AUGUST 2025 NEWSLETTER

RRPOA Road Work

RRPOA will be doing some road work on Monday 8/25/25 and will have part of 4 wheel drive shutdown while we are working on this. We expect 4wheel drive to be closed for most of the day while we are working on the road. Below is a photo of the area that we are working on. The purpose of this work is to help get the flow of water off main grade by the s turn and have it flow in the ditch on the east side of main grade and go across 4 wheel drive, like it used to flow. We will be installing a culvert to have the water dump into the wet pond like it used to and not get backed up on 4 wheel drive. We will also be working on culverts for people’s driveways to ensure that we keep the water moving in the needed channels and not flooding out 4 wheel drive. We appreciate everyone who has been working on this with us. We hope that this will be a start to getting the water off main grade and help us get main grade in better shape for the membership.

River Ranch No Guest Calendar

On the no guest calendar, we inadvertently missed shading August 31, 2025 in red to indicate that it is a no guest date. The membership voted many years ago to make Labor Day weekend a no guest weekend. No guests will be allowed from Thursday August 28 thru Tuesday September 2nd. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.

RRPOA Road Signs

Earlier in the year Forestry had requested that RRPOA provide them with a better map with the name of the roads in the camping area and that we have signs put up. This was requested to help forestry personnel that may not be as familiar with RR be able to quickly come to a fire. Unfortunately through the years, roads have had multiple names and can become confusing when trying to describe where an emergency is at. That being said RRPOA will be placing signs for roads that intersect main grade and other areas deemed important. Below is a photo of the signs. They are a black background with reflective yellow lettering.

We are asking the membership to please leave these signs alone. Please do not steal or vandalize the signs that we are putting up.  What is pictured is actually the only signs that have made thus far. We need 30+ signs but have only been able to make the few that are pictured because of the cost to the club. Ms Sandy was asking if members would be interested in donating to have the additional signs put up for a camp road and that we would also put on the sign that it was donated by member number or camp number. We would also see if you would be able to keep an eye on said sign to make sure that no one steals them or vandalizes them. If you just want to donate and not put your camp number or member number that is fine as well. If you want to donate but not keep watch of the sign that is fine as well as we think that members of the fire prevention committee will keep watch of those signs. Those interested in donating for the additional signs please contact Ms Sandy by calling the front gate and choosing option 2.

RRPOA 2nd Quarter Project Update

We would like to provide an update of projects that RRPOA has worked on from June - August 2025. It is important to Ms. Sandy to communicate this to the membership as part of her commitment of trying to keep the membership better informed. Attached is a photo of what was presented at the August 2025 meeting giving a summary for what was done. We would like to give a brief description of each item and do apologize in advance for the lengthy post.

Cattle Gaps - We started working on the Cattle Gaps earlier this summer and do date we have replaced 5 of the 8 cattle gaps. To date there has only been one cow that has been completely jumping over the gaps and is supposed to be taken out of RR by the cowman. The total expense RRPOA has for the gaps is $2,408.87. The cowman has provided labor for each of the cattle gaps. We appreciate the volunteers that helped with designing the cattle caps and Kevin and the Cowmans crews for installing.

Water gates - We added water gates to strategic locations going from the camping area to the hunting area. These locations are trails that historically has a lot of water going through them and have a water gate that will lift to allow the water to flow under the gate. These were being placed to try to eliminate the need to replace fencing because of the water. Total cost for these gates are $772.90. We appreciate the volunteers that have helped design these gates and Kevin’s crew that installed them.

Road Repairs - A road committee was formed to help give ideas on how to make permanent fixes to keep water from staying on Main Grade. The last few weeks RRPOA has only been able to be in reaction mode for the roads and the weather has really prevented us from implementing some road improvements. That being said RR has purchased some culverts to be placed at 4 wheel drive and confusion corner to start. We expect to start on this around August 21st and will keep the membership updated. Once we can get some of the water flowing off main grade we will next work on building up the road with base material and grading with a crown. We have worked on getting stock piles of material in preparation of this as well. Total amount spent on the roads to date is $21,242.25. We would like to thank all the input from the Road Committee members.

Counterpoint - Our current point of sale system needs to be updated due to the Windows 11 upgrade. Our point of sale system has many unique customizations for keeping track of members that check in, guests that check in and generates the paperwork needed for memberships, along with just keeping track of sales. As computers go, since we are upgrading the software we also need to upgrade our server software as well. Currently we have lost part of our functionality because our current software is no longer compatible with QuickBooks because QB upgraded for the Windows 11. This upgrade will cost $13,098.88. Once the server software and counterpoint software is upgraded we will work on upgrading the computers to Windows 11 themselves and do not expect any expenses doing that upgrade. This upgrade is expected to take place during the week of 8/18/25.

Networking Shop - RRPOA pays a third party Computer/Network company to monitor our server backups, switches and internet. We pay a monthly fee for this and the equipment is included in this fee. We had a network cable run to the shop so that we can return the wireless access points and potentially reduce our monthly costs by $100 per month. There was no cost to run this cable as a volunteer did this. We would like to thank our volunteer for doing this.

Liability Insurance - We were able to reduce our liability insurance by $44,251.13. Our insurance runs from August to July, so for our current budget year that is a reduction of $28,159.81. This reduction was a result of being able to reduce our liability along with other changes that we made.

Garbage Truck - Using actual numbers, we have been able to save $18,818.00 using our garbage truck. This takes into consideration all the costs associated with the truck including actual fuel, insurance, truck payment and employee wages. Based on the data, we do note that there are no savings if we were just hauling trash from the front. If that was all we were doing then it would not make sense for us to do ourselves. We see the savings from using the truck to haul trash from the dump and to back haul road material or to just haul road material. This has provided substantial savings to RRPOA and is allowing us to do a better job keeping the dump clean and having road material stock piles.

We would like to thank all the many volunteers who have helped with each of these projects. There is still so much more to do and appreciate the membership understanding that it takes a little time to get things done. We are hoping to continue with our momentum so that we can continue to improve RR.