It's Not Even About Golf Anymore?

Discussion in 'Sun City General Discussions' started by BPearson, Jun 30, 2022.

  1. Alesia m Brown

    Alesia m Brown New Member

     
  2. Alesia m Brown

    Alesia m Brown New Member

    Now that I have been downgraded to a second-class member, I think it's time to go after this Management team. This is our community not a business we do not need a bean counter running this origination. you have all my support .
     
    BPearson likes this.
  3. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Amen sister. The message they sent to everyone who golfs or doesn't golf is paying the price for someone to come in from outside and enjoy what we own.
     
  4. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Sorry for the misunderstanding sw, but that has nothing to do with anything i have said or written. Clearly the issue of privilege cards versus membership cards is a sore topic for people caught in that position. I have some opinions about it, but realistically hasn't been mentioned in a very long time.
     
    eyesopen likes this.
  5. jeb

    jeb Active Member

    I think what SayWhat might be asking is: in that example - is the wife with the privilege card able to by a Member Full Play Pass or is she forced to buy a Non-Resident Full Play Pass?
     
  6. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Thanks jeb for explaining. To my knowledge privilege card holders can buy the full play pass just like a member. They can't vote and they can't run for office. The outside full play passes are being sold to non-residents. Now her question makes sense but i never suggested privilege card holders should be punished with higher rates. My focus has been those living outside the walls.
     
  7. Say What

    Say What Active Member

    Exactly Jeb that's what I was talking about. Sorry having a problem with my hands to type. There's many men and women here that are married for decades where only one is considered a member because their name was never put on the deed. This means one is considered a second class citizen in Sun City because they have no rights unless they pay to be added to a deed and having to pay $5000 because of a change of the deed. This is what I'm talking about. They are being considered as outsiders even though they have Sun City drivers license and home address here in Sun City. These prices are going to go up on these residents because they don't have a member card just a privilege card. This is where all hell is going break loose in a couple months. This is what I'm talking about and trying to explain. Your neighbor that you have been doing things with for 15 yesrs are 2nd class citizens now because only one is on the deed with a member card and the other a privilege card who has limited rights.
     
  8. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Let me clear up one comment you made sw. Adding a spouse to the deed should not trigger a payment of the PIF. I think (please check before you do it), that it takes more than a 50% change in ownership for PIF to be charged. Adding one person would only be 50%.

    The biggest differences between a membership card and a privilege card is the latter cannot vote in elections, speak at meetings or run for office. I don't know about being a club officer or serving on a committee. They clearly can and do join clubs. Ultimately the cost side of the equation is the same. However, someone buying after 2003 is already paying the lot assessment of $496, so if another person in the household is buying a privilege card, they are paying an additional $248. Most of the times, that i have seen or know of, there are inheritance reasons they haven't been added to the deed. Mostly second (or more) marriages where the home owner wants to leave the property to his/her children.
     
    eyesopen likes this.
  9. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Apparently the golf meeting is this morning, Thursday the 15th. Love to hear some feedback over what is said there. Perhaps someone who attends can fill us in. Sadly, i subscribe to that old adage, shit runs downhill (pardon my profanity), but when it comes to the RCSC, it more often than not bares fruit.
     
  10. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Very cool, now the general manager is telling the folks on the golf committee golf needs to be self-sustaining and that's why they are letting non-members play for next to nothing. Sounds like a really sound business decision to me. Giving away our assets to non-members is the perfect way to balance our books...that's odd when you consider golf has never has been self-sustaining.

    Freaking genius.
     
    eyesopen and FYI like this.
  11. eyesopen

    eyesopen Well-Known Member

    The days of “just say anything ,” are waning for Bill, the management and the board. The Pied Piper’s tune no longer lures our membership to blindly believe and follow!
     
    FYI likes this.
  12. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    We can only hope that's true at this point eyesopen. We know the impetus, the excitement over a paradigm shift in leadership and ultimately one in management is a reality. There's clearly anger and frustration regarding what has happened on our golf courses; is it enough? We know there's disappointment over how far behind we have fallen with our technology; we know the argument, "it was no ones fault," was bullshit the moment it escaped from the gm's lips.

    We know there are clubs clamoring for improvements to be done. Improvements they have been asking for for years. They should know by now, those things could have been done, but the RCSC was more interested in putting the money in the bank than spending it on the needs of the membership. None of this is speculation or conjecture, the financials show us clearly, saving the money was more important than investing it in the clubs.

