[Hartwood] Financial matter: Fwd: [SCA-Exchequers] Digest Number 1597

[doerksen at island.net]

I thought this might be of interest, as it touches on events, budgets,  
and financial committees.

Halima
-- 
http://www.island.net/~doerksen/

----- Forwarded message from SCA-Exchequers at yahoogroups.com -----
     Date: 29 Aug 2011 07:42:15 -0000
     From: SCA-Exchequers at yahoogroups.com

There are 6 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1a. Financial Policy
     From: Susan Valenta
1b. Re: Financial Policy
     From: Bradley Wolf
1c. Re: Financial Policy
     From: Carolyn Richardson
1d. Re: Financial Policy
     From: jim_hannold
1e. Re: Financial Policy
     From: Chief Timotheus
1f. Re: Financial Policy
     From: Ann Wisnieski


Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Financial Policy
     Posted by: "Susan Valenta" svalenta at ameritech.net svalenta at ameritech.net
     Date: Sun Aug 28, 2011 12:17 pm ((PDT))

Greetings!

      I am in the process of putting together a new Financial Policy for our
small canton.  In the spring, several of you were very helpful in  
sharing ideas
regarding the initial areas being considered.  I am now looking at event
budgeting and expenses.  Our canton has previously experienced  
problems  in this
area, and I am hoping to eliminate future difficulties by including clear
guidelines and procedures.


      We have had a situation in which the Event Autocrat could or would not
submit a budget for the event, up until 3 weeks prior to the event.  In the
meantime, they had published feast and gate fees in the Pale.  I am wondering
whether requiring receipt and approval of the budget, prior to any information
being sent to the Pale or any expenses incurred, would be sufficient;  
or do some
groups have a set deadline?


      I am also considering making it standard for the Exchequer to provide the
Autocrat with a 5-year record of previous event attendance, income, and
expenses, as well as a copy of the event pricing guidelines spelled out in the
Exchequers' Handbook, to help him or her to put together a reasonable and
workable budget.  Some Autocrats don't seem to know where to start in  
developing
a budget.  Often Autocrats begin by setting feast and gate fees, often
conservative, and then manipulate their other estimates to make this look good
on paper.  Sometimes this can work out, sometimes not.  Have any of  
you had some
of these problems, and how have you overcome them?

      I would appreciate any of your comments or suggestions.

Yours truly,


Lady Clare of Monkeswell


Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Financial Policy
     Posted by: "Bradley Wolf" idahobrad at cableone.net idahobrad01
     Date: Sun Aug 28, 2011 2:41 pm ((PDT))

We have a requirement that the budget must be signed off before the event
approval form will be signed off.

-b

Baron K. Braden von Sobernheim, OL,OP,GA 

Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Financial Policy
     Posted by: "Carolyn Richardson" tetchubah at gmail.com tetchubah
     Date: Sun Aug 28, 2011 5:31 pm ((PDT))

I would recommend having any autocrat submit a proposed budget when they ask
for the job of hosting the event.  While that may be months in advance - and
should be -  that gives both you and the Seneschal an idea of where they are
heading with the event, such as the site they're proposing to use,
activities for the day, etc.    I started tracking in a spreadsheet our
events from year to year, just entering some of the basic information which
might be useful to know at my fingertips like # of attendees, gate income,
any other income like fundraisers at the event, site cost, etc.  That way if
someone wanted some guidelines on a budget for a normal event I could tell
them pretty easily.



I know several groups here keep notebooks for their annual events with
details like that for future event stewards to refer to.  They're charged
with updating it for their event.



It seems to me if the autocrat has already submitted information to the
Pale, they should be able to get you a budget if you ask for one.  Otherwise
how do they know what the site fee or feast fee is going to be?  They at
least have it in their head and should commit it to paper.



I had one event steward drive me crazy because he never said a word about
the event until a week beforehand, when he wanted a check for $150 for a
portapottie.  I was annoyed since it was the first time he'd mentioned the
event would need one, and he'd set the site fee at $7/head, but $5 of that
had to be paid over to the archery range where they were having the event
for every person shooting, which meant that left only $2/person to cover
expenses.  The event rarely had more than 40-50 people at it in prior years,
and most of them were archers.  Some last minute publicity on his part
managed to just cover his expenses by bringing in more non-archers, but as
that was about the 3rd time he'd pulled something like that it was also the
last time I agreed to let him run an event.



Tetchubah



Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Financial Policy
     Posted by: "jim_hannold" jim_hannold at yahoo.com jim_hannold
     Date: Sun Aug 28, 2011 6:22 pm ((PDT))

We have a specific budget already set for our Autocrats. Our Financial  
Committee (in our case, that's all paid members of the group present  
at a business meeting) is required to approve all event bids. For  
example, for our spring event, we take the average attendance of the  
last 3 spring weekend events and that's the estimated attendance. It's  
written into our Financial Policy that the Autocrat gets $1.50 per  
person for a weekend event, based on that estimated attendance number  
and that's their budget. If they need to go over, it has to be brought  
to a vote of the Financial Committee ahead of time or else they will  
not get reimbursed for any overage. We do the same with the Feastocrat  
based on the number of feast spots they are providing for.

We have a handbook for the Autocrat that has an Excel spreadsheet that  
takes the calculated expected attendance, Autocrat budget, Feast  
budget, and site fees, and calculates all of the gate fees. The  
Autocrat is required to bring that completed spreadsheet to a vote of  
the Financial Committee along with their flyer, theme, feast plan,  
etc. If they are missing anything, then there is no vote, and thus the  
person does not get the bid.

That way the Autocrat MUST give us a budget before their bid is ever approved.

YIS
THL Jakob
Reeve, Barony of Grey Niche


Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: Financial Policy
     Posted by: "Chief Timotheus" chieftimotheus at gmail.com chieftimotheus
     Date: Sun Aug 28, 2011 7:16 pm ((PDT))

Greetings Lady Clare

In the Barony of Altavia we require that the budget be approved by the
finance committee before the add is sent to the Crown Prints. First
add is four months out. You must have the budget determine the gate
fees.


We also run a 7 year total attendance and an average.  We use the
average to determine attendance. We then base all figuring off the
average- add up expected  normal expences, figure your income from
attendance, and you can figure your