Advice needed Starting a ski/mountain club

[piolet]

This is pretty much just a thought project/fantasy, just wondering. But ya never know lel

Well times have changed since the original clubs went in and its a very different world but i see in the thredbo club for sale thread there is a reference to what seems to be new/modern small clubs that i guess would have started recently?

Anyway, chatting with like-minded friends we got wondering the best way to have a communal property at/near the snow. Various ways of holding, private vs publicly saleable shares etc... establishing, incorporating.... anyone have any ideas how itd work?


Please humour me

 

[skifree]

Cash, lotsa cash.

 

[piolet]

Cash, lotsa cash.

Yup

Hence it being a pipe dream

But i guess the trick is spreading the pain but not too much to share well still.

 

[piolet]

1. Suss out potential members and decide scope.

2. Decide on legal framework for purchase/construction/holding

3. Find suitable property and build if vacant

4. Enjoy without any hiccups

 

[Chaeron]

1. Suss out potential members and decide scope.

2. Decide on legal framework for purchase/construction/holding

3. Find suitable property and build if vacant

4. Enjoy without any hiccups

Incorporate booking, management & maintenance costings and protocols into structure - volunteer roles & working bees vs. cost recovery & contracting out....

 

[piolet]

Is it feasible to have a private consortium that later reverts to a saleable share structure? Things change over time

 

[piolet]

For me i view it as a spread of interest over a few parties to enable what i may look at purchasing solo... something that can be enjoyed over various seasons and large enough for a a family or two

 

[Billy_Buttons]

Many working bees be had. Good luck finding the ones that wish to volunteer (always, the very same people year in year out). Generational change....(the oldies will do that, we've got kids now, so f'ck it). etc.

 

[Chaeron]

Is it feasible to have a private consortium that later reverts to a saleable share structure? Things change over time

Easy enough - incorporate as a trust or private company with a fixed number of shares with A type and B type shares, and a clause that specifies if a person sells the existing remaining shareholders have first right of purchase. A type shares have a controlling vote and preferential interests and B type shares have a right of use, but not necessarily voting rights.

Also one could build in Indexing of share value to account for shifts over time to prevent under or over quoting of a membership share in future. Look around for equivalents. One might build in the right to levy annual contributions etcetera as well.

Incorporating as a club or not for profit has its challenges.

 

[Billy_Buttons]

The Sonnblick in Jindy has been on the market for at least 2 years now. A good starter for a Club Lodge.

https://www.realestate.com.au/property-alpine-nsw-jindabyne-133866242

 

[piolet]

Many working bees be had. Good luck finding the ones that wish to volunteer (always, the very same people year in year out). Generational change....(the oldies will do that, we've got kids now, so f'ck it). etc.

Would be like minded people for establishment. What happens after... which makes a privately held thing appealing but illiquid

 

[CarveMan]

The Sonnblick in Jindy has been on the market for at least 2 years now. A good starter for a Club Lodge.

https://www.realestate.com.au/property-alpine-nsw-jindabyne-133866242

12 families at ~$120k ea, given what caravan sites are changing hands for in Jindy right now, it’s not bhed.

 

[Donza]

12 families at ~$120k ea, given what caravan sites are changing hands for in Jindy right now, it’s not bhed.

*were

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Why not just join a good club lodge? Loving my membership at Charlotte Pass, gives me two quality weeks skiing for not a lot of money.

 

[piolet]

12 families at ~$120k ea, given what caravan sites are changing hands for in Jindy right now, it’s not bhed.

Im guessing some work needed

 

[piolet]

Why not just koin a good club lodge? Loving my membership at Charlotte Pass, gives me two quality weeks skiing for not a lot of money.

Indeed

Just not what I'm spitballing about.

Maybe just a place to go to with our friends and families. Something that a single lodge membership wouldnt allow but not sharing a small unit between a few.

 

[Billy_Buttons]

Im guessing some work needed

It's a typical solid besser block build in Jindy. Very structurally sound! It's just aesthetics here and there, really.

 

[skifree]

Put me down as a possible maybe.

 

[piolet]

It's a typical solid besser block build in Jindy. Very structurally sound! It's just aesthetics here and there, really.

Hmmm

 

[piolet]

Put me down as a possible maybe.

