Minutes of the ISTA Board of Directors Meeting on March 25, 2024
ROLL CALL
Southern Zone: Dennis Baker, Lauren Dunn - ex, John Kravanek, Frank Payne
Central Zone: Steve Carver, Mike Dennis, Bill Maiden, Kevin Wunder
Northern Zone: Charlie Bickle - ex, Patrick Haskins, Bill Huhn, Stan Systo
Others: Joan Maiden, ISTA Secretary; Bill Duncan, ATA Delegate, Michelle Mueller
SECRETARY’S REPORT – Pat Haskins made a motion to waive the reading of the minutes & accept the minutes as presented by email from the Secretary; Bill Huhn seconded the motion. Motion carried.
TREASURER’S REPORT – Treasurer’s report was given. Stan Systo made a motion to accept the Treasurer’s Report; Bill Huhn seconded the motion. Motion carried.
OLD BUSINESS
HOF Building & Account Update – Denny Baker showed pictures to everyone of the progress of the HOF building. Everything is almost finished except the floor & finishing up with the heating/air. When that is finished, the floor will be installed. The porch is connected but the lighting wiring still needs to be done for some outlets. There is around $18,000 in the account. There is still some other money needing to be turned in. A rough estimate of about $25,000 will be needed to finish everything. Bill Huhn also mentioned there will be a cost for the bricks when they are made & sent – estimating it might be around $1,000. Denny told Bill to proceed with having the company begin printing the sidewalk bricks & to have them delivered. Denny also suggested a committee needs to be formed, one from each zone, for people to come when wanting to donate or add items to the Hall of Fame. He wants to keep it nice, or we are going to have a room like we do now. Denny said he would like to step back & not do this part since he’s done so much already. This issue was tabled for a future meeting.
Denny brought up the agreement with Brittany for the HOF building & said we need to make sure we have a lease agreement for the ISTA building like we have for the HOF bldg. ISTA needs to pay for the insurance for the building, however, it is hard to get an insurance company to give you insurance when the building has an attached wall to a building that ISTA doesn’t insure. Mike indicated ISTA pays an insurance company for property insurance. Mike said when he gets back to IL, he will look it up. Denny asked Mike to ask the insurance company to give an estimate on the addition to the current building & add it to the policy. Denny indicated if Brittany is paying for insurance for the ISTA Bldg, that needs cleaned up & ISTA should pay the insurance on both of those buildings.
HOF Gun Raffle/1099 – Bill Duncan checked with his accountant, & he indicated they can give a 1099 to the winner for their taxes. Ticket sales have gone well & there should be some left over to be sold at the State Shoot.
Ambulance vs. Paramedics – Mike Dennis discovered in the past Ned paid $1500 for less than two days for an ambulance. Michelle said it started out as a $500 donation & as the years went on the donation was raised. Mike said he talked to Carol Mohr about it last year at the state shoot & said he wondered if we could get some paramedics & we would just pay them. He said he did not like to pay $1500 for the ambulance to be there maybe six hours. Someone asked how long it would be if we had to call 911 for an ambulance to arrive & Michelle said because the ambulance company is volunteer, it is questionable how long it would take to get out there. It depends on if volunteers are close to take the call. Michelle said they do notify the ambulance/fire department before the state shoot to give them the dates of the shoot, so they know it is going on. Michelle said she will investigate this further.
ATA Unpaid Dues – Joan reported the majority of the clubs with outstanding ATA fees have paid the past due amounts. Some clubs when they see their name on this list are going ahead & paying ATA. The late fees are being subtracted from our ATA rebate, however, since the club paid ISTA directly, it is still going to look like ATA is deducting it from our rebate, but the money is actually going into the checking account.
BSP Ground Preparations for State Shoot – Bill Maiden asked Michelle if they got the new machines installed & running. Michelle said a new PAT Trap is coming & they got a new skid-steer that Jake used to remove all the machines, serviced them & put back to the original specs from PAT Trap. She said they are putting up a new storage shed that is going to be half of a new house for Carol Mohr & half for storage so hopefully the shell house will have a new look at the state shoot. They also have a new side-by-side to replace the gator. They are going to work on another rocked parking area down around Bank 12. She said they are locked in with the camping spots they have with the electrical grid they have. If they want more camping spots, they will have to put in a new electrical board, & it costs a lot of money. She said they cannot even make more 50-amp spots because to make one 50, they would have to take down two 30-amp spots. It was close to $50,000 to upgrade the grid & that is if the company will even run the lines out there for what they use because there is a big expense on their end as well. Steve Carver mentioned to Michelle he thought he could get a generator system donated but Michelle said she didn’t know if that could be installed or not. She said Steve should talk to Jake about it.
Golf Carts – John went through roll call to determine how many carts will be needed. John is using the same place to rent from. In addition to the Directors, Michelle mentioned they needed one for the score sheet runner & a flatbed for the mechanic.
