Hash Cash: An important elected position in the Hash House Harriers

All of the positions of management in any successful Hash House Harriers group/club/kennel are elected positions and every member gets to vote on who is going to hold the position. This is all done anonymously so that nobody gets their feeling hurt by a public debate and / or vote, and in the end the positions are mostly ceremonial because nobody gets paid anything and there aren't really any perks.

They are sought after positions though because the people that love doing the Hash, want to be as involved as possible and since the average age of our particular group is something like 127, it's not like they have anything else to do.

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The above picture is the Chicago Hash House Harriers and I went on a visiting run with them once a few years back. This club is really huge and you can imagine it would be because it's one of the largest cities in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Their fees for events are considerably higher than here in Chiang Mai, Thailand and this is because Chicago is an expensive city in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. I was extremely impressed with how well-run (pun intended) this group way. Every event with them costs around $20, and there was a limit on how many beers you were allotted at the end of a Hash run. In Chiang Mai, our normal weekly events cost around $5, and the beer is unlimited, but within reason.

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The role of Hash Cash is basically the job of being an accountant. The buses that we use to transport people to and from events, the beer we procure and the transport of that beer, the snacks, the water, and even the giant blocks of ice all have to be paid for and it is Hash Cash's job to ensure that we are operating at a break even point. We don't want to be making much money because this is not a for-profit business, but we also can't be losing any because this is also not a charity.

You will see them at every event normally sitting near the stand that is selling Hash merch, taking money and writing down everyone's Hash Name, with a little book that is a ledger. They need to balance the books at some point during the week and will make adjustments to the "entry fees" if it is determined that events are losing money.

We don't normally have a huge amount of spare money or "nest egg" from taking in more money than we actually spend, but when we do we will use it to do some sort of charitable project such as providing food and clothing to the poor hill tribes around Chiang Mai.

Our objective is never to enrich ourselves but just like any organization, we have to pay our expenses and that job to ensure that this ends up being the case falls squarely on the head of the Hash Cash. Any major adjustments to prices has to first be approved by the General Manager (GM) and there are meetings every month where the elected officials get together, drink beer, laugh, and do a little business at the same time.

While this is in no way official, it does appear as though if someone wants to rise in the ranks to be GM, our highest honor, they seem to go through on the path via the "Hash Cash" position. It's kind of like being a governor of a state and then deciding to run for President. It just kind of seems to work that way.

I have been Hash Cash once. It isn't a tough job here in Chiang Mai because our regulars are well-known and are very familiar with the process. The only important thing and actually kind of tough, is to get the loonies to form an organized line and not just swamp me all at once when I am writing down people's names and how much they have paid. Nobody gets credit with the Hash Cash - this is one of the only rules: If for whatever stupidy-head reason you forgot to bring money, you have to borrow it from another member and pay cash on the day. That way we don't have a bunch of IOU's and tabs for people to pay because that would make the job a lot harder.

You hold the position for a year and when you do, it is a committment because you will be expected to be at every single weekly event, even if you are not feeling well. Someone could no doubt fill in for you if you couldn't make it for some truly important reason, and this is why there are standards as far as entries into the ledger is concerned. In that regard it is really similar to programming or professional accounting because the next guy has to be capable of understand what was going on before they came into the picture.

For an outside observer, the Hash, all of them and especially ours, seems like a bunch of mostly middle-aged men who get together and act silly then drink beer, but every successful Hash chapter around the world actually has a serious side, and this is very important to whether or not the Hash group can actually stick around.

So if you see a guy in a chair at an event, that is probably the Hash Cash . so head to him or her and don't make them chase you down for payment - it makes their job so much easier!

We are still doing runs at least 3x weekly and all are welcome to join. Check out our upcoming schedule at our official and poorly made website

On On!