Haha you aren't equipped for the kid onslaught this would be

Which is a large part of this musing... some land around would be ideal

 

[skifree]

Hmmm

You know it needs to be called the Free Heel Club?

 

[Billy_Buttons]

Hmmm

My parents home in Jindy is besser block. No problems, whatsoever.

 

[skifree]

Haha you aren't equipped for the kid onslaught this would be

Which is a large part of this musing... some land around would be ideal

I can deal with kids, construction is just bigger day care. It really is.

 

[piolet]

I can deal with kids, construction is just bigger day care. It really is.

 

[teleroo]

Thedbo Farm already exists and seems to me kind of like what you are seeking. About two years ago you could still buy memberships, circa $18k. Located opposite to the skitube terminal. I get it you're talking about setting up a new club, but....FYI.

https://www.tfsl.com.au/

 

[skifree]

I had to schedule so a couple particular religious group were not working in the same area as another group of workers from a different origin (similar but not the same) this week, took me 3 days to work out the issue.

And that was the simple one.

 

[piolet]

Thedbo Valley Farm already exists and seems to me kind of like what you are seeking. About two years ago you could still buy memberships, circa $18k. Located opposite to the skitube terminal. I get it you're talking about setting up a new club, but....FYI.

Neat thanks
Just exploring ideas... you never know what comes up

 

[Slowman]

There are a huge number of different ways to legally establish a ski club. Step one I guess is to get a sufficient group of interested humans together who are prepared to contribute some capital. Step two is to then figure out the legal framework that facilitates what you aspire to achieve given the capital you can raise and the annual income you can expect.

The club I belong to has a framework that might be thought odd but which has worked remarkably well for nearly 60 years. It’s a company limited by guarantee which has members but no shares and cannot distribute any profits. Joining fees for members basically raised the capital to acquire the lodge and ongoing capital to improve it. Annual subscriptions and accomodation tariffs cover the ongoing costs.

Groups of members need to be at different stages in their lives to make it work by spreading the demand to use the lodge over the course of a season. For example a club solely composed of parents with school children would not really work as too many members would only want to go down for the July school holidays.

Setting the number of members is tricky. You need enough to raise the capital you need but not so many that they can’t book a decent number of visits. Once set you need to adhere to it.

If you are looking at NSW the easiest thing to do would be to acquire an existing lodge or house. Constructing a new building in the Kosciusko National Park has now (in my opinion) become a nightmare of government requirements which waste a lot of money and time. I don’t know if Victoria suffers from the same disease.

 

[piolet]

There are a huge number of different ways to legally establish a ski club. Step one I guess is to get a sufficient group of interested humans together who are prepared to contribute some capital. Step two is to then figure out the legal framework that facilitates what you aspire to achieve given the capital you can raise and the annual income you can expect.

The club I belong to has a framework that might be thought odd but which has worked remarkably well for nearly 60 years. It’s a company limited by guarantee which has members but no shares and cannot distribute any profits. Joining fees for members basically raised the capital to acquire the lodge and ongoing capital to improve it. Annual subscriptions and accomodation tariffs cover the ongoing costs.

Groups of members need to be at different stages in their lives to make it work by spreading the demand to use the lodge over the course of a season. For example a club solely composed of parents with school children would not really work as too many members would only want to go down for the July school holidays.

Setting the number of members is tricky. You need enough to raise the capital you need but not so many that they can’t book a decent number of visits. Once set you need to adhere to it.

If you are looking at NSW the easiest thing to do would be to acquire an existing lodge or house. Constructing a new building in the Kosciusko National Park has now (in my opinion) become a nightmare of government requirements which waste a lot of money and time. I don’t know if Victoria suffers from the same disease.

Very interesting

My navel gazing is limited to nsw and probably not in the park.

And probably smaller scale. And probably rather private, maybe just a way to hold a place spread between a few maybe rented depending.

 

[teleroo]

The thing I'd be wary of these days, in a communal sort of setup, is everyone's time. Lots of the clubby organisations from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s etc sort of functioned well in an era of DIY. People had "more time" back then but less money IMHO and expectations were lower, and maybe people had more practical skills? As you'd know I'm sure, "everyone is busier" now these days and getting a time commitment from folk is way harder than throwing cash at a problem. And the problem could be "how to have an effective holiday"? Use cash or time??