State Shoot Program – Joan gave everyone the document she sent to the printing company on February 15th, showing changes that needed to be done line-by-line & page-by-page. She received the proof document the previous evening around 9:35 PM. The board went through the book with Joan & pointed out a few things that needed to be changed. Michelle brought up target prices. Since the price of targets went up a penny a target & minimum wage went up another $1.00, she wanted to raise the target price to $42.00 an event. Stan Systo asked what they charge for the AIM shoot & Michelle said $5.00 less per event. They asked her why & she said they have always given the kids a discount. Mike Dennis said he has the records from last year’s state shoot & he is trying to decipher them but this year he will be keeping detailed records. He said it cost the ISTA $50,000 to hold the state shoot & ISTA only receives $3.00 per shooter from BSP. We cannot compare ourselves with other Midwest states (Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin) because they own their grounds & they pay for the entire shoot, including trophies. Brittany does not pay for any trophies. Mike will have an accounting this year of what exactly is spent. Denny Baker said we need to think about what ISTA stands for – the Illinois State Trapshooters Association. We generate income by having it & he said he wonders if it is time to look at our relationship with the Mohr family about how we conduct this. We have had the state shoot at Brittany for 24 years. When this all started ISTA had lost their facility & Larry Mohr built a facility for us to have our state shoot. Denny said he thinks ISTA’s commitment to Larry & Carol has been completed. If you average out the prices of the income that has been generated from the state shoot in the last 24 years, it has been about $3.5 million dollars. Denny said when he came on board, ISTA had $1.3 million now we are down to about $1 million due to ISTA purchasing all the trophies & not making any profit on the state shoot. Every year we cut trophies & that is not fair to the shooters that come to the state shoot. He said he thinks we need to reimagine our arrangement with the Mohr’s. Denny suggested putting together a committee to explore ways to increase income to ISTA from the state shoot. ISTA should not be spending investment money down to have an IL State Shoot. It should be generating ISTA some money. He said he thought ISTA has paid their debt, & there should be a written agreement every year stating what Brittany is going to do & what ISTA is going to do. He thinks there is a possibility of an arrangement to benefit both parties. Denny proposed a committee of one Director from each zone to pursue ways for ISTA to make money at their state shoot. Bill Maiden suggested instead of a committee, to have the full board be tasked with coming up with ideas. He thought more ideas would be gained from everyone involved & there would not be room for any bias. Others agreed & liked the idea of the entire board discussing ideas. Michelle said she is not opposed to a new agreement with ISTA. She said she understands you cannot keep depleting your bank account. Bill Huhn said since he has been on board for 4 years, he has never seen a breakdown of how much ISTA makes from the shoot vs. how much Brittany makes on the shoot. He said there has not been a lot of transparency. He said he knows its $3.00 a shooter per day but he said he does not have any idea what those numbers are. He said if we started seeing some of those numbers, we may have a better sense of where we are at. Joan said she thought last year Brittany paid ISTA somewhere between $4,000 - $5,000 from the $3.00 a day fee per shooter but with the complimentary meal ISTA pays for, the money made on the $3.00 fees went back to BSP to pay for the meal. Mike said the bill for last year’s meal was around $4,900. Michelle said she would rather the meal be catered instead of having the kitchen help prepare it. Denny Baker said years ago, the agreement was Brittany was to pay ISTA 3 cents for every target thrown at the state shoot. Three cents a target times 400,000 targets thrown last year would be $12,000. Someone asked if we give BSP the rebate money from ATA. Mike said we use it for added money at the state shoot. There was a discussion about who could set the target prices. A couple of years ago some board members thought BSP should be the deciding factor in setting target prices. Some board members remember this being a decision the board made in the past. Denny said something could be written in the agreement as to how the target prices are set. Mike pointed out to Michelle that he did not see how marathon targets should cost less than event prices since Brittany does not provide trophies for either one. Prices for this year will be $42 per event & Marathon targets will be $36. Denny asked the board to think about ways ISTA could make some money to pay for trophies & have this back on the agenda at the next meeting.
Advertisement Banner on Website – Mike said he is buying belt buckets from Molly’s Custom Silverworks for two different events this year and they are offering two free belt buckles to clubs/associations who add an advertising banner for them on their website. Dan Schocke said he can put it on the website, & it is easy to do but he needs to know the details of how long it stays up, etc... Mike will find out more about it & he will send the information to Dan. Michelle said that is where she orders the AIM belt buckles too so she could add the advertising on their website as well if it would get ISTA two more free belt buckles.
Mike Jordan Memorial Handicap – The event this year is in honor of Mike but going forward the board needs to think about either just making it a memorial shoot for all those who have passed – for example, Jim Mattison, who just passed, was a long time ATA delegate. The board needs to decide if they want to make it a memorial shoot or put it back to the event name that it used to be.
DELEGATE REPORT – Bill Duncan reported he talked to Jason about what used to be called the Texas/IL Shoot. There is a lot of interest because nothing like this has ever been done before & ATA is waiting to see how well is goes over. Instead of just being IL/Texas this year, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, & two clubs in Texas. It is going to be similar to the ATA Central Zone shoot. All these clubs have done a zone shoot before. If there are 450 people among the six clubs, it will be an All-American points shoot. Jason has been calling Michelle with suggestions on how to do things according to ATA. It is April 19 – 21st.
NEXT MEETING DATE – April 20, 2024, at 11:00 AM at Brittany Shooting Park.
ADJOURNMENT – Motion to adjourn was made by Stan Systo; Pat Haskins seconded the motion. Motion carried.
Respectfully submitted,
Joan Maiden
ISTA Secretary