Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
"nzice":jha4ktx5 wrote:I hear that the Thunder have a very strong team this year – certainly the exclusion of some Dunedin based players must indicate the quality of the players and goalies available.
[/quote:jha4ktx5]We hope so, they’re certainly working hard. I was goal judging at the Dunedin end in that last game, and it was much more fun to see the puck going in way down the other end of the rink.
"Ryan":198m0q7c wrote:Being a member is purely a technicality. I can’t see that it makes any difference to anything really. That’s just a bunch of politics which doesn’t affect he players IMO.
[/quote:198m0q7c]It’s very important to the club. We are a club of members. To do anything for non-members would have to have some positive purpose for members – ie money. We’re not an association about providing ordinary commercial ice hockey, that’s a business, which we’re not.
"Ryan":198m0q7c wrote:You are 100% definitely wrong on one count though, and that is saying that you need to be part of the NZIHF to play hockey in NZ. The Aardwolfs Ice Hockey Club is not a member of the NZIHF, nor are they a member of the CIHA, ChCh SNC or any other ice hockey body in NZ. They have never competed in any NZIHF affiliated events or events organised by bodies which are affiliated with the NZIHF. However they do compete in hockey tournaments held in New Zealand, usually organised by themselves. Many of their members are also members of the NZIHF and organisations which are affilitated to the NZIHF, but that is not a requirement to join their club or to compete in any of the events they participate in.The Aardwolfs aren’t being dishonest, they’re pretty upfront by sending a big central finger to their local hockey organisation by saying they have no interest in being involved with them or any of their activities.
[/quote:198m0q7c]We are affiliated to the NZIHF and we’re not sending anyone the finger. If people want to form their own ice hockey club which isn’t affiliated to the NZIHF, good luck to them. We are interesting in our members going to nationals and being in national teams, so we are part of the NZIHF. The DIHA isn’t that club.
Of course in Dunedin, that club would have real trouble getting ice. I’d imagine the rink would refuse to take their bookings.
"Ryan":mgy7t6gg wrote:"Kyle":mgy7t6gg wrote:If the membership fee ended up significantly lower than that then I suspect the DIHA would have to tack costs onto elsewhere to recover the money (so there might be an entry fee for DIHL for example).[/quote:mgy7t6gg]I’m wondering if my above argument wasn’t very clear now. My point (and Aarons presumably) was that the costs [b:mgy7t6gg]should[/b:mgy7t6gg] be tacked on elsewhere. That is the point I (and Aaron presumably) are trying to make here. It’s not the total cost, just the upfront cost which is a problem.
[/quote:mgy7t6gg]No that’s clear. I just don’t think that, as a model works. Chris will no doubt object, but to a reasonable extent you pay a flat rate, and then get as much out of it as you sign up for. There’s been a deliberate move towards having membership be the cost, and offer more to members for less once they get over the membership hurdle. I think the cost of being a member is too high, but to go to a model where membership costs are low, and the hurdle is put in front of actually doing anything with the membership (ie, playing hockey) is in the opposite direction, and I suspect that’s an uphill battle to convince people.
"Ryan":mgy7t6gg wrote:We as members (well actually I’m not a member but you know what I mean) can lobby the committee to change their policies. If we can give a logical, reasonable argument as to why change should be made then presumably we’d have a reasonable shot at achieving what we want.
[/quote:mgy7t6gg]Yes, but you’d need to do it at the AGM. Your plan would be pointless if, at the AGM, the levy had already been set high. You’d then be arguing for there to be an increased cost at both ends.
"Ryan":mgy7t6gg wrote:Depending on how the numbers stack up, and assuming what you said about the other clubs lying about their membership is correct, then it may be reasonable to provide some commercially-based leagues. It would depend on the ratio of members needing NZIHF/SIHL registration to the number not requiring it. Then the DIHA registration fee could be slashed down to some meagre amount. It’s hard to know without seeing hard numbers however. That data could presumably be obtained from this years records. The DIHL will have records of everyone who played and the DIHA will have records of who has utilised their SIHL/NZIHF membership and an estimate could be obtained from that.
