Thanks Mark, the reply is greatly appreciated. I understand that it was an innocent misunderstanding and I hope my initial reaction doesn't overshadow the fact that I really do appreciate what you're trying to do.
The more informed and proactive the membership is about our financials, the easier my job is. I'd rather be a humble bookkeeper who facilitates informed spending than a tyrant who has to dictate it. After all, half of this discussion would have been avoided had I just printed off a proper cash-flow report to go with the handouts at the last meeting! I'm going to bring more comprehensive monthly reports to the membership through meetings and through the soon to be active financial mailing list. This is long overdue and I apologize for the delay. In the meantime, I'll happily provide the requested statistics and any others that might be required of your budget team. Also, feel free to count me in on your strike-force if you meet or need anything done. - Jay Ps. I'm going to have to remember when to use "Jelly Bean counters" vs "Bike-shed-ers" when considering crowdsourcing. That's a great comparison. On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 3:03 PM, Mark Jenkins <m...@parit.ca> wrote: > However, intentionally causing panic to solicit better information from >> me? >> > > I regret it if I implyied this -- my first post was never an intent to > solicit information from Jay personally or to send others after Jay in a > wave for the same. I wasn't even thinking of Jay in the first post, which > was really the most careless part of it for which an apology is due. > > There's a lot of people here who have a lot in in their heads that needs > to be dumped, pooled, and congealed -- I'm trying to crack those quiet > heads open. > > I failed to consider that the attempt to solicit broadly could bring up a > disproportionate burden for Jay as the keeper of the historical records to > answer questions. > > What members can start working on now is not so much spending much time > studying the known historical stuff (a burden that largely falls on Jay as > bookkeeper to extract in a suitable form) but to try to develop better > estimates about our future electricity and gas use and the future trends in > membership numbers. (that last point is informed by the past but pretty > speculative for the future as well) > > It was a mistake on my own part to imply in the second big post that I was > intentionally causing panic. The intent with "release early, release often" > was to spur detailed discussion -- I did have in mind the awareness that > panic to follow was a possibility over a certainty -- so not a full on > mallicous intent for panic. > > Knowing that, I should have made a larger effort to say, "but, don't panic > folks, this is version 0.1, we can make it better, please help out" -- so > again for lack of appropriate effort there I'm sorry. > > I must concede, there was one mallicous component to the first post -- > with respect to the rent I was trying to move us beyond the "keep it in > your heads" situation by posting my best guess in the hopes that a > non-board member in the know would reply publically saying that's the wrong > number and make it public already. > > I still wish the rent figure could be outed in public and we could drop > this whole thing of seeing it as a important secret to keep. But I realize > this isn't going to happen, so I dropped it in version 0.2. I'm not a nice > guy for trying to out it, but I'm nice enough to stop now. > (I would still like to post it on the wall inside the space, even with a > members only financial mailing list I still think its good to have this > information available to members in an "in your face, you didn't ask for it > or sign up for it or show up for it" kind of way. Aggressive push.) > > Personally I'm still a little bit panicked. I've adjusted some of the > figures with some feedback I recieved off list and even though the numbers > are cash flow positive again it's not in my judgement by a lot. > (this may make the assumed loan hard to get from a bank, as banks want to > see you can not only pay them and have much more to spare). > > I'm not convinced that we can do well with the status quo + renovations + > new operating costs -- I think something is going to have to change. > (but don't panic folks, study the full information as it comes out and > decide for yourselves!) > > Our discretionary spending may not have to go to zero but to me it still > looks like it's going to be very low with all of the assumptions stated, > revised, challanged, and unchallanged so far. > (I should put a line in for cleaning and bathroom supplies given that they > aren't a discretionary expense :] ) > > I hope to hear more of the assumptions from the posted projections > challanged and debated by the members broadly, sooner rather than later. > > Doing this as a broad committee of everyone to guess how much electricity > and gas we're going to use and how well the member counts will evolve is no > bikeshed -- these are specific, focused topics whoes final form is just a > number [not a multi-demensional structure with many ways it can be built] > and these numbers are critical to try and anticipate before we sign on to a > new deal. > > In the end, we can't just accept any new offer made to us, we have to walk > away if it's just too bad -- regardless of how costs per square foot > compare elsewhere [higher in some places, lower in others], we always have > the choice of moving to another place where the actual final costs are > lower. (by calibrating the size of space and location of space to what we > can afford -- there are spaces we can afford) > > Jay, I hope in the end that as our financial officer you'll not only end > up with a lot of work (inivitable burden that we all should appreciate), > but also be saved some work by some wisdom of the crowd coming forth with > good information. (instead of just being a stupidity of crowds situation.) > > Isn't it the case that crowds are really good at guessing how many jelly > beans are in a jar? (and bad at actual decisions, such as those that would > go into building a shed) > > By this I mean, a crowd approach can be useful come up with accurate > budget numbers, but are not neccessarilly well equiped to judge risk/reward > implied by the bottom line (go for it or not?). And if it is a no-go, a > crowd may not be well equiped to make the hard decisions of change to move > the numbers to a comfortable place > (e.g., raise membership dues, moving to a new location, severe rationing > of gas and electricity policy, etc...) > > So, let's indeed have a full-on bikeshed to guess the number of jelly > beans left in the jar under the assumption of the status quo + new > operating costs + renovations and try to put off the possibility of harder > stuff that could come thereafter. > > > Mark > > ______________________________**_________________ > SkullSpace Discuss Mailing List > Help: > http://www.skullspace.ca/wiki/**index.php/Mailing_List#Discuss<http://www.skullspace.ca/wiki/index.php/Mailing_List#Discuss> > Archive: > https://groups.google.com/**group/skullspace-discuss-**archive/<https://groups.google.com/group/skullspace-discuss-archive/> >
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