North Texas Karters

Hello Everyone,
At the November General Business Meeting I outlined a proposal that would potentially eliminate the need for the race directors to threaten short track races and beg for corner workers at almost every driver's meeting. The proposal also calls for a paid race director per series, this would help with consistency of calls/no calls on the track.

Check out the link below - please bring your ideas and suggestions to the December General Business Meeting. I am open to ideas and input on this topic. I want to gather opinions from all sides and have a nice and orderly discussion. Voting for the necessary By Law Change and Rules Changes to support, or shoot this down, will happen at the January Rules Meeting. We will only discuss the topic at the December meeting.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1J7gPx ... TFUJ-QjK5W

Thank you Matt,

I think this is a great idea.

Matt,

I know you have put a lot of thought into this but I cannot support this proposal as a Board Member or as a member.

*Where would you propose the leadership look for qualified individuals to hire for running our races?
*What if only 10 member choose to join in on this proposal? It seems to me at is an all or nothing option for our membership.
*If someone "opts in" on this proposal why wouldn't they be required to pay for 3 corners workers (one for each series)? Since they are opting out of work so they should be expected to pay at least $225 (the cost of 1 corner worker per series).
*Why should those that choose not to pay an additional feel lose the opportunity for the 230 points for first place?
*Why would you limit workers to only 2 entries per year...these volunteers would be the ones keeping karts on the track when we don't have enough paid workers...why should they be punished?
*Voting cannot be held on by-law changes at the January rules meeting.
*Tax implications of hiring workers has to be investigated with respect to our standing as a non-profit.
*I have other concerns but this is just to point out that we need more discussion and planning for this proposal

Maybe this is something that needs to be addressed throughout 2018 in preparation for a 2019 implementation. This is a big change for the club and we shouldn't be rushing it through the approval process.

I encourage the rest of the membership to reject this proposal until it is fully evaluated.

I welcome all comments...positive and negative.

John Towne
Board of Director 2017-2018

John,
The point of this whole proposal was to eliminate the burden of finding corner workers and promote consistency of rule enforcement and interpretation. If we race at DKC or Katy we know what is going to be called and not called. At NTK, I have 6 different guesses. I would like to be clear on a few other points before I respond specifically to your questions.

Point 1 - I shared an earlier version of this proposal with the BOD but received no feedback in person or online until now. I have also done ALL of the research and received no input from the BOD. I have received plenty of nay saying from "life long members". This is the same situation as the Karting 101 seminar - a few people came up with the idea and did the actual work and there was plenty of nay saying from the BOD before we tried to actually do anything. However, I have received constructive feedback from a few members.
Point 2 - Katy has done something similar and has received very positive feedback.
Point 3 - If we do nothing, people will go other places. We tried green tickets for the prize tables in 2017 and we can see that did us very little good in recruiting corner workers.

To answer your questions directly, inline:
*Where would you propose the leadership look for qualified individuals to hire for running our races? - University of North Texas is right down the road. There is also FB and other social media outlets. As for the Race Director, there are plenty of qualified individuals that are non racing members. I also believe some of the regional race directors live near the track. I can also argue that many past and present members of the BOD are not qualified run a race.
*What if only 10 member choose to join in on this proposal? It seems to me at is an all or nothing option for our membership. In the slide labeled "Additional Notes" it has a back out plan - Put rules changed in with an * and we can word the by law specifically to state that there is the option of not using paid workers if there are not enough funds to pay for it.
*If someone "opts in" on this proposal why wouldn't they be required to pay for 3 corners workers (one for each series)? OK, this is definitely something we could discuss. Nothing I came up with is written in stone and why I posted it here.
Since they are opting out of work so they should be expected to pay at least $225 (the cost of 1 corner worker per series). I was trying to give people the affordable option instead of raising everyone's dues.
*Why should those that choose not to pay an additional feel lose the opportunity for the 230 points for first place? Those 230 points were put in as an incentive to get people to work, but that is not driving the workers we need to run a race (corner workers). In this proposal, no one would receive 230 points. It would also eliminate the burden on people who run multiple classes or have multiple racers.
*Why would you limit workers to only 2 entries per year...these volunteers would be the ones keeping karts on the track when we don't have enough paid workers...why should they be punished? We can take that out, again put in there for discussion.
*Voting cannot be held on by-law changes at the January rules meeting. And yet you did not object at the BOD or General Business meeting when it was brought up. And I disagree - The January Business Meeting is a regularly scheduled business meeting that we vote on rules. The December Meeting is the meeting designated to vote for BOD and Leadership, the November Meeting is the meeting to nominate, and there is a designated tire vote meeting. We conduct other General Business at those meetings.
*Tax implications of hiring workers has to be investigated with respect to our standing as a non-profit. We discussed in the November General Business Meeting, we currently pay people for other services like Tech. We are only required to provide 1099's to people we pay over $600 a year. Federal Tax information for non and not for profit organizations - https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profi ... forms-1099 - but you are right, we should probably ask our accountant.
*I have other concerns but this is just to point out that we need more discussion and planning for this proposal - it seems that a few of you are intent on killing this, so consider it a victory for no change. I am with withdrawing it from consideration. I will go back to being part of the problem and stop offering solutions. Sign me up for 50/50 next year! If someone else wants to pick this up, I will send you my notes.

