Hi.  I’m Morgan Hua, the newly elected 2010-2011 NSC President.  I’ve been a member since 1989 and from 1998 I’ve served on the NSC board in various positions including 2001 President.  I’d like to thank Joel Hayashida for serving as President for the last two years.

Joel has made a number of changes and I plan on continuing his improvements.  Board meetings used to take five hours and I used to call them Bored Meetings.  Joel was able to cut down the board meetings to less than two hours.  This year, I’ve decided to eliminate the monthly board meetings and use electronic communication as a method for club business.  We have already passed the 2010-2011 budget, voted in Karen Soo as a Board Member, and approved Karen’s Oakland Pixar event.  (Actually, Karen Soo did get write-in votes, but the Board certified the election before she accepted the position, so the Board had to vote her in separately).

In an effort to not cancel any of our bus trips, due to lack of sign ups, we gave a special discount to first time bus riders.  We approached BAC (www.bac.org) and told them of this special discount.  The result was we didn’t cancel any of our bus trips, and a good number of people who tried our bus trips came back for again — at our member price.  (Thank you, Monterey Ski and Social Club. www.montereyski.org Hope to see you guys and gals this ski season).  The only issue was that some members thought it wasn’t fair that they had to pay more for their seat than a non-member.  To help rectify this, the Board voted to give a non-transferable, $20 credit for a single 2011 weekend bus trip to every 2010-2011 NSC member.

This year, I also do not want to cancel any of our ski trips.  For those who don’t know, NSC is a non-profit volunteer organization.  All of our trips are below cost.  We subsidize all of our trips from fund raisers like Nikkei Matsuri and we try to price all of our trips at cost minus the subsidy.  But if we don’t fill the bus, we lose even more money due to the fixed cost of the bus.  We can do this for a while, but not indefinitely.

By looking at past membership numbers and buses that went, I discovered that about 20% of the membership goes on each bus trip.  Last year, there were 116 members, that’s 23 people, so not enough to fill our 42 seat bus.  The best way to fill our buses is to increase our membership back to about 200.  But before that happens, we need to fill our buses with co-workers, friends, and other ski clubs.  Through experience, we found that people who go on our trips enjoy them and eventually become members.

This year, we will again approach BAC with a first time bus rider discount.  Also, once we get our ski schedule nailed down in the next month or so, I’d like our members who have access to their work bulletin boards (electronic and/or physical) to post our ski trips.

I will also not post a monthly message, but only post on a as-needed basis.

See you at a summer event or better yet, on one of our ski trips.  If you’re a member, take advantage of our member rates and your one time $20 credit for a single 2011 weekend bus trip.  If this member promotion is successful, we may continue doing this every year.