Hi, your treasurer here.
Despite the catchy title (no, synchro is not free...), you may be wondering why you haven't received an invoice yet. The answer is two-fold. 1) My life has been extra-busy these past few months with a toddler, busier-than-usual job demands, and moving house and 2) VMS had a surplus of cash left over from the 2020-2021 season that was cut short due to COVID (we had a lot of swimmers choose to leave the funds with the club as a credit rather than take a refund) so we have been able to pay our bills.
However, I am cognizant that it has been a long time and it's not nice to spring a big invoice on people as we approach the holidays, so I am working on these and hope to have invoices done by Sunday.
For our new members: we run the club as leanly as possible. We calculate the true costs of training (i.e. coaching costs + pool rental time) and then we collect an annual fee from members to help cover the overhead costs of the club (i.e. head coach contract, BC Artistic Swimming coach and club registration, website hosting, equipment fund for new sound system, etc.). This is why we don't charge a set amount at the beginning of a season or a trimester. We calculate the costs based on the actual number of swimmers so it takes a while to get the true costs and then do the math.
I've done some initial accounting and for September-December the rough estimate (including both training costs and the annual fee) works out to about $150/month (the invoices will likely be around $450). This may be lower if you are only registered with BCAS as a recreational swimmer and this may be higher if you are doing an extra routine. In general $100-150/month is the usual range for synchro (competition expenses can increase fees).
As I issue the invoices, you will get an email with the invoice attached (and it will be one large sum) but the due date will be quite far into the future... likely December 31st. You have a couple of options to pay:
Cheque - bring to practice and pass to your coach, or pass to me. No cash please - it's too easy to misplace whereas cheques always have your name on it
E-transfer - you can send payments to vmstreasurer@gmail.com and name a password like "Britannia" or "Templeton."
We get charged for additional transactions (with cheques we save them up and do one big deposit, whereas each e-transfer counts as a transaction). So if you send by e-transfers, please include an additional $1 to help cover the additional cost to the club (i.e. your invoice is $450? send $451).
If the lump sum payment is a challenge, you're welcome to submit smaller payments - I'll apply them to the invoice, and you'll get reminders from our accounting software for any remaining invoice that is still outstanding. Reminders generally come 14 days, 7 days and 3 days before the due date.
If you have a credit from last year, I will apply the credit to the invoice before you receive it, so just pay the difference.
Any questions, please email me vmstreasurer@gmail.com or you can track me down at practice!
Erin
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