Do you have a better solution?

Matt,

I only saw the detailed proposal on the forum on the 15th of December when I provided my initial feedback. Had I seen it in any detail before that I would have provided my input.

I'm just providing my feedback on the forum since we didn't have time to discuss in the December General meeting and it was only briefly mentioned in the BOD meeting. There was not enough detail at either meeting to form an opinion either way.

I choose to comment on the forum to foster further discussion and comments. I'm not opposed to the possibility of paid workers, I can be open to discussion on when a vote would be appropriate, and I'm willing to keep the dialog moving forward for the betterment of the club.

Hopefully the dialog can continue.

John

Counter Proposal:

• Every Member pays $246.43 with their membership at the start of the membership year
o Member pays an average cost per position of $82.14 for 3 races a year

Track Staff Cost Analysis
Spring Race Summer Race Fall Race Cost per Position Total Cost
Corner Worker 1 1 1 75 $225.00
Corner Worker 1 1 1 75 $225.00
Corner Worker 1 1 1 75 $225.00
Corner Worker 1 1 1 75 $225.00
Corner Worker 1 1 1 75 $225.00
Race Director 1 1 1 100 $300.00
Flagman 1 1 1 100 $300.00
Cost for 3 Races of Full Staff: $1,725.00
Average Cost per Position: $82.14
paid staff races per member 3
Membership Dues Required $246.43
Break Even Membership 42


• Break even point on fully paid race staff is 42 members
• Track Staff funds may only be used to pay track staff
o They cannot be used for prizes, general repairs, etc….
• Members cannot use work day credits to reduce track staff costs
o Track staff costs must be paid in full at the beginning of each year with membership
• Non-Members will be required to pay $25 (arbitrary amount up for discussion) with their membership to pay for track staff
o Funds can only be used to pay for track staff
o They cannot be used for prizes, general repairs, etc….
• New members pay current rate on day they become members
o See table below
• As Paid membership increases member can:
o Request rebate on a quarterly basis based upon number of members paid
o Or pay forward for following years track staff
• Sliding scale cost based upon number of members
o As membership increases the cost per member for track staff decreases as noted below
Members Cost
45 $230.00
50 $207.00
55 $188.18
60 $172.50
65 $159.23
70 $147.86
75 $138.00
80 $129.38
85 $121.76
90 $115.00
95 $108.95
100 $103.50
105 $98.57
110 $94.09
115 $90.00
120 $86.25
125 $82.80
130 $79.62
135 $76.67
140 $73.93
145 $71.38
150 $69.00
155 $66.77

• Treasurer will be responsible for managing refunds/pay forward/track staff monies
• President/Vice President will be responsible for hiring full time track staff
o In the event track staff is not fully staffed on race day the BOD of the day can:
 Decide to run the short track if staffing allows
 Or cancel the race
• NTK Members will not be allowed to volunteer as track staff on race day
• BOD will be responsible for ensuring track is ready to run on race day for the paid race staff
o BOD will not act as Race Director – lack qualifications
o BOD will not act as Tech Inspector – lack qualifications
o If Paid Race Director is not available the BOD of the day will cancel the days race
• Once we commit to paid race staff the plan will be in place for the year with no ability to back out until the following years rules meeting.

I'm sure there are other details to discuss but this could be another outline for a paid corner worker proposal.