Re: [Debconf-team] Volunteering tasks, report back
On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 10:47 AM, Philip Hands <phil@hands.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:05:52 -0400, Gabriella Coleman <biella@nyu.edu> wrote:
>> Finally, we will have a second front desk by the Computer Science
>> Department entrance. Once I find out the hours and other logistics, I
>> will start a wiki for staffing that area. I am somewhat concerned that
>> we won't be able to find enough volunteers for a second front desk. Any
>> suggestions as to how we can recruit even more volunteers would be
>> appreciated.
>
> In an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, how about making that
> into the "Merchandise Desk", and allowing people to sell T-shirts and
> stickers and the like, with the profit largely going to DebConf funds.
>
> That gives people who volunteer for the task a reason to be there beyond
> the absurd-doorman role, since they'll know they're directly benefiting
> DebConf, and it will give people a reason to go there, so the volunteers
> will get to meet loads of people and have a chat too.
>
> Also, anyone with stuff to sell will be a soft target for volunteering,
> and can be persuaded to recruit volunteers for us if they don't fancy
> sitting there themselves.
>
> Given that we know how many items we start with, and the selling price,
> I don't see that there should be much of a problem with trust about
> handling money, but then again, having done similar stuff with almost total
> strangers manning the stands at UK Debian conferences, where we'd often
> take several thousands of pounds, and have it around the place in cash,
> I'm confident that this is not something we should be concerning
> ourselves with too much -- this is not a normal crowd of people, and we
> can take advantage of that.
>
> I'm happy to _own_ this problem, if anyone else is paranoid about there
> being problems -- to the extent that I'll offer to reimburse anyone that
> feels ripped off at the end of the week out of my own pocket. That's
> how confident that I am that there will be no problems.
Thanks Phil, selling t-shirts has been discussed in the past by the
sponsorship/local team with the consensus being something along the
lines of "it's not a surefire way to raise enough cash to make this
absolutely mandatory, but if someone wants to take ownership of it,
it's not a bad idea."
Since you are willing to take ownership of it, I personally support
your pursuit of this enterprise, and suspect that there would be
minimal opposition.
That said, I can't recall if we ordered enough swag to sell.
-Brian
> Cheers, Phil.
> --
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