But you know, I have some very happy memories of a block of land my mum bought in the mid-1980s above St Albans on a tributary of the Macdonald River. Four families all built holiday shacks on what was ex-graxing land amidst towering sandstone cliffs. But a lot of DIY work and shacks were "rustic". For us kids it was lots of running around in the bush, making dams across the creek etc, a great escape from inner Sydney. My grandad basically built a single bedroom shack for my mum. Nowadays a lot of red tape re building standards yada yada, and DIY renos don't really cut it anymore for semi-commercial setups. I couldn't stump up the time for that sort of caper myself honestly.

 

[LMB]

Very interesting

My navel gazing is limited to nsw and probably not in the park.

And probably smaller scale. And probably rather private, maybe just a way to hold a place spread between a few maybe rented depending.

When we had the kids as kids, and families we continually went to the snow with this was well and truly ruminated on! All staying together, the kids playing, shared costs...cool.

In the end we realised that finances and friends don’t go well together. Kids can fall out, as can long term friends. Then there is the change of lifestyle. The two families we considered going in with just over a decade ago - one of them we had a falling out with (nothing we did, and nothing we could’ve avoided); the other lost the passion and has hardly had a snow trip in the last decade. If we had been financially tied to them things would’ve got awkward.

In the end we waited longer (quite a few years longer) and bought something smaller that’s just ours. We can have friends stay with us (depending on how many and bed availability) but it’s on our terms. If we need to sell, we can. If we want to block it out for the season and not make coin in mid winter then that’s on us.

A mates venture might work for you. But it’s high risk. You’re better off IMHO joining an existing lodge and recommending the same lodge to your friends who can then come and go with their shares as they please under the existing structures.

 

[Billy_Buttons]

This boom has caught many who have had plans for several years, out of the water. I never thought I would see the can't have/get anything/anywhere, become Australia-wide. This is a very disturbing situation for our society. Adult kids could always be able to buy somewhere out there away from their home suburbs. It's all gone now. WTF are our kids going to do? Rental properties going to market under them constantly as landlords sell the floorboards under them every day. Somebody please end this insanity.

 

[Marty McSly]

Rental properties going to market under them constantly as landlords sell the floorboards under them every day. Somebody please end this insanity.

The ivory tower view of taxation policy, that nothing else matters other than the "efficiency" of a tax, needs to get a dose of reality. Our policy makers need to come to grips with the fact that taxes drive behaviour.

As long as we have a ridiculous CGT that favours short-term speculation over committed long-term investing, t'will ever be so.

 

[Marty McSly]

12 families at ~$120k ea, given what caravan sites are changing hands for in Jindy right now, it’s not bhed.

*were

Up or down now?

 

[sly_karma]

Easy enough - incorporate as a trust or private company with a fixed number of shares with A type and B type shares, and a clause that specifies if a person sells the existing remaining shareholders have first right of purchase. A type shares have a controlling vote and preferential interests and B type shares have a right of use, but not necessarily voting rights.

Also one could build in Indexing of share value to account for shifts over time to prevent under or over quoting of a membership share in future. Look around for equivalents. One might build in the right to levy annual contributions etcetera as well.

Incorporating as a club or not for profit has its challenges.

Our summer property is part of a corporation with similar structure. Each share gives the right to build one cabin on a site within the company's 200 ha property as laid out by the board. Yes there are issues when working with 65 shareholder families, but it has been working well since 1960. The big payoff is the sharing of costs, the year round resident caretaker and marina alone would make it worth it. Our govt assessed land and improvements value - on which property taxes are based - is roughly a quarter of what it would be if you multiplied number of shares by the amount paid for the most recent share that changed hands. So our rates are very reasonable (and so they should be, our island has no power, water or waste water services, we maintain our own roads, and council only picks up garbage once a year).

It's well established now, of course, with many families in their fourth and fifth generations, but it had to start somewhere. There was a common shared passion at the heart of it and that is what made it work. A ski club has the same shared interest at its core, and will need just as much give and take to succeed. Give it a go, it's important for us humans to learn to work together.

 

[DPS Driver]

Our summer property is part of a corporation with similar structure. Each share gives the right to build one cabin on a site within the company's 200 ha property as laid out by the board. Yes there are issues when working with 65 shareholder families, but it has been working well since 1960. The big payoff is the sharing of costs, the year round resident caretaker and marina alone would make it worth it. Our govt assessed land and improvements value - on which property taxes are based - is roughly a quarter of what it would be if you multiplied number of shares by the amount paid for the most recent share that changed hands. So our rates are very reasonable (and so they should be, our island has no power, water or waste water services, we maintain our own roads, and council only picks up garbage once a year).

