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 <[email protected]> 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 > [email protected] -- 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" > _______________________________________________ > Debconf-team mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team -- Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. ~ Samuel Beckett ~ _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list [email protected] http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
