like a budget from the camphosts as well. This would allow us to know as an organization what we are spending so that we can track what it takes to run the facility. At this point, we need a starting point.
Andy made a motion to adjourn. YZ seconded. So carried.
Meeting adjourned at 12:37 pm
Meeting Schedule:
November 4
December 9
January 6
February 10
March 30?