It's well established now, of course, with many families in their fourth and fifth generations, but it had to start somewhere. There was a common shared passion at the heart of it and that is what made it work. A ski club has the same shared interest at its core, and will need just as much give and take to succeed. Give it a go, it's important for us humans to learn to work together.

Sounds more like a cult.

 

[DPS Driver]

@piolet yes you could build one, then by the end of the process, you would be so strung out and pissed off with the whole idea you probably won't want to stay there. Also any friends you have now, if you were to include them, will probably hate your guts by the end of it and the feeling will be mutual.
Just buy into an existing club. You'll meet a range of different folks and your kids will develop relationships outside of their normal group.
Our kids have grown up in the club environment and they still love it. As do my wife and I.
Our lodge is old and actually is heritage listed in Thredbo, so as you can imagine it's not the Taj. But it's warm and dry and steeped in character. No television, an open fire and communal bathrooms.

 

[piolet]

@piolet yes you could build one, then by the end of the process, you would be so strung out and pissed off with the whole idea you probably won't want to stay there. Also any friends you have now, if you were to include them, will probably hate your guts by the end of it and the feeling will be mutual.
Just buy into an existing club. You'll meet a range of different folks and your kids will develop relationships outside of their normal group.
Our kids have grown up in the club environment and they still love it. As do my wife and I.
Our lodge is old and actually is heritage listed in Thredbo, so as you can imagine it's not the Taj. But it's warm and dry and steeped in character. No television, an open fire and communal bathrooms.

Yep i totally hear what you're saying

 

[DPS Driver]

Yep i totally hear what you're saying

I should qualify my stance somewhat. It's not that it's a bad idea, it's just the rules and regulations for building in national park nowadays is ridiculous. Best to dodge that headache.

 

[Schnaxxy Schnaxxlburger]

Why not just join a good club lodge? Loving my membership at Charlotte Pass, gives me two quality weeks skiing for not a lot of money.

my lodge in Jindy has [I think] 160 members
it started off as a workplace social club but there’s hardly any of them left
memberships go for $8-10k*, and I waited less than a year before they offered me one
I’ve never had a problem booking, weekend or weeks

*my brother belongs to one at Mt Buller, similar ex-workplace group
those memberships are $15k [I think] but it’s on-snow

 

[Donza]

Up or down now?

Frozen.

 

[Untele-whippet]

You know it needs to be called the Free Heel Club?

Such an oxymoron.
Expensive Heel Club these days.

 

[telecrag]

Old man and friends from the old xc days in Canberra (70's) got together and bought a 1200ac block in a nice, if remoter location. They planned to build a hut, after the second, they built a house. He must be one of the only originals left I think. A friend actually received his grandfathers shares, his grandfather was the first member who was not involved in the building of the property. They have a constitution I think, and I think shares now can only be handed to family, or they disappear, so I think of the original 30 shares they are in the 20's now. I guess I will get dads shares when he decides he cant/wont be able to go there again.

I know there have been disagreements that have been worked through over the years, but I don't think there has been any major problems, must be going onto 30 years by now.

 

[sly_karma]

Sounds more like a cult.

Shhh, the use of that word makes some 'shareholders' very agitated. But yes, later, in private, I can show you my special initiation tattoo. I'd be happy to put your name forward to the board for consideration, just needs to be accompanied with a deposit for your share purchase. Half a mil ought to cover it.

 

[DPS Driver]

Shhh, the use of that word makes some 'shareholders' very agitated. But yes, later, in private, I can show you my special initiation tattoo. I'd be happy to put your name forward to the board for consideration, just needs to be accompanied with a deposit for your share purchase. Half a mil ought to cover it.

How many wives can I have?

This could be a deal breaker, because I struggle with one.

 

[sly_karma]

How many wives can I have?

This could be a deal breaker, because I struggle with one.

Not gonna get better with two...

 

[piolet]

Going from my neighbours alcoholism i reckon 2 wives aint working for him

 

[Beerman]

Going from my neighbours alcoholism i reckon 2 wives aint working for him

Ah huh, that’s why you brew beer, secret is out now.