[/quote:mgy7t6gg]No you misunderstand. There is no list of people who don’t need to be NZIHF members. To play organised ice hockey in New Zealand you need to be a member of the national body. Clubs that don’t do that are being dishonest (IMO).
There’s also no reason to not be a member of the NZIHF. It’s not a perfect organisation, but our members, directly or indirectly, benefit from it. I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t pay for those benefits.
"Ryan":mgy7t6gg wrote:Your argument about having to pay people to run a commercially based league is bollocks. It would only be commercial in the sense that it is set up as a fund-raiser to benefit the DIHA. It would purely be a technicality, nothing else would need to change, just the cost of ice time that the DIHA would need to process. The DIHL would potentially indirectly become cheaper because of the increase in ice time costs.
[/quote:mgy7t6gg]If the club is going to run profit-making activities, then people who do the work to make the money will either get paid, or receive part of the funds for their own use. We did this with towels during the world champs. All the peewee parents did the work to launder the towels, they’ll all recieve a big lump of ice time credit for their kids.
Lots of people put in work to the DIHA for the good of members. If the league isn’t for the good of members, but for the good of non-members who don’t want to join, then they should get something for it.
"Ryan":mgy7t6gg wrote:My request for treasury information was actually for this year. I figured last years accounts would be diabolical.
[/quote:mgy7t6gg]Karen has this, she’ll probably be presenting some information at the next meeting, which is on Monday. I don’t mind other people seeing it if it’s tabled at a committee meeting.
"Ryan":mgy7t6gg wrote:And on the ‘we provide services for members, not for non-members’, remember that the the is here to do it’s best to improve the services for it’s own members. If that requires not having a bunch of former members as actual members then that doesn’t really change anything. You are still doing it to benefit your own members. It’s all just numbers an politics. In a practical real world situation none of this should matter to the players and they would not need to know what is going on behind the scenes, just that the cost of playing hockey has become cheaper or at least the upfront cost has reduced for them.
[/quote:mgy7t6gg]The club actually does a bunch of things for non-members. We subsidise kiwihockey, none of whom are club members, because we view it as important for the future of the sport for example.
What we certainly won’t do is be running a league which encourages people to not be members of the club. Why would you create spaces for people to get the benefits of being a member, but not actually be one? We want people to be members.
"Chris":2crnm0jm wrote:A government established monopoly is a distinctly left wing construct.
[/quote:2crnm0jm]It’s really not. If telecom was left-wing, you’d pay for your phone system through a central progressive tax system. If the DIHA was to go left-wing, we’d charge everyone X dollars at the beginning of the season and then you wouldn’t pay for DIHL, everyone would be signed up for it who wanted to be. If you didn’t sign up for the DIHL you’d still pay the same amount, you’d just play less.
Which has been suggested as a voluntary system. Dog sled Larry thinks that we should have a pricing structure which allows ‘all you can eat’ ice. You’d pay X hundred dollars at the beginning of the year, and then you’d be allowed into the DIHL, club nights, practices, Sunday night social etc for no cost. It’s not a terrible idea as it would guarantee income for the club, and as long as we didn’t overbook ice, we could limit costs. Probably too progressive for the DIHA to consider, and there would be too few people who’d take it up to make it worthwhile.
"Chris":2crnm0jm wrote:[quote:2crnm0jm]The reason you have to be a member to play in the DIHL is that’s a DIHA run competition, using DIHA resources, played using special DIHA members only ice rates.[/quote:2crnm0jm]That’s a rule the DIHA has made, that’s not a reason for the rule. As I said, charge me a little more for the competition to reflect those extra costs. They will not be equal to $100 for 7 games.
Give me a reason, not a rule.
[/quote:2crnm0jm]Because we’re a sports club made of members, and we provide services for members, not for non-members.
We could also provide commercially-based ice hockey for non-members. But it would be significantly more expensive. Your ice time costs would go up by 33%, so ~$60 becomes ~$80. We’d pay the scorebox and referees, so that’d be another $20/player, and we’d pay the person organising it, another $10/player. It’d work out at ~$110, plus any profit the club chose to make on it.
