Basket Stolen from Kit Carson Park
Some people are pretty low. Thoughtless. Selfish. And those are the people that steal your discs. Then there’s the real lowlifes – the basket thieves. And some of these scum stopped by Kit Carson Park last night and decided to steal basket #17.
It’s possible that it was stolen by some meth heads who will try to sell the metal as scrap – police report filed and local scrap dealers are being alerted. But it’s also possible that it was stolen by one of our local players who feels like it’s more important for him to have a practice basket in the back yard than for all of us to have a playable hole on our local disc golf course. That really sucks.
So if you happen to stop by someone’s house or apartment and they have a new practice basket with the #17 on it…or it has a big round number plate that they have painted over or covered in some way, please contact one of the Aces’ board members. Since we already have a police report filed we can call the police and they’ll pick up from there.
What happens next? Well, the basket has to be replaced. The San Diego Open is being held next week and they need to have 18 holes to play. So our Membership Director, Mark Verrochi (who happens to be sponsored by DGA) will be contacting DGA to see how quickly we can get a replacement sent out. Then Course Rep Tony Buck and his crew will install the replacement. It will cost the club a few hundred dollars to replace the basket. That’s your dues money – and money that could go to help pay for our next course installation (Mast Park in Santee). But instead it will be used to replace the basket that some jerk stole.
If you know who did it…kick then in the shin for me.
-Allen Risley, Aces President
San Diego Aces Disc Golf Club 
Please aim higher than the shin!
it only costs about 10 or less ACES memberships to replace it….where do the rest of the 400+ ACES membership funds go to? we as ACES members would like to see where our money goes and not just the annual tournaments……..alot of the maintenance done on courses is voluntary work…..
Actually, Johnny, it costs quite a bit more than that. DGA Mach III baskets retail for $390, which does not include shipping. The Aces will get a price break (since membership Director Mark Verrochi is a DGA-sponsored player), so for arguments sake, let’s set the cost plus shipping at $300. The standard Aces membership is $20, but please remember that the club has to pay for the discs and bagtags that members receive, so the “profit” that remains after the schwag is paid for comes out to about $8 per membership. So…$300 divided by $8 comes out to about 37.5 memberships to pay for a replacement basket.
As to your larger question “where do the rest of the 400+ ACES membership funds go to?” As I mentioned above, most of the membership fees collected pay for the discs, bagtags and shirts that members receive when they join or renew. We have roughly $8 left per membership to work with after that. As of our August board meeting we had 461 members, which gives us roughly $3,700 in funds to spend. Where does that go? $1,500 goes toward liability insurance, which the City of Vista requires us to carry in order to have the course at Brengle Terrace Park. Luckily, this insurance also covers the tournaments and doubles leagues that the club runs – Vista, Escondido and San Marcos all require us to carry insurance when we run events in their parks (Morley Field, Sun Valley, and Sycuan all have their own insurance). Each year we spend about $300-$500 sponsoring local tournaments by purchasing tee signs or other sponsorships (you’ll see evidence of that at this weekend’s San Diego Open). Course maintenance runs the club several hundred dollars a year – this has fluctuated quite a bit as we still are paying for more signage at Brengle Terrace. And we just spent about $100 for two new pop-up canopies for the club to use at events.
Whatever is left goes into our course development fund. We should put about $1,000 into that fund this year, which is good because it looks like we will have some costs associated with the new courses going in at Mast Park in Santee and (hopefully) Chula Vista. In the past, the course development fund paid for the baskets, tees and other installation materials at Brengle Terrace and put $2,500 towards the course at Cal State San Marcos.
I hope that answers your question? If you have more questions about the club’s funds feel free to join us at the September Board Meeting, held on Monday Sept. 8th at 6pm at Sun Road Financial Complex Suite 116, 11770 Bernardo Court, San Diego (Rancho Bernardo). We will be talking about the 2015 budget.
That sucks lame people have to go out of the way just to have a basket go on Craigslist buy cheap portable one work for me!!! And what going on with mast park??