Have you noticed that communications at Hidden Valley is a one way street, from the board to the members with official emails and regular mail, but there is no organized, meaningful dialog (except for one on one from you to the board or management) between members that would like to talk about things that are going on.
In this day and age we can have an open fully participative two way conversation via something like this "Hidden Valley Redesign" blog.
Pretty soon there will be town meetings, which will by nature be designed to get you to "buy-in" to the 5.3 million dollar redesign of our golf course. I highly doubt these meetings will be designed to allow for a full pros and cons discussion. In fact, I personally have not been invited to any of the so called town meetings, are they stacking the deck with "pro members" and small groups of "ambivalent" members.
The selling points will have been developed as well as the best answers to the known objections. This work will be paid for with your money, all designed to ensure you vote yes, because a small group decided this is right for our club.
Soon you'll be asked to take out a new 13 thousand dollar loan before debt service against your 8 thousand dollar membership to leave you with a new -$5,000 equity position so that our broken golf course can be brought up to some new standard. I know, memberships are now supposed to be selling for 9,500 but after selling 40+ at 8,000 in a few months, the new price has all but ended membership sales, so really you have an 8,000 membership (net equity after club commission is $3,000). Do you feel that Hidden Valley's number one asset, the golf course is woefully inadequate for your game? Do your guests marvel or groan about our golf course?
Doing the math a little further, if the club finances this for 10 years at 5% interest the addition to your dues will be about $137 per month. Will having dues of $567 impact membership sales? What if many members just choose to give back their memberships and the division is not between 445 members but between 300. If we cannot keep 445 members can Hidden Valley remain viable? It's been three+ years since half the membership left Tulsa Country Club, memberships are now at 5,000 and they are not nearly full. Could Hidden Valley stand that kind of hit?
By the way, I'm personally glad that we purchased a design which we can use in place of member suggestions for what to do as we make changes to our golf course. I also believe using Rees was a good idea, providing he is focused on a member friendly fun, but manageable design.
I just think our golf course is not our biggest problem in terms of making our memberships more attractive, so that we do not require "fire sales" to eliminate the backlog of treasury memberships that are given back to the club each year since they almost cannot be sold. This creates a monthly dues shortfall that leaves us selling a very low prices just to maintain monthly cash flow and food usage.
Why are so many memberships given back? Because a membership at Hidden Valley is not liquid, if you get on the list to sell today it will take approximately 3 years to reach the top of the sales list since we sell 3 treasury memberships for every listed membership, you might as well give it back . . .
What we really need to invest in is the amenities that attract families which are being offered by every competitor in the market, or we may become a debt loaded, unsustainable club that is still only for golfers (not necessarily their families).
You are invited to give your thoughts and opinions by creating a username, perhaps your own, or if you prefer and screen type name, and then posting your thoughts, positive or negative, Let's have an open dialog not driven by the group that is simply in favor.
Finally, please share this will all of your member friends, let's get a couple hundred offering their input openly.
Sincerly, Denny Thurman, a concerned member since 1994