$70 for 7 games of hockey remains a great deal, and the reason it’s such a great deal is that you pay membership levies to receive it. I don’t disagree that $100 is a lot to pay to be a member, and if it was up to me I wouldn’t have it so high. We will always primarily be about providing ice hockey services to members though. It’s in the very nature of the incorporated society that we are.
"Ryan":1fiazo1d wrote:However it doesn’t mean that it needs to be a ridiculously high number like it is now, or what Kyle is suggesting for 2010.
[/quote:1fiazo1d]I think if players turned up some numbers (by which I mean, at least half-a-dozen members) and argued for, say $50 for seniors, the compromise that it would end up at would be $75.
If the membership fee ended up significantly lower than that then I suspect the DIHA would have to tack costs onto elsewhere to recover the money (so there might be an entry fee for DIHL for example).
Remember that the membership fee is the only thing that the membership controls, anything after that the committee does (though the committee didn’t set the DIHL fee this year, our only direction was that it make a small profit, which it looks like it will easily do).
"Ryan":21dxmkny wrote:As a comparison, here are the fees for the Christchurch SNC:
[quote:21dxmkny]SNC Fees :- $25
CIHA Fees :- $45
NZIHA Fees :- $30[/quote:21dxmkny]So that’s only $100 for the Christchurch league in comparison to the same price to play here in Dunedin. Which on the face of it may seem reasonble, however when you realise how much more the Christchurch players get for their money it makes the DIHA deal seem pretty awful.
The Christchurch SNC features three grades (A, B and Premier). Plus those players can compete in the CIHA contact league, womens league, junior league etc. with the same registration. Each grade plays around 20 games per season and many players are able to play in multiple SNC grades (ie: the top 50% of B-graders can play in the A-grade and vice versa). The games are more organised, the league is more organised and they get all that for exactly the same price as the DIHA is charging.
[/quote:21dxmkny]You’ll get more than 20 games here as an SNC or junior player. DIHL will be 14 games, plus about 10 club nights. Plus your southern games if you play in them – that’s another 12. Plus Easton Cup and Erewhon Cup if you want to play in them. We’ve also allowed players to play in more than one DIHL grade, there’s only one grade this DIHL so it can’t be done at present.
You’re also missing the fact that DIHA membership is what gives you the cheaper ice time rates in Dunedin. Christchurch can’t give members a discounted rate because they don’t own their rink. DIHA gets discounted ice time which flows through into DIHL, club nights, practices for members. It cost $25 to play a premier game in Christchurch last year. We still charge $10/game or less. Our youth players are paying $5/game for their Saturday club nights. You wouldn’t get it cheaper anywhere in the world.
"Ryan":21dxmkny wrote:Also remembering here that we don’t need to pay NZIHF or SIHL fees for players who don’t compete in events organised by those bodies. The DIHA has been a bit of an odd-ball in that respect. The CIHA and AIHA needs their players to stump up the cash because their own local leagues are the leagues which they pool their rep. teams from, this is not the case with the DIHA as those players are pooled from the SIHL league, hence most (all?) of the other clubs around the southern region do not bother paying those fees for players who do not make use of them.
[/quote:21dxmkny]That’s not true. We do need to play NZIHF membership for all our players. Other Southern Clubs are lying to the national body about their membership – they only sign up people who are going to Nationals. They are taking the benefits that the NZIHF provides and then skimping on paying their fair share. It’s really rude and it’s not something I’d ever agree to just because other southern clubs do it.
"Ryan":p5wzdtoy wrote:"Kyle":p5wzdtoy wrote:The reason you have to be a member to play in the DIHL is that’s a DIHA run competition, using DIHA resources, played using special DIHA members only ice rates.[/quote:p5wzdtoy]I think Chris’s point was that the DIHA does not need to charge a registration fee for players to play, which is obviously correct.
