(Geese on the lake, resting up for their long flight south.)
Today is opening day of whitetail deer season up here in the Adirondacks. After numerous assurances that I didn’t mind, my boyfriend was up and out at 5:30 this morning to be in his deer stand by sunup. The season is nine weeks long and, lest you worry too much about the deer, last season his whole club only got about 4. I’m not a hunter and am always happier when they have fun and don’t kill anything, as is usually the case. Having said that, I do love venison.
This year he was elected Treasurer of his hunt club. It’s a job he didn’t particularly want but accepted. He is a fairly detail oriented person and I suspect he’ll do a good job. It’s been interesting learning about the finances of this organization. It’s a little micro-economy. This particular hunt club has been in existence for more than 50 years. They lease a 2,500 acre parcel of heavily wooded land in which to hunt. They have a camp house which consists of a kitchen/dining area, a room with several couches and a TV and then several other rooms with bunkbeds. It’s definitely a man’s place. I don’t mind hanging out over there a little but I would certainly never lay my head down on one of those pillows! They have a large barn in which to store their tractor and several member’s four-wheelers. Individual members have erected deerstands all over the place. There is a creek that runs right through it. It’s really a pretty piece of property. Each member pays $400 a year in dues. They also pay $10 a night if they are staying at the club, which includes two meals. Beer is $1. Beer, food and lodging are on the honor system.
The club holds two big fundraisers annually. The first one is a gun raffle. They sell 800 tickets at $5 each. The second is a $20 raffle with numerous cash and merchandise prizes and for which they sell 300 tickets. Between membership and the raffles they take in about $20,000 a year less the cost of the raffle prizes. Their expenses consist of their lease, which is currently $14,000 a year, groceries, beer, gas for the generator and various expenses related to upkeep of the house and equipment. They really need to buy a new tractor as the one they have is barely hanging on and is not sufficient to their needs. So, just like a home, they need to balance their grocery spending with the $10 a night charge and see if their food costs are covered. They need to see if $1 a beer really covers the amount of beer the club buys. They need to decide if the hassle of their “job” of selling raffle tickets twice in fairly close succession is worth it. They need to decide if they can afford a new tractor or if they will need to make the old one last a little longer. Right now they have about $30,000 in CDs and about $13,000 in the bank with the raffle money still to come. Their piece of property was recently sold and they haven’t heard from the new owners yet so they don’t know if their lease will cost the same this year or go up or, heaven forbid, go away. They are currently trying to decide if they need to raise their dues, which have remained at $400 for several years. It doesn’t appear to me as if they keep close enough accounting to answer some of these questions. I’m going to try and analyze their books and see what I can come up with.
A lot of the hunt clubs up here have disappeared. This club is one of the last really big clubs still remaining active. They have one member who is quite generous with his time, money and equipment and may well be responsible for the club’s continuing existence. These guys love their club and I hope they can keep it going. If they raise the dues will they lose some members? If the lease goes up in price, will they be able to afford to keep it? Although some of the local members fish there during the summer, it’s basically a nine-week long, weekend man camp. Some of the guys who come up don’t even hunt, they just hang out. Is there still room for this sort of organization? Hunting issues aside, I hope so.
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