Sunday, October 28, 2012

Update on our bathroom floors & fence

Hi Members,

If you've hated the bathroom floor mats and/or just felt gross walking on them in bare feet - we have some good news for you. They are gone! Bye, bye! 

We took them out, cleaned the floors, fixed the drains, power/acid washed everything and now we have beautifully painted (non-slip) floors. We've also made a few cosmetic changes to the women's bathroom. 

We are looking forward to a summer of clean bathrooms :) 

AND...

If you've hated the ugly chain link fence in the front of the pool - we have some more good news for you. It's now painted black! And so are all the light poles and shade sail poles. It looks sooooo much better. 

Many, many thanks to Ryan Tracy for spearheading both of these efforts.

You can view all of the before and after pictures on our Facebook page. But warning, some of the before bathroom pictures might make you want to throw up. We went ahead and put them online, in an effort to be fully transparent. We hadn't addressed the bathroom floors earlier not so much because of money but more because we didn't have anybody volunteer to spend the time doing research and figuring out the best way to fix the problems - and then implementing the solutions. Until Ryan helped us out :) 

Our club is run entirely by volunteers and the more people we have helping, the more we can get done. And on that note, if you would like to be on the Board for the 2013 season, please let us know! Nominations are being taken now and elections will be in January. We would love to have some new faces, new energy and new ideas join us at the table. 

Thanks and we hope to see you at our Halloween Party

Friday, October 19, 2012

Halloween Party!


The Huntley Hills Swim & Tennis Club is hosting our 7th Annual Halloween Party on Wednesday, October 31st. 

We'll have costume contests for kids and adults (with great prizes, sponsored by Barbra with Keller Williams Reality), a graveyard hunt for the little ones (1-3 years), piƱatas, pictures and other fun Halloween surprises. Plus, pizza and drinks for everyone! Click here for photos from last year's party.

Party starts at 5pm. Pizza served at 5:30pm. Costume contest at 6pm. We’ll finish the party with a Halloween parade, to get the Huntley Hills trick-or-treating started.  

The cost of the party is $5/family – best bargain in town!! 

Attached is a flier with additional details. 

We hope you can make it! 

-- HHSTC Board

PS. Many thanks to Barbra and Keller Williams Reality for co-sponsoring this event! 

Barbra Neuman Wollner
Associate Broker
Keller Williams Realty Peachtree Road
The Debbie Leonard Group
804 Town Boulevard
Suite A 2040
Atlanta, GA 30319

bneuman@kw.com
Certified Listing Specialist
Certified Relocation Specialist

Monday, October 8, 2012

WE ARE DEBT FREE!!

The subject line of this email probably made you think it was spam. It’s not. The Huntley Hills Swim and Tennis Club is now DEBT FREE! Last month we made a final principal pre-payment of $38K and paid off our $130K 10-year loan in less than 4.5 years. And we’re so excited, we just had to shout it out!!

Now, for the details...

Here’s a brief 14 year history of our club, which explains why we had the loan and how we paid it off...
 

1998 - borrowed $80K to resurface pool deck and tennis courts, redo pool electrical, re-plaster pool, new pool tile and coping. Pool did not open until July. Resurfacing aspect proved to be inadequate with sub par installation. Decrease in membership.


1999 - 2004 - pool deck crumbling, facilities fell into disrepair, membership stagnant.
 

2005 - 2007 - improvements/repairs made, membership grew slightly.

2008 - a very precarious year for the club!

  • DeKalb County wouldn’t allow the pool to open without new concrete pool deck and fencing (both out of code and unsafe); still owed $50K of the $80K borrowed 10 years earlier in 1998; borrowed another $80K ($130 total, 10 year loan), assessed members $250, raised initiation fee from $150 to $400; lost 37 renewal memberships, membership under 100 in April.
  • Pool deck construction was well managed and under budget, replaced fencing, added baby pool fence, replaced all furniture, painted everything, improved grounds/curb appeal, removed pine trees, added shade structures, increased pool hours, new website, massive marketing effort; gained 27 new members in May/June.
2009 - 2012 - tremendous growth in membership, added Board members with skills in landscaping and construction, new accounting software implemented, increased communications, started Friday night cookouts, resurfaced the tennis courts, replaced the tennis deck, new roof on pump house, resurfaced the baby pool, new baby pool cover, new pool pump, added shade sails, additional repairs and improvements.
 

Prepayments made to the $130K loan (using new member initiation fees and additional revenue):
 2009 - $30K
 2011 - $15K
 2012 - $38K (10 year loan paid off in less than 4.5 years!)

2013 – loan is gone (was $18K/year) and we will begin the season with approximately $12K in emergency reserves. This was all possible thanks to the hard work and smart decisions of lots and lots of people, over many years. There really are way too many people to list and thank ­but if you’ve ever donated your time, talents, services, money, etc to the club, ­you know who you are, and we THANK YOU!!


We would also like to thank all of our members! Without the continued support of long term members (especially those who stuck with us in 2008) and the addition of wonderful new members, we would not have survived. Our Club is successful because we have terrific members and we hope all of you will be with us for many, many years to come.

****

Now that we are debt free and membership is strong, we are beginning work on the Master Plan! We’ve already had our first meeting and have gotten the ball rolling. You’ll be seeing more about this in the weeks and months to come. In the mean time, take a look at our attached financial summary (not posted on the blog) and be on the lookout for a detailed membership summary. All of this information will help you make informed decisions, as we begin sending out a series of membership surveys to help us guide and prioritize the Master Plan.

Thanks again to everyone who has helped us get to where we are today!

- HHSTC Board
<http://www.hhstc.com/Board.html>

Ps. We hope to see everyone at our annual HHSTC Halloween Party (details coming soon).