Vermont Association of Snow Travelers, Inc. 26 VAST Lane, Barre VT 05641 • www.vtvast.org • T 802.229.0005 • F 802.223.4316 August 1, 2017 Dear Club President, We are just a month away from the 50th VAST Annual Meeting. Included are two copies of the VAST 2017 Annual Report, and it can also be found online at the VAST website. Each club is being given two copies now and the rest will be available at the annual meeting itself. I would like to highlight some areas you may have questions about below. In addition, I wanted to inform you that prior to the annual meeting itself, we will hold a “pre-meeting” at 10 a.m. in the auditorium at Lamoille Union High School. This summer, the VAST staff and board of directors held a two-day Long-Range Committee meeting (Leadership Summit). The reason for this meeting was to drill down on some important topics. All topics were about the future of VAST. The meeting took a look back at our past and the one glaring item that stood out was not a shock to any of us; and that is that VAST is absolutely weather dependent. On the VAST website under the News section is a copy of the presentation. This too will be gone over at the VAST annual meeting in either the pre-meeting, or during the introduction of the official meeting. I strongly suggest you take a look at this slide show presentation before the meeting to get a clear picture of the struggles facing VAST, as I think it will answer some of your questions. Okay, so let me point some things out: 1) The 2018 budget is built strictly on TMA sales from last season. But if we have more snow and sell more TMAs then we will have more money for line items (like grooming). 2) This year you have 4 lines in the budget, because it also includes a snapshot taken as of May 31, 2017 of where we were then and an end of the year projection. 3) The administrative side is now level funded. In the past it has not been, but, in order to run an organization or business properly you have to make sure that the administrative part is funded properly. 4) One line item that went up in the FY18 budget is staff salary, but THERE WERE NO STAFF SALARY INCREASES. This has gone up because we now have two part-time folks running the LVRT Capital Campaign. The money to pay them comes out of the LVRT Capital Campaign budget, but has to flow into the VAST General account because it is payroll. The money is shown as income and then expense. 5) The VAST Board is presenting to the membership that this year there will be a $5.00 increase on all TMAs (except military). In addition, instead of a three-day TMA, they have voted on a 4-Day TMA priced at $75.00. Three years ago the 3-Day TMA was $75.00, until we changed it to $55.00.