Further Answers to Questions Raised at the 2013 Annual Meeting

Posted on HASnotes in May 2013

There were a number of questions asked at the Banquet that deserve deeper answers than were given in the time available:

1.       Is our membership going up or down?

2.       How many properties do we own?

3.       What is our strategy to determine spending levels?

4.       What is our strategy to determine the securities we invest in?

5.       Is our endowment too big?

I will try to answer these questions without driving everyone batty. All of my answers are based on documents contained on the HASmember web site. Most have also been distributed on HASnotes at one time or the other. My answers use information current as of today.

1.       HASmember has membership counts from all of the programs books in the archives. Years with missing data do not have membership lists in the program books. Couples are counted as two people. The current membership count is 447. It was 479 last year. There are 43 members whose dues are only paid up through 2012. I think this is a larger number than usual. Unless they pay their dues they will be deleted before the next dues letter is sent out.

Note: A current version of this chart is available on the Trip page of HASmember.

2.       Counting Idlenot we own five properties. Here is list compiled by Larry Lunden from town records:

Hartford Audubon Society   -   Land Holdings   June 2009

Sanctuary	Town	Address	Book / page	Date	Parcel ID	Acres	Appraisal
Greeenstone Hollow	E Granby	Ridge Blvd Rear	098 / 456	1/12/1993	6-12-13A	23.31	93,200
	E Granby	Ridge Blvd	098 / 456	1/12/1993	6-12-43	9.11	18,200
	E Granby	Ridge Blvd	098 / 456	1/12/1993	6-12-11	4.39	2,200
Tobacco Valley	Windsor	37T Canterbury La	833 / 276	5/3/1991	74-113	20.22	201,700
Idlenot	Ellington	Wapping Wood Rd	095 / 699	10/1/1974	1-1-0	6.67	20,010
	S Windsor	190 Niederwerfer Rd	184 / 274	9/11/1974	63600190	10.69	210,357
	S Windsor	260 Niederwerfer Rd	654 / 049	8/17/1997	63600260	2.68	247,757
Lewis Farm	Suffield	Hill St	127 / 235	9/27/1971	27-23-15	83.25	775,300
	Suffield	Hill St	161 / 953	6/18/1981	27-23-16	1.50	122,300
	Suffield	Hill St	169 / 246	5/31/1983	28-30-168	1.02	156,209
Station 43	S Windsor	L238 Main St	042 / 242	7/11/1950
	S Windsor	L238 Main St	042 / 319	5/3/1951
	S Windsor	name change	132 / 349	6/19/1965	58-1	9.10	13,657

3.     The Board strategy to determine spending levels is a Policy on HASmember:

Excluding funds received with restrictions, it is the policy of HAS that total spending in the year not exceed average income from dues, donations, and our financial assets.  Average income is determined by averaging the income from the three prior years.  Yearly income from financial assets is calculated by subtracting the beginning of the year balance from the end of year balance and then adding any withdrawals and subtracting any deposits. Adopted at the December 9, 2010 Board meeting.

The Wildlife Series and Banquet Food are treated as Self Supporting Items and excluded from these calculations. Using data from 2010-2012 the average yearly dues were $3845, donations with dues $1996, financial asset returns $9723. Thus the policy would say 2013 spending should be limited to $15,564 (3845+1996+9723). So far this year we have spent about $9,167.35. We spent $14,437.61 in 2012.

4.       The Board strategy to determine the securities we invest in is in a Policy on HASmember:

It is the policy of HAS to keep an amount equal to the expected year or two withdrawals from our investment accounts in some form of an interest bearing account. The balance of the investments should be distributed among indexed stock funds, either traditional mutual funds or electronically transferred funds (ETF). The usual asset allocation should include large cap stocks, mid cap stocks, small cap stocks, developed country international funds and emerging country international funds. No single category should comprise more than 40% of the value of the index fund portfolio. Once a year, the Treasurer, with the advice of the Board financial advisory team, will adjust our Fidelity investments to bring them into compliance with asset allocation policy. The resulting reallocations, if any, will be reported to the Board.

Today our account at Fidelity shows the following:

Large cap stocks                        69,039.36 0.414 Mid cap stocks                        42,882.39 0.257 Small cap stocks                        41,284.26 0.248 Developed country international stocks                          7,209.35 0.043 Emerging country international stocks                          6,214.78 0.037                     166,630.14 Cash (same as interest bearing today)                        12,004.49 total                     178,634.63 The 41.4 percentage on the right is 69,039.36/166,630.14. The Policy says this should not exceed 40. The Finance Team will address this issue before the June Board meeting.

5.       Is our endowment too big?

Once we get to 2014 the house will be gone and The Crest printing will have stopped. I expect our annual expenses will drop by something like $5000. Paragraph 3 above shows that we are well on our way to matching last year’s spending this year. If this year’s spending does not exceed last year’s, we will operate within our Policies spending limit. Neither year shows a large amount for something like a platform or road construction at Station 43. There is no special fund set aside for these projects. They should be funded with our current spending limits.

We may well find that even with the $5000 and spending all of our investment income, our budget is pretty tight. We have made great progress in understanding our financial situation and have achieved significant cost reductions and control of our investments. Our Policies are sound and documented. We almost have enough understanding to engage in serious financial planning. We have established a base but we need to do the planning before we can say our endowment is too big. It is something to hope for, though.

Fred Nowak

May 15, 2013