[/quote:p5wzdtoy]And my point was, and remains, why would the DIHA organise a competition for people who are not members? It’s a pain for us, and there’s no benefit for doing so. DIHL players have always had to be members, as long as I’ve been here. It shouldn’t be a question of whether they should be members, it’s a question of how much that should cost.
Again, there’s nothing stopping people from organising their own non-members league. They’ll just have to do it themselves, pay the higher ice time rates, find ice time, and use their own resources.
"Ryan":p5wzdtoy wrote:Kyle, is it possible for us to get hold of the treasury information so that we can work out the finances and come up with a suitable number to suggest? We need to do something to drop it down to a more reasonable fee, $75 is just ludicrous and will make it very difficult to build numbers back up to pre-fees hike days (125+ players/10 teams DIHL Autumn 06).
[/quote:p5wzdtoy]The best information you’d have would be the annual accounts presented by the last treasurer, which were next to useless. I could have got better information by writing random figures down on the back of a napkin. We’ve instituted a chart of accounts this year which should give us better financial information come next AGM, but it takes a year to populate it.
As an example of how useless last year’s financial information is: We collect registration fees off players February 2008 through to whenever, including NZIHF And SIHL money. All those people are members of the NZIHF and if they play in Southern they pay a $5 ‘fundraising levy’ (whatever the hell that means) and their team pays an entry fee to play in Southern.
We held that money all last year from when we collected it, and were asked for it in March this year. Over $8000 which it took a year for Southern to ask us for (Southern pays the NZIHF fee for us).
So our accounts last year, which looked incredibly healthy at AGM when we set our registration, actually were only about half as healthy as that.
"Chris":2ez2wuq6 wrote:There is absolutely no reason why you should have to be a member of the DIHA to play in the DIHL (hence the argument about a one-time $15 pseudo-registration fee being a loss leader is irrelevant).
[/quote:2ez2wuq6]The reason you have to be a member to play in the DIHL is that’s a DIHA run competition, using DIHA resources, played using special DIHA members only ice rates.
There’s nothing preventing non-members from running their own ice hockey tournament at the Dunedin Ice Stadium. You’d just have to pay more for the ice and provide your own scorebox and scoreboard and deal with any consequences from having people play in a non-sanctioned tournament.
"Chris":2ez2wuq6 wrote:I buy a lotto ticket. This does no require me to be a member of the lotteries commission.
[/quote:2ez2wuq6]That’s a stupid analogy.
"Chris":2ez2wuq6 wrote:Without being disrespectful, this is what lefties just don’t get. “We need more money, therefore raise taxes.” Wrong, wrong, a thousand times wrong.
[/quote:2ez2wuq6]There’s nothing left wing about the increase in registration. More a right-wing monopoly system. Like Telecom increasing its home line rentals.
Graham who did you have on your list? We want the leftovers to form a team, or the Thunder to form a team. Can you email me with whereever you got up to?
"Ryan":2s3whyvd wrote:I don’t know what the books look like so I don’t know how all that stacks up.If there is enough money already in there the risk can be handled, if there isn’t then obviously it wouldn’t work. Hard to know without seeing the numbers though.
[/quote:2s3whyvd]There’s money there that we could charge a $0 registration fee this year and get away with it. Couldn’t do it for many years though.
My point was, by unlinking registration cost from registration income, you’re creating risk where at present there isn’t any. Doesn’t matter how many people do or don’t register, we know we can cover their registrations.
"Ryan":2s3whyvd wrote:"Kyle":2s3whyvd wrote:The club won’t be having just one DIHL this year. Your registration gets you access to what will probably be 14 weeks of SNC competition, plus everything else.[/quote:2s3whyvd]And what about me later in the season? I’ll need to pay $100 plus DIHL fees probably for a single season which is pretty steep if it is only seven games long.
[/quote:2s3whyvd]But you won’t be limited just to DIHL. You can sign up for practices, you can play SNC on Saturday club nights. The only people who are limited to ‘just playing dihl’ are those people who choose to be so limited. Callan is always short of players for SNC, we’d love to have some more.
