High Country Club CFO Steps Down And Club Changes Annual Dues Payment

High Country Club and President and CEO Christian Kirschner have had to make many difficult decisions recently. The High Country Club Success Plan letter outlined many substantial changes to the destination club's business model, including laying off over half of the club's employees, including two of his brothers. In more cost cutting moves, High Country Club's Chief Financial Officer, Dan Moorhead will be stepping down and the club will no longer be accepting annual dues payments via credit card.

In a letter written today to High Country Club members, Kirschner wrote:

I am very happy to announce that we are making progress on many fronts regarding the Success Plan. I sincerely appreciate your comments and suggestions as they continue to be helpful in putting together the best Plan possible until we start selling new memberships again. Along with the phone calls with members and the many emails, we continue to work on ways we can make the business model work the most efficiently. In order for us to be able to keep our dues as low as possible we have made the following decisions:

1) Annual dues will no longer be processed by credit card. Members will be required to pay by check. This alone will save us $8k per month.

2) Our CFO, Dan Moorhead, will be replaced by our Controller Sam Bailey. This is an extremely difficult decision, but it will also help us keep our costs down.

We are also working diligently on a plan to hold dues in an escrow account. Hopefully we will have resolution on an escrow account today.

I will announce the Member Board Members by the end of the week. They all have various backgrounds that will be beneficial to the members in the future.

We look forward to the results of Fridays vote so we can finalize the portfolio of homes that will be included in HCC moving forward. We have listened to all of our members suggestions regarding which homes to include and will do our best to put together the right mix of properties.

Thank for your support. We have been overwhelmed by many of your kind words of encouragement and hope for the future.

Christian V. Kirschner
President & CEO

As High Country Club's CFO, Moorhead was responsible for the club's finances and supported Kirschner in the day-to-day operations of running the club.

Prior to joining the High Country Club team in 2005, Moorhead served as Controller at Evolving Systems, Inc., a publicly-traded telecommunications software provider, where he was in charge of all accounting functions including international consolidations, all SEC filings, and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Moorhead is a CPA and holds a B.B.A. in Accounting from the University of Northern Colorado.

By making annual dues payments via check, High Country Club will no longer have to pay high merchant fees for credit card processing, allowing the club to allocate more funds towards mission critical elements to their success plan.

Members will receive their new addendums less than one week from today. Signed addendums are due by that Friday. Over 75 percent of the High Country Club member base are required for the Success Plan to be implemented. Although they face an uphill road, High Country Club is making some difficult decisions that may allow their members to continue traveling and enjoy the club's portfolio of luxury vacation homes. By minimizing their overhead in both salary and ongoing costs, High Country Club has the highest opportunity to institute their success plan moving forward.

Original Article
High Country Club CFO Steps Down And Club Changes Annual Dues Payment