    The best example i can give goes back to 2018 or 19. The softball players were clamoring for a new clubhouse. The old one was a dump, DUMP. It had been broken into several times with $1000's of dollars worth of equipment stolen. It was a safety issue, it was ignored other than to tell the players to store their equipment off site. When the team appeared before the long range planning committee, i told several of them, don't let them bury this on the PIF budget.

    I've watched that game too many times; it simply gets lost in space. One of the board members said they had to go through PIF. It makes more sense if there is no other option, it was his argument that was pure crap. He stated at a board meeting if the RCSC was to build them a new clubhouse from the general ledger accounts (yearly budgets), they would have to raise the lot assessment by $25 or $30 on every household. So we are clear, at that same time period, the RCSC added 2 million dollars plus to their carry-over fund.

    Back to golf, nothing epitomizes the problem regarding management just "saying whatever" than golf does. For years they've hidden and buried financials. Their goal was so no one knew or understood what was going on. They were really good at it. Golfers believed they were making money. A handful of board members felt they were close. By selling and telling the line, "we've met or exceeded our annual budgets in all divisions," those hearing it thought everything was just fine.

    It wasn't; which isn't even the problem. It was the lack of transparency, the inability to be honest that was most troublesome. Now that they've been exposed, the song and dance routine is even more bizarre. We need that full play non-resident pass to keep the cost of golf down for the members. What utter and complete nonsense. Those rounds of golf, those prime time tee times belong to the members, not somebody living outside Sun City. If they want to sell tee times, let them take the ones we don't buy and then make them pay more than we have to pay. It's that freaking simple.

    Anyone who has read any of the volumes i have written, know i am a zealot for John Meeker and the genius he built into Sun City. He was that good. In 1960, from his year to year journals, he wrote this: "Outside weekend play at substantially higher than residents rates was encouraged to hold resident rates down." At that time, there was only the front 9 holes of the North course open. Even back then, the corporation building Sun City (DEVCO), understood the value of outside play. Outsiders were used to subsidize our rates, not the members subsidizing theirs.

    If we fast forward to the point the RCSC took ownership of the courses (summer of 1977), the agreement stipulated outside play be greatly reduced. For DEVCO, the courses were a way for them to sell homes. For the RCSC the courses were an amenity that belonged to the membership. Knowing this, you have to ask yourself; "how the hell did we get to a point where giving away golf to outsiders is a good thing?"

    The answer is this, it never has been. Not since the day we opened, not when we took ownership of the courses and certainly now while i was serving on the board (2012-2014). It is for this exact reason, we need to elect candidates who understand our history and value the way we were built and why we were so successful. Sadly, at this point in time there are too many on the board who don't care about our history and it's pretty clear management doesn't get it either.
     
    Linda McIntyre, FYI and eyesopen like this.
  13. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    If you go way back to the beginning of this thread, you'll see how excited i was about reaching 2000 reads. Imagine how giddy i am as we approach 10,000. Why you might ask? Because i have watched for too many years as too few cared about what was going around and to us. That's changing, and that's a good thing. Members had begun to believe they had no right to ask or expect their leadership to care. When the board doesn't care what management does, why should the membership?

    If you go back a handful of years, and if they still showed board meetings, you would see a heated exchange i got in with board members. At the meeting, they passed a motion to give the management authority to make decisions that were always the purview of the board. Watching, i was both stunned and angered. They didn't want to have to make tough choices, they wanted management to have the sole authority.

    It was at that point i elected to walk away from the whole process. I couldn't begin to fathom board members wanting to abandon the membership. I stayed away for a year or more. It was during that time period my writings became more pointed. It became my mission to help educate the membership regarding Sun City's history. I went back to the museum for a three year term. I did what i could there to spread the gospel of Sun City and the idea that volunteerism was at the core of the community's success.

    Obviously the general manager and the board saw it differently. They ran from our history, i tried to run towards it. When the RCSC board elected a majority of women (5 or 6), i had high hopes there would be a more nurturing, caring sense of governance. Damn, wrong again. By then, the battle cry had become loyalty to the corporation with the bigger downside of loyalty to the management. It was a process fraught with fault.

