APSC Treasurer Q1- First 90-days, READY ABOUT
Hello APSC the entire executive team is working hard to proactively translate each development to bring you another memorable season. Further updates will follow about our 2020 season soon from our commodore Marcus.
This is the perfect time to provide APSC members an update to correspond with my first 90 days of transition into the Treasurer role at the beginning of February. I wanted to share some APSC financial wins and exciting plans your executive team is engaged in. Back at the February General Meeting I presented to you my mandate for 2020. I am very happy to share the progress we have made to date.
Treasurer’s Top 3 Objectives 2020
- Develop new top line revenue growth
- Expense control
- Improve financial health reserve and make significant club improvements
Learning the ropes- The early days were spent asking questions and listening to the executive team to understand our goals and how I can effectively contribute. 3 years of transactions were scrubbed to attain a surgical precise view of our financial health to enable our board to make key fact based decisions.
In late February we appealed CRA’s long overdue HST penalties and assessment to successfully save the club $7,296! With the direst tax issue behind us I pivoted to look at one of our largest fixed expenditures, property taxes. Quickly we were successful in partnering with TRCA to directly appeal our property taxes with MPAC in the amount of $9,500. Our appeal has very compelling evidence to support either removal of taxes or have them reduced materially. MPAC has 120 days to respond.
Next came the review of our top variable spends, $8,800 in low value / low impact expenses were identified for reinvestment. Over half of the savings came from renegotiating with vendors for lower costs while receiving improved services. The remaining half of the savings were gained from approaching expenses more efficiently. This $8,800 removal of variable expenses is significant since it carries over for every future year, in just the next 3 years alone we will save over $26,000 to reinvest into the club and membership value.
Ready About! called to announce a change in tack – With significant liabilities solved and health ratio improvements, our new course shifts to creating new revenue drivers and investing heavily into APSC. Our team has started our growth plan, what you will see immediately are Kate’s great paid ads which are creating a lot of early leads for our star new membership closer, Greg, he is really busy these days! Significant capital investments has been made available to House and Ground to enable John to transform our facilities. We will start reviewing more programs to ignite revenues, an example is the fleet membership program. It has been developed on paper and digital, it is waiting for the right time to be launched. When business commences you will see exciting communications on race nights, added vibrancy for our social events, addition of water shuttle and proactive safety additions.
Please feel free to reach out to any one of your executive team members to find out more about our exciting plans. Take care and see everyone on the water soon. Helms Alee!
Michael Fong,
Treasurer, APSC