Re: [Debconf-team] le camp budget...
Hi Richard
Thanks for your budget. Just two notes:
- The minimum price is not per week but for the whole event. So we can
use the nights we don't use during DebCamp for DebConf. This
significantly reduces the costs.
- Our budget calculates with 34.- CHF per meal as Le Camp already agreed
to that option. This means a cold buffet (not only sandwiches) for
lunch.
Gaudenz
Richard Darst <rkd@zgib.net> writes:
> Hi,
>
> This email is to state my thoughts on the proposed Le Camp
> reservation, more directly. I am looking over this with a critical
> eye, trying to ensure solvency. Thus, I am not relying on faith so
> much here, but provide "global team / debian oversight". It rightly
> seems more critical than other analyzes, but that is the point. I
> expect my criticism to be criticized to produce a new recommendation
> soon.
>
> First off, I went off of a Le Camp budget found in
> debconf-team/dc13/finance/budget_dc13_draft1_lecamp.pdf . I have
> tried to follow list discussions, too.
>
> Since I can't seem to find an editable version of the budget
> spreadsheet in any repo (!), I made my own. This also allowed me to
> play with the numbers, and better separate *required* costs from
> optional ones. I have concentrated on required costs here, lots of
> small expenses aren't important now. Regardless, we can assume at
> least +/- 20 kCHF uncertainty in both incomes and expenses now, it's
> not worth worrying about small things. It is available in svn at
> http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debconf-data/dc13/accounting/budget-darst.ods?view=co
>
>
>
> Here is my summary of the biggest things. In brackets is a comparison
> with the local team budget. I can't check the math of the localteam
> budget, since I don't seem to have the spreadsheet anymore...
>
> Basic:
> DebCamp attendees: 100
> DebConf attendees: 300
> Person-days: 3100
>
> Expenses:
>
> Accommodation 73200 [I can't see how to get as low as the
> spreadsheet while including the minimum cost of exclusive debcamp]
> Food 87700 [My number excludes first/last days, day trip
> day; doesn't reduce other days since le camp is not budging here.]
> Travel sponsorship 0 [See below]
> Other 30000 [Giving up most everything non-essential, this
> could be lowered to half or so.]
>
> Total expenses:190000 [my spreadsheet says more like 245000 for
> everything we want...]
>
>
> Incomes, on an optimistic view:
>
> Sponsors 85000 [Using secure estimates of # b/s/g/p sponsors.
> Their addition said 105000, so I am missing 20 kCHF somewhere]
> [A more liberal estimate put this at 125 kCHF.
> But we should see evidence of much more
> successful fundraising before using this larger
> number in the budget. The figure here is
> already a lot more than was raised in the last
> few years.]
>
> Attendee fees: 22000 [In line with previous years. Local team
> estimates assumes 50% more 50% more profs than the last two years,
> unrealistic number of corps, and fees above what are normally
> charged. #prof has previously been relatively constant, because these
> people are more likely to be be able to attend than those who pay
> themselves and go during holidays; this also overestimates # corp of
> the last few years. We also know that some previous prof/corp
> attendees won't come to Le Camp, so the numbers could be lower than in
> the past.]
> Donations 5000
>
>
> Total incomes: 112000
>
> [A sponsorship figure of +40 kCHF greater, as seen on IRC yesterday,
> includes 40 kCHF of basically "guarantees" "to be repaid once all
> costs are covered (excluding travel sponsorship). However, since this
> is supposed to be repaid, it isn't really "sponsorship", or income, it
> basically helps solve a short-term cash flow problem. I don't include
> it here. If we use that, it means there can be no travel sponsorship]
>
> So, thus far on a rather optimistic view and leaving out anything we
> could possibly do without, this is a minimum *deficit* of 78 kCHF even
> if we skip travel sponsorship etc. That is a lot. With 360
> attendees, deficit goes up by 30kCHF or so.
>
>
>
> Discussion:
>
> - I don't include travel sponsorship above. With the planned 30
> -kCHF. With that, the minimum deficit increases to 108 kCHF.
>
> - (idea 1) There was a proposal to reduce costs by shortening. In
> -order to do that, we can not sign the current contract since it
> -precludes shortening... And Le Camp asserted that this would
> -increase each cost per item.
>
> - (idea 2) Reduce cost by charging attendees for food. This wasn't
> -seen too positively. If attendees eat their own food, we will still
> -have, we will still have to pay le camp [as part of their contract],
> -so at best this still leaves us with cashflow problems. At worst,
> -this becomes a mandatory 40 CHF/day registration fee.
>
> - (idea 3) Bed upselling / reducing accom cost. Bed upselling is part
> of already there as a separate income. Local team had assumed 6.5
> kCHF. Historically, this has been part of "professional". We don't
> know how popular this would be.
>
> - (idea 4) Reduce accom cost. (?)
>
> - "Bar profit": previous pdf assumes 5 kCHF. Not sure what the basis
> for that is...
>
> - This is using the cheaper lunch option [cold buffet, every day],
> saving 15 kCHF or so.
>
> - With my calculations, reducing to 50 DebCamp attendees and 150
> DebConf attendees (but somehow keeping the same number prof/corp
> attendees) about balances thisgs (5 kCHF surplus). This means, with
> optimistic fundraising, we can provide sufficient travel sponsorship.
> However, people have hoped that this would be a big DebConf.
>
> - If we have on the order of 200 professional attendees (conf+camp
> prof attendee counts as two), that would also get the budget very
> close to balanced. Remember: this assumes a professional fee greater
> more than the standard raw cost per attendee-week, and quite a bit
> more than the past two years.
>
> - Even assuming 125000 sponsorship income (optimistic estimate) leaves
> us with a major deficit when included travel sponsorship.
>
>
>
> To Do / Recommendation:
>
> I have put this budget spreadsheet in svn. I encourage peer review
> and people to send me updates. People can look it over and correct
> any assumptions I have made, and I will re-issue and updated one, with
> updated discussion.
>
> We don't have to sign the Le Camp contract for ~ 4 weeks, according to
> latest IRC estimates. This gives us time to see how well the
> fundraising estimates work out. If it goes much better than normal
> and we find a lot of first-time sponsors, we can see again.
> Otherwise, we need to find another plan.
>
> I don't see room for travel sponsorship as-is now. "anonymous 40
> kCHF" money would go to filling budget deficit, any additional
> sponsorship would offset that but not contribute to travel sponsorship
> (since anonymous money is decreased). It would take more than 108
> kCHF extra fundraising to provide 30 kCHF travel sponsorship.
>
> My recommendation basically goes with what I said in
> [🔎] 20121022132047.GT513@pyke.zgib.net -- I firmly recommend *not* to sign
> the contract yet. A contract at this point would remove our usual
> ability to cut significant costs later, so DebConf13 would generate a
> hard deficit, as opposed to a soft one in past years that we solved by
> aggressive cost cutting close to the conference. Sort of like we had
> thought earlier in the year, I think we shouldn't sign a contract
> until we agree on how to fund it... and we can't definitely say we are
> there yet.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Richard
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> | Richard Darst - rkd@ - pyke: up 33 days, 18:04
> | http://rkd.zgib.net - pgp 0xBD356740
> | "Ye shall know the truth and -- the truth shall make you free"
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