    The pandemic hit and everything shut down. Everything but golf. It was too important an amenity to close. The good news is it provided RCSC members an outlet. The bad news, it emboldened management to look at golf as a revenue stream by selling to non-members. Had it only been open tee times and at full price, it would have been genius. Sadly they used the default measurement of rounds played as their gauge. It meant nothing; it never has.

    Selling cheap golf has been an exercise in futility. They looked at going from 300,000 to 350,000 rounds as a success story. I watched the newspapers in 2020 and 2021 and Sun City golfers were angry about the condition of their courses. Excessive play pounds the courses. Worse yet, the additional rounds they were selling were all too often sold at a price well below the cost to maintain the courses.

    The question i continually ask myself, have we turned the corner? Are the members more enlightened? Do they care about what happens? Come this election, we'll get that answer won't we?
     
  14. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Most people reading these pages are relatively new to Sun City. What they know, is what the see. Sadly, what we see is far removed from what was and how we got here. The folks running the RCSC these days want to run from our history and act as if they've been the reason for our success. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, they've held us back, changed the direction and in many cases, made it worse.

    I'm in the process of writing an article for the SCHOA Guide on why Sun City was "The City of Volunteers." To do that, i pulled files from the Museum's archives. Stunning! This is just one newspaper article (April 1992) of hundreds that was clipped from papers of the day that began after they opened in the 90's. It said that 58% of Sun City residents volunteered an average of 274 hours per year. An economist added to the report by using the minimum wage of $5.94 an hour, those hours contributed to or saved the community $34,426,182.

    My first volunteer position was at the Visitor Center (when it was free-standing) in 2003 and we had a chart hanging there proudly showing potential owners bot the value and importance of giving back to the community. OMG, how far removed are we from being there? Each and every one of us have been benefited so much by what others gave to the community they loved.
     
    Linda McIntyre likes this.
  15. eyesopen

    eyesopen Well-Known Member


    The Current Estimated National Value of Each Volunteer Hour Is $29.95
    Volunteers in the United States hold up the foundation of civil society. They help their neighbors, serve their communities, and provide their expertise. No matter what kind of volunteer work they do, they are contributing in invaluable ways.

    In its newest Value of Volunteer Time report, Independent Sector, with the Do Good Institute, announced on April 18, 2022 that the latest value of a volunteer hour is estimated to be $29.95, which is a 4.9% increase from 2020 to 2021.
    Read full article here.
     
  16. Linda McIntyre

    Linda McIntyre Well-Known Member

    Putting that in perspective, think about how much value is currently being contributed, but also think about what is potentially being missed by not engaging and encouraging more volunteerism. Admittedly, it takes work to recruit, train and manage, but the community benefit is immense, and the pride generated by the efforts of volunteers can't be measured in dollars.

    Another missed opportunity is the Sun City Foundation, but I'll save that for another conversation.
     
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  17. FYI

    FYI Well-Known Member

    Member volunteering and contributing, and the RSCS encouraging and accepting those contributions and ideas is the only way you can convince the Members that they too have ownership and a roll to play in guidance of the RCSC's future.

    If the only thing the Member's can say is "How High" when the RCSC say's "Jump", we're no longer a free community but prisoners' of our own doing!

    I keep on saying, "You get the government you deserve". If you vote tyrants in as your Directors, you will be treated tyrannical. If you vote in Directors who are like-minded as yourselves, and who believe the Corporation exists for the benefit of the Members, rather than the Members just being here to pay their assessment fees and support the Corporation, then we will be headed back in the right direction where the Member's were once a co-governing part of the community and the decisions of the RCSC and Management.

    It's a lot like what's going on in today's politics. You have to separate the person from their policies. You don't have to like the person who's making those policies but you are still required to live by them! Geez! It's not like you have to live with the guy!
     
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  18. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Holy crap. I just spent the last two hours on an initial write for the article for the SCHOA Guide on volunteerism. Staggering the numbers of organizations and how much people gave of themselves to make Sun City the success it was/is. In the first 3 years, there were 3 organizations alone. One for each of the rec centers and one that spun off to become the home owners association.

    We know during those first 3 years they sold between 3000 and 3500 homes. Yet in each election, it wasn't unusual to see 20-25 candidates. Those early years had term limits, starting at 1 year and moving to 2. They weren't looking for members to make a career out of serving on the board. We also know, members voted in large percentages; they took ownership and responsibility for insuring the community became the best it could be.

