Halloween Party!

Just a reminder - the HHSTC Halloween Party is this Sunday. If

possible, please prepay online before 4pm on Sunday:

http://www.hhstc.com/Store.html

Thanks!

*******

Join your friends and neighbors at the 5th Annual Huntley Hills Swim &

Tennis Club’s Halloween Party!

WHEN:  Sunday, October 31st  4:30-6:30 pm

WHERE:    Huntley Hills Clubhouse

WHAT:    We'll have plenty of candy for the kids, crafts, games, and a

graveyard hunt for the little ones (1-3 years). We’ll finish with a

Halloween parade, to get the trick-or-treating started. Pizza and

drinks for everyone!  Pizza served at 5:30.

The cost this year is $10.00 per family or $4.00 for an individual.

Cash at the door or pre-pay online.

We hope to see you there!

Huntley Hills Swim and Tennis Club Board

http://www.hhstc.com

HHSTC 2010 End of Year Update

Hello Members,

We thank you for your continued support and for making our club a great place.  We hope you take the time to read this End of the Year Update, although it’s a bit long.

Our neighborhood and the surrounding areas are awesome and your HHSTC membership continues to make it one of the best communities around Metro Atlanta! As a way to keep you informed on your membership investment, we wanted to update you on our activities, club news and finances, as we close the 2010 season.  

This year we had 150 memberships, the highest it has been in over 2 decades! Our membership continues to grow and this is a very good sign of things to come. We have had a few drops but the new members in and out of the community continue to surprise us. We are always anxious at the beginning of the year when membership registration is low and budget needs are the greatest, but so far, things have worked out ok for us.

Our hope, as your Board, has always been to create a great community where everyone feels welcome and everyone contributes as a volunteer and supporter. Some of the neat things our club offers include:

• Our Friday night cookouts are the best deal around and have become the expected event and gathering place for the area. 
• Our swim team was 4-1 and was second place in the district. There is so much potential in the younger ranks, but we are sad to see some older ones off, as they move on to new and exciting things in college. 
• Our tennis program continues to grow and one of our highly ranked tennis team has won many recent tournaments. 
• Great parties and social events for kids and adults, including the best July 4th party in town!
  

Some of the improvements we have worked on this year include:

• Transitioning to a new pool service agency (USA Pools), which saved us lots of money. 
• Creating an improved budgeting and financial tracking system. 
• Organizing volunteer workdays, where we cleaned the grounds and clubhouse and installed new drainage by the tennis courts. 
• Installing new landscaping in the front of the pool. 
• Installing shade sails to recover lost shade from tree removals. 
• Making a conscience effort to collect guest fees to increase revenue and protect your membership.
  

We continue to work on significant issues, while maintaining services, keeping a safe environment and planning for the future.  Our current debt from earlier inherited loans continues to be a very large drain on our monthly and annual bills. We have very little cushion but we continue to cut costs where we can.  We rely on volunteers do the majority of the work.  Every year we have new and unexpected costs.

Some of this year’s unexpected costs included:

• The need for shade on the pool grounds, as one of our biggest shade trees by the baby pool died and had to be cut down and members continued to ask for more shade around the pool deck.
• Replacement of several underwater lights.
• Repair of the diving board.
• Repair of the kitchen electrical wiring, to bring us up to Code.
• Repair of the water fountain.
• Removal of 3 large, dead trees that threatened the clubhouse and neighboring houses. 
• Removal of the kudzu (which had started to grow into the clubhouse!).
• Replacement of the pool vacuum.
  

Thankfully, we had budgeted to handle these expenses. However, without the new memberships (and their initiation fees) over the last few years, we would not have been able to sustain ourselves financially.

In addition to the burden of our loans, we still have several large expenses we hope to be able to afford in the near future, including addressing the aging deck and replacing the clubhouse carpeting. We continue to budget for future pool maintenance and any unexpected costs.

To cover some of these costs, we hope to have some fundraising activities in the Winter and Spring. If you would like to help with these, please let us know. Our goal is to keep our dues at an affordable level and to make certain HHSTC is truly, the best deal around town! We are currently discussing all of the options for increasing revenue and are open to any and all of your suggestions.

This is the first year since any of us on the Board can remember that we are tracking every penny. In the next month or so, we plan to provide you with a detailed financial report, so you can see exactly where every dollar has gone. We will also be providing you with a detailed summary report of our membership numbers over the last 5 years.

We are so very grateful for all of the volunteer labor and donations that help support our club. Just some of the recent donations include: air conditioning for the clubhouse, replacement of the pump house roof, painting of the clubhouse, leveling and clearing of the back lot, new plastic picnic tables, hanging of the shade sails and a portion of their costs, the website, and several other services that helped sustain us.

We urge you to get involved, ask questions, participate in activities and help us grow so we can continue to be a wonderful investment for your family and your community.  Below is a list of the Board members and their email addresses.  Please ask us how you can help or get involved.

Thanks and we are all looking forward to a wonderful season in 2011!

-Your Volunteer HHSTC Board

Frank Bragen - fbragan@mac.com
Braden Buck (Facilities/Maintenance) - braden@mayfieldhomes.com
Missy DeBerardinis (Tennis) - mdeberardinis@na.ko.com
Cindy Deminsky (Swim Team) - cdeminsky@comcast.net
John Farrell (Tennis) - john.farrell@braves.com
Leslie Freymann (Membership/Communications/Social) - lfreymann@gmail.com
Kerri Henderson (Treasurer) - kerridhenderson@gmail.com
Ann Hickman (Social) - ard1072003@yahoo.com
Ashley Kuehne (Rentals/Social) - kuehnea@comcast.net
Francis Laba (Secretary) - frlaba@yahoo.com
Larry Pope (Vice-President) - Llpope58@yahoo.com
Chris Sears (President/Pool Operations) - chris@searssmithlandscape.com
Kevin Shannon (Sponsorship/Communications) - kevin.shannon@earthlink.net
Ryan Tracy (Grounds) - ryan-tracy@comcast.net