Hunt club dues, class by class, from the figures the treasurer already holds

AThe season, at a glance

This sheet starts from what the season is going to cost and works out what to charge, which is the other way round from dividing a bill the club has already paid: the season's own lines first, the guest days you expect taken off them, the dues set from what is left, and only then what those dues collect held beside the plan they came from. Print this sheet

Printed from otherworldlabs.com, the hunt club dues sheet.

BWhat the season is planned to cost

Only have one total for the season? Type it on the last budget line, other / the whole season if you have not itemised it, leave the six named lines and the whole last-season column blank, type your member count in the first class row and 0 in the other three counts, and leave the guest-day block blank: the page then prints that total divided by your members, the weight cancels while only one class has members, and each line you itemise later changes only the figures beside it.

What last season actually cost

CThe four membership classes

Classes and counts only. No member is named on this sheet, and the sheet asks for nothing that would identify anybody. The weight is whatever the club's own bylaws or vote give that class; the page suggests none. Days afield are the days that class logged on the sign-in sheet. The sheet holds four classes and no fifth row: a club with three types a member count of 0 in the fourth, and a club whose bylaws name a fifth or a sixth class does not fit on this page at all, so the figures here would not be that club's; the workbook sold beside this page holds six class rows and is where that club's season goes.

DGuest days, and the ground

EThe dues table, class by class

What the season comes to

FThe season's lines, plan beside last season

GEvery figure, worked

The budget, and the dues one share pays.

Each class, from that one share.

What it collects, and what a day afield cost.

HHow the figures are read

A share

One member of a class, counted once and multiplied by the weight the club gave that class. Twelve members at a weight of one carry twelve shares; those twelve at a quarter carry three. The weight is the club's own decision, taken by vote or written into the bylaws, and the sheet asks for it; it offers none of its own.

The net to raise

What the season is planned to cost, with the guest-day income the club expects taken off it. It is the figure the dues divide, and it is the one place where money that is not dues changes what a member pays. Where the guest days expected pay for the whole plan, the net to raise is held at nothing, the sheet puts no minus in its place, and it says so in words.

A guest day

One guest, one day, at the fee the club charges. The sheet keeps two counts of them and puts each to its own use: the days expected reduce the budget before the dues are set, because that is a plan; the days logged join what the club has actually taken in, because that is money in the tin. A guest book that runs past the plan is income the plan did not have, and the sheet reads it as a surplus, not as a mistake.

A day afield

One hunter, one day, as the club's sign-in sheet records it, entered as the total for a class and never for a person. The sheet divides the season's planned spend by the days logged to print what a day in the woods cost. A class that logs no days leaves that division alone: it pays its dues and contributes no day, and nobody is labelled on this page.

The last-season column

What each line actually cost last season, beside what that line is planned to cost this season. A line left blank is a line the club does not hold, and the difference for it is dashed instead of being printed as a figure the size of the whole plan. The sheet counts the lines that carry a last-season figure and says how many, so a difference total is never read as a difference against a column nobody filled.

Short or over

What the club collects, which is the dues each class pays plus the guest days already logged, set against what the club plans to spend. It is the one figure here that goes either way, and the word printed beside it says which way it went. The glance and the dues table print it with the word short or over beside the figure; the working prints it as the subtraction it is, so there it carries a minus when the club is short. A club collects over its plan when a voted dues figure sits over the one the budget requires, or when the guest book has run past the plan.

The cent

Every figure is rounded to the cent where it is worked out, and the figure after it is worked out from the rounded one, which is how a treasurer's own ledger does it. One consequence is worth knowing before the sheet is read: a plan that does not divide into whole cents across the shares collects a few cents either side of itself, and the season row then reads a few cents short, or a few cents over, out of the rounding alone and not out of anything the club has decided. The collection against plan is rounded too, to a tenth of one percent, so a season carrying that residue still reads a hundred percent of its plan while the money row beside it reads the few cents: the money row is the finer of the two readings. The working beside each figure prints the division it came from, so a residue that small can be read for what it is.

A weight with one class on the roll

The weight is a ratio between classes. While one class alone carries a member count there is no second class for it to be a ratio to, so the sheet asks for none: one share is one member, the dues a member are the net to raise over the members on that row, and the Weight cell stays dashed because nothing was typed in it. Where the club has typed a weight in that one row, the sheet prints what was typed: the Weight cell carries that weight, the Shares cell carries the members multiplied by it, and the dues a member come out at the figure the weight cancels to, give or take the cent the rounding leaves. Type a second class's members and the sheet asks for the weights again, because from there on the ratio is the club's to vote and not the sheet's to assume.

IThe four cases the arithmetic does not settle

Each of these is a decision for the club and not a figure for a sheet. The options are set out; none of them is recommended here.

A member who joins mid-season

The club may charge the whole season's dues, charge by the months remaining, charge by the days of the season remaining, or charge a joining figure fixed by vote. Whichever it picks, this sheet takes the member count and the dues figure it is given: there is no month in it and it pro-rates nothing by itself.

A member who leaves

The club may keep the dues, return a part of them, or hold them against that member's return. A figure the club has decided to return is typed back out of the voted figure for the class, or the member is taken off the count. The sheet will print either reading and it will not choose between them.

An assessment the landowner asks for mid-season

A cost that arrives after the dues are set has to come out of a surplus, be raised as a second call on the members, or be carried into next season's plan. The sheet shows which of those the club is in a position to do, by printing what it is short or over before anything is decided. The decision itself is a vote.

Guest days that do not reach the number planned

The dues were set on the guest days the club expected. If the guest book ends the season behind that plan, what is missing falls on the members, and the sheet prints it as the gap between what it collects and what it plans to spend. The club may let that gap run into next season's plan, raise a second call, or set next season's dues on the guest days the book actually recorded, which is a figure and not a hope.

JWhat this sheet will not do

• It names no figure as the right one. Every amount, weight, fee and acreage on it is one you typed, and arithmetic is the only thing it adds.
• It holds one season and keeps nothing. Close the page and the figures are gone; the file sold beside it is what carries a record from one season into the next.
• It names nobody. The roster is classes and counts, there is no field on this page for a person, and the youth class is a count.
• It carries no document of any kind, and no clause of one.
• It reads nothing in from anywhere. No figure on it came from a list, a market or a survey, because there is no such figure in it.