[Debconf-team] my "final" analysis of budget before today's meeting
Hi,
The budget is hotly debated before the meeting tomorrow. I think that
in a lot of ways, this is a proxy for other, unrelated issues about
venue selection. I would like to stay out of that argument, since we
need some somewhat objective data, and also I have a history of not
even going to DebConf. For a while, the le camp budget was a serious
concern, now, we can't really argue that le camp might bankrupt us.
Instead, the question is more about trade-offs.
There are all sorts of predictions for the amount of money we will
get, with most centered on 150% to 200% of DC12 amount (90 -- 120
kCHF). Most locals predict more, most longer term people predict
less. This is a bit unfortunate, since this is an example of the
"budget as proxy for le camp considerations" thing, and I hope that we
can minimize the effects of that.
Le camp won't bankrupt us. Even under the worst projections, we can
simply reduce the number of sponsored attendees, which reduces the
food cost. At worst case (not that it would be here), we could pay
only the forfait, and have a number of attendees trending to zero
and keep our expenses to the ~70000--80000 range. Clearly, this is
not a good since it mean spending a lot of money for not much gain.
On the other hand, there are other hand options on the table, which
have a smaller fixed cost (forfait, minimum number of people). There
is at least Interlaken, and Daniel may have even been investigating
other options more recently. Compared to le camp, these options have
been developed much less, so we know a lot less about the details.
However, this originally started as a proof of concept, to show that
there were options which costed similarly. These are just initial
quotes, and still have lots of room for shopping and negotiation. The
most powerful aspect of this option is the ability to continue to
negotiate down, and have other options to reduce the cost.
What is reasonably sure is that le camp will cost more per person at
all but the very highest occupancy levels, due to the forfait. For
all but the largest amounts of money (200 kCHF and more), Interlaken
will allow more sponsored attendees to come. For more typical values
of the sponsorship we will get, it is a significant difference. Ways
to minimize this difference would be to reduce the length of DebCamp,
to reduce the days we are paying for the whole camp without it being
full.
One method of solving the le camp money problems has been to attempt
to extract more income from attendees. While not specific to le camp,
it has been used to pad the budget and thus increase the number of
attendees. The desirability of this can be discussed both in a
venue-independent manner, and in the context of le camp.
~~~
Data:
le camp cost = 95 kCHF + 225 CHF * attendee_weeks
interlaken cost = 50 kCHF + 350 CHF * attendee_weeks
These are approximate, but get the point across. interlaken has the
potential for _both_ numbers to go down, le camp, not so much unless
attendees go to (practically nonexistant) other food services. The
equivalence point is around 360 person-weeks (camp+conf) and
independent of the venue-independent overhead costs. We are unlikely
to get this many person-weeks total.
The exact line-items do not matter too much beyond the above summary,
but maybe I can update the spreadsheet.
~~~~
So, in short, the question can't really be "can we afford le camp" but
instead "are the benefits of le camp worth the fewer number of
attendees, given the risk of limited money?" I hope the meeting
tomorrow can be productive.
I will be around tomorrow (I hope) but don't want to get too involved
in the debate itself, since it is not a good use of my time.
Thanks,
- Richard
p.s. As for the question "why change the venue if it was decided": I
purposely stayed out of selection. But I am under the impression that
le camp was selected due to the promise of large amounts of
sponsorship, early (before now). Since that hasn't come to fruition
before contracts need to be signed, it's reasonable to me to
reevaluate options. It is very typical for the exact plan to change.
--
| Richard Darst - rkd@ - pyke: up 6 days, 6:28
| http://rkd.zgib.net - pgp 0xBD356740
| "Ye shall know the truth and -- the truth shall make you free"
Reply to: