My wife and I have been active club members for the last six plus years and as of late I have taken on some additional roles/responsibilities such as board of directors member and trail boss. My question to other clubs is if your groomer drivers get paid to groom or if they volunteer their time. If you are not comfortable answering just p.m. me, just curious is what our club does is the norm that's all. As always thanks for the help and input.
Question on grooming
- Thread starter dragon_07
- Start date
krupps_resort
New member
Superior Snowmobile Club (Greenland, Mass City, Twin Lakes in Michigan's UP)
Our Groomer Operators all volunteer their time for grooming, maintenance on the groomers, etc.
Our Groomer Operators all volunteer their time for grooming, maintenance on the groomers, etc.
D
Deleted member 10829
Guest
All volunteer here! The only place I've heard of paying the drivers is around the Lake Gogebic area.
momoney2123
New member
Our club pays the groomer drivers and they run at least 3-5 times a week pending on traffic/weather, which is probably why the trails are as good as anywhere.
krupps_resort
New member
The Keweenaw Trail System pays their drivers. They groom from Toivola to Copper Harbor.
I did an informal poll last year to inquire about how other grooming entities work and was surprised to find out that many in the UP are on a paid groomer status. I thought it was just the opposite. I do not feel at liberty to say who those are, as I am not affiliated with them, but in my asking it was around 80% paid their groomers. Hats off to Superior Snow Club for remaining volunteer. Pretty amazing feat.
In reality, there is NO realistic way we could get by with volunteers. Keweenaw Trail Services (KTS) accounted for 10% of ALL trail miles groomed in the ENTIRE state of MI the past 3 seasons. That is the entire state, not just the UP! So comparing our grooming duties (250 miles getting groomed every day, some trails 2-4 times a day) to smaller operations is kind of like comparing a city that uses volunteer fire departments to a big city that has to pay their fire fighters.
All clubs, all organizations in MI get reimbursed equally for their grooming by the DNR (they are called grant sponsors in MI).
-John
PS. Krupps Resort had all the liberty in the world to say that KTS pays their groomers as in a strange twist, they partially support those wages by local room taxes collected.
groomerdriver
New member
As to Marathon County are you SURE that's true? "All Wisconsin" is NOT volunteer. Several areas have paid drivers.
I can also add that in my informal polling, I was surprised to learn about how many WI organizations paid their groomer drivers as I thought it was all volunteer in WI too. No so.
-John
All of Wisconsin is not volunteer, our club does pay the groomer drivers. I guess I too was under the assumption that this was a volunteer function and also that there is some reimbursement from the DNR. I haven't quite figured out how that all works yet either. I know our club budgets X amount of $ each year for grooming and when its gone the trails are no longer groomed. I thought the amount of hours groomed was tied to what the club is eligible for in reimbursement but I may be wrong.
If a club pays groomer drivers it either comes out of the $250 per mile (I believe 250 at this point) or fundraisers that a club may have. The DNR dispurses the money, but it comes from the general snowmobiling fund, witch is made up of registrations and a portion of the gas tax based on how many registrations on a given year. So, technically, a club could groom more times if the drivers were volunteer and not paid. When your club runs out of money, they could keep grooming and go into supplemental, but that is a gamble if your expenses will even get covered. So basically, the DNR dispurses the money on an hourly basis until the limit of $250 per funded mile is used up. Then a club can choose to use the supplemental fund. This is the basic nuts and bolts of maintenance and grooming a trail as I understand it.
That is true for Marathon County. All volunteers.
krupps_resort
New member
I would just like to say that I meant nothing negative or derogatory toward Keweenaw Trails Service for paying their drivers. It is true that we and Parkview both pay 3% room tax to Keweenaw Tourism for/Keweenaw Trails Service because we are in Houghton County and yet we are both members of Superior Snowmobile Club in Twin Lakes . dragon_07 was simply wondering how other clubs operate and I had already posted about Superior Snowmobile Club being groomed by volunteers and to expand to say that some clubs/organizations do pay their groomer drivers. It's like 2 sides of a story and whatever fits the needs.
Sandy Krupp
Sandy Krupp
And Sandy. I hope that you did not take anything negative from what I said. I really am in awe of the fact that your club can do what it does. Year in, year out. It's one of the reasons why I got involved with KSE. I though: If they can do it all by volunteer, why can't we? Once I got involved, I learned why. I guess it is not impossible, but would take a team of very hard working and dedicated individuals such as you have down that way.
Seems like the more rural areas really do have more of a self reliance approach than the urban. Not that our end in a metropolis, but seems like the more developed an area gets, the more folks just want to pay for things, rather than take care of it themselves. Plus, we really do have a huge undertaking every year.
The bottom line is, I think both organizations do a top notch job and it looks like they will be firing them up and getting them out in earnest now! Let the season begin!
-John
Seems like the more rural areas really do have more of a self reliance approach than the urban. Not that our end in a metropolis, but seems like the more developed an area gets, the more folks just want to pay for things, rather than take care of it themselves. Plus, we really do have a huge undertaking every year.
The bottom line is, I think both organizations do a top notch job and it looks like they will be firing them up and getting them out in earnest now! Let the season begin!
-John
highhertel
Member
Correct me if I am wrong, but you probably add the 3% room tax on top of the rate due, so your guests are the ones paying the room tax. You as proprietor are merely collecting the tax on behalf of the county, just like local and state sales tax. At least this is the way it was when I had my B&B in Wisconsin, would think it would be similar in Michigan.
HH