    Fast forward to these days. Board members feel entitled to stay forever. 6 years of "service" and then brought back as retreads to fill open positions. That's what happens when you push members away. That's what happens when you tell members not to care. That what happens when the gm does what he or she wants and doesn't give two shits about what the community wants. That's what happens when you don't nurture that sense of ownership.

    I've always said golf hasn't been the target, but simply the largest and loudest argument about how poorly Sun City has been run. Examples are always the best way to make your argument. Golf has been the easiest. Especially now that they (board and management) have said, we'll do what we want. It would never have happened in the good old days; it's common place these days.
     
    Linda McIntyre likes this.
  19. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Let me be very clear to those reading this (which includes management, board members and RCSC members, many of them golfers); this shit show you've created isn't going away. Your decision to appease the golfer living outside the walls of Sun City who whined about too large an increase to his full play non-resident golf pass was the foolishness personified. One letter to the editor by a non-resident had more weight than all of the comments from RCSC members and all of the Letter's to the Editor that appeared this summer in the Independent.

    Stop and think about that for 30 seconds. They simply didn't care what you thought. They did however make those full play non-resident pass buyers happy with the $250 increase and still giving them a golf car for next to nothing. If you look, you'll see the RCSC just spent 400k for new golf cars. I've had more than one member tell me when they went to golf, they couldn't even get a golf car; all reserved for non-members.

    I've had members tell me, when they couldn't get a tee time during prime time, they would go play the higher prices at one of the country clubs in Sun City. I've had members tell me they know of Sun City West and Sun City Grand members that would buy the full play pass in Sun City because it was so much cheaper than golfing in their communities. Plus they could be guaranteed times by hooking up with small groups of 30. Even with paying the $2 charge to bypass the lottery it was way cheaper.

    Does any of that make any sense? Even for the non-golfers, who know virtually nothing about golf in Sun City, they know it's wrong. For the golfers, they are just angry. But wait, it will get worse. This entire election should focus on one thing, who cares about the membership, and who doesn't. Biggest election turnout in years is my prediction; we'll see.
     
  20. Say What

    Say What Active Member

    You are starting to lose it. What do you mean by prime tee time? It's killing me to type but I have to make you understand that any tee time is prime and forget about "outsiders" as you put it. The members of Sun City get what they can book. There are alot of residents male and female that golf. What is prime? It's what any member wants in the winter that specific time. You want 8am 9am 12pm 1pm? What are you considering prime,?

    Bill, when I moved to Sun City 25 years+ ago, you still couldn't get that specific tee time in the winter. I guess you needed to be a golfer to understand that. Look around, when I was a young retiree, the elders of Sun City set me straight real fast. This is the way things work out for everyone. Before Covid, golfers would have to go to whatever golf course they wanted to play and pick chips to get in the draw for a tee time for the specific day they wanted to golf. Many were turned away because they ran out of chips and tee times for that particular day. That happened daily at every single golf course with the exception of quail run.
    We now have many many women that are outstanding golfers who live in Sun City that are trying to get tee times along with everybody else many of these women are much better than the man that play. You can criticize me all you want my years are almost in the wind but a lot of the complaining and crying and threats and yelling and screaming are from a lot of the young people that have moved here that feel they're totally entitled. They're the newbies in Sun City, they've never paid their dues like the rest of us have. The new generation if they can't have it their way they cause trouble and we're not talking about outside people we're talking about the generation of people that are moving here that was part of that 25 years ago I didn't like the way things were but that's the way the things are. I actually think Sun City should buy Union hills golf course and make an event center for plays and concerts and all around events. There is plenty of parking there that would give Sun City and other golf course. And if anybody's ever played Union hills golf course it's kind of similar to Willow Creek. It's a pretty course but I think since it could buy that cheap. I know the elks club tried a couple years ago but backed out. Hell they could all so put executive offices there for people not familiar with it go drive by and see how much parking there is see how big the building is there it's massive.
    Bill some of the people I've talked to when I've been able to get out and about in the last week or so say that your group has become out of control. I think what you're going to find is a lot of people are going to push back on everything that you're trying to do. Your groups tone has gotten I don't want to use the word threatening but the direction is going there well it takes care of me for a week with the shaking and everything else everybody have a great week this is a one man's opinion it's been here for 25 plus years I'm pretty much have seen it all good and bad. The one thing for sure there's no better place on this planet and right here in Sun City Arizona!
     

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