Flyfunston

The Fellow Feathers of Fort Funston Hang Gliding Club now has a new 5 year Special Use Permit!

I spent the last few months working with our GGNRA liaison Jessica Carter to write a new Special Use Permit (SUP) for the Fellow Feathers. Jessica is very supportive of our activities and was great to work with. In fact, she took the incentive to get hang gliding officially included in the GGNRA Master Plan. Many thanks to Ms. Carter for all her help and dedication!

We reviewed a number of different permits in order to best serve our needs and decided to keep the same general format that we have had in the past, with one major difference: by having our permit issued by the business department, we could get a five year agreement! I believe our non-profit corporate status allowed for this improvement.

While another serious incident involving the Law Enforcement Division could still cost us our permit and shut down hang gliding at Fort Funston, notwithstanding any more blunders, we are much more established and now considered a Park Partner.

More upside:
We included the Dan Murphy Memorial BBQ / Funston Air Races event into the SUP, so now we don’t have to apply for a separate permit or pay additional fees each year.

Another benefit of our new SUP is that we are not being charged an annual permit fee as we have in the past. The usual permit fees go to the GGNRA general fund and provide little direct benefit to Fort Funston. Rather than the permit fee, our SUP specifies that the Fellow Feathers can fund improvements to Fort Funston. These improvements would have to be approved by the GGNRA, but would benefit us directly!
For instance; we can make proposals to paint the clubhouse, or move the drinking fountain to get dog walkers farther away from our set up area, or repair the berm of the parking lot to divert rain water away from the chip area.

The downside:
Because the GGNRA does not receive enough funding from the Federal government to cover all their expenses, rather than shut down parks or limit services, beginning in 2010 they are implementing a Service District Charge (SDC) to generate income. The SDC is based on the square footage of any building occupied by a permit holder and is being applied throughout the entire GGNRA.

The Fellow Feathers occupy 1,064 sq. ft. of space in the clubhouse, so based on the SDC of $2.57 per square foot, our annual charge is $2,735.00. This was not a negotiable clause of our Permit.

We did qualify for a four year phase-in of the SDC which would allow us to increase our dues gradually over a four year period. We could pay 1/4 of the SDC the first year, 1/2 the second, 3/4 the third, and 100% the fourth year. This would require that the membership vote each year to change dues and also require the Execs to revise membership forms and web site each year as well.

Our new SUP also requires us to provide building and fire insurance for the clubhouse. (this was not negotiable either) I received bids from different insurance providers and the least expensive was $754- per year.

These combined obligations increase our annual expense by $3,491.00 per year and we need a way of increasing our income to match.

The simplest way of making up for this debt is by increasing our membership dues. If we raise the dues for Voting Membership to sixty five dollars we would generate an income of 6,500.00. This amount, plus non-voting membership should cover our current budgets plus the SDC.

If, rather than using the phase-in plan, we increase our dues all the way up the first year, we can use the surplus for making site improvements, thus benefiting the club while satisfying our agreement and scoring major points with the park department.

The Fellow Feathers Executive Board is recommending a Voting Member dues increase to $65.00 beginning with the year 2010. The club is not allowed to charge for hang gliding, so Non-Voting membership would remain on a sliding scale from zero to $64.99.

Please attend the next club meeting to vote on this important decision!

Good job getting us the 5 year permit, Steve. You obviously put a lot of time into working all that out.

DD

Much Thanks To Steve R. And his Team who have help with GGNRA 5 Year Plan.

Small Price to Fly at One of the best Places, I'm IN.......

Thank You!
Thank You!
Thank You!

Now If you could just make it blow at the Fort, maybe 15 to 18 straight in?

Thanks Steve-

Walter

Thanks Steve!

Steve, as usual, delivered well over expectations. While you asked for a 15-18 mph wind, he was able to conjure up at least 40 mph, probably as high as 50+ mph. Thanks, Steve!

I can't take credit for the wind, but you are all quite welcome for the rest. Thanks for the acknowledgement!

The membership at last nights meeting voted on the Executive Board's recommendation and passed the motion to raise Fellow Feathers dues for 2010. Voting Membership will be $65.00, and Non-Voting membership will be on a sliding scale from $5.00 to $64.99.
I'll update our forms so we can be ready to send out clubhouse renewal and sticker packages.

Because we get a big discount when ordering two years at a time, I've ordered new stickers for the next two years. (I coordinated our colors with Dave Beerman to avoid confusion with the Mt. Tam stickers.) We will make FF sticker packages available to the usual suspects, and Chris Valley has volunteered to do stickers by mail again!

Steve rocks....

we have alot of people that do quite a bit for the club, as long as I can remember steve has always been doing things for the club (or flying)

Thanks Steve....