Finance Committee Meeting: June 10, 2010

Mad River Glen Cooperative

Finance Committee Conference Call

June 2, 2010

Telephone Conference began at 8:05 am

Attending: Ken Frye, Andrew Snow, John Stetson, Geordie Hall, Eric Schoenholz, Andy Dulik, Jed Kalkstein, Pete Ludlow, Gary Lange, Jim Elkind, Jamey Wimble, Eric Friedman, Leigh Michl, Tom Cagnina & Roy Liu.

Absent: Lars Bruns, Jeff Paduch, George Lesure, Deb Steines.

Schedule and Agenda Review : Roy Liu reviewed the agenda for the call –

1. Review of budget for 2010/2011 Season

1) 2010/2011 Budget Review

Jamey Wimble reviewed individual line items; specific highlights included:

a.       No increase in season pass prices, due to competitive marketing/pricing pressure; Eric provided detail that just about every mtn in the surrounding vicinity have cheaper pass programs. Eric’s sense is that other ski areas are looking to boost the percentage of sales that are season pass-derived, and Eric hears from his peers that they think MRG leads in this category. Gary Lange raised the point that season pass holders generate a lot of ancillary spending at the mountain.

b.       Allocation needed to be made for potential snowcat refurb/replacement

c.        Significantly lower insurance costs, based on low rate of injury days

d.       Re-instatement of bonus program, with $31k allocation

e.       Ski shop/Rental/ski school forecast is driven by rolling 3 yr forecast; prior two years of less-than-ideal snow conditions are now affecting the rolling avg.

Roy opened up discussion around what is the proper forecasting for the Retail Store line item. Jamey suggested that so far, based on results from roll-out of the on-line “gear page” a few years back, he doesn’t necessarily think that there’s a big un-tapped revenue opportunity. Eric also mentioned that based on the 5-year plan for the store, it’s already hitting Yr 2 of the plan. Jim Elkind pointed out that the Retail Store is one of the few line-items where there is the possibility of generating non-snow related revenue. Eric Friedman opined that he believes that cleaning up the base area, and running the lifts for summer events is a much larger opportunity for revenue generation. Leigh, Geordie and Jim further expounded about what it would mean to increase the Retail Store forecast. Pete Ludlow suggested developing a capital budget against new revenue forecasts to build an ROI model. FC motioned to have Jamey and his staff review and develop a “stretch budget” for the Retail Store that would target a 50% increase in net margin; John Stetson motioned that Jamey would report at the board meeting as to when his staff would deliver this stretch budget. Motion passed.

Motion to approve budget as submitted was unanimously approved for presentation to the Co-op Board with the following proviso that the $31k line item for staff bonus program would be reviewed and approved by the Board at the June 12 board meeting.

Closing: Roy closed the call. The meeting was closed at 8:57am.

Respectfully submitted,

Roy Liu

Treasurer and Chairperson of the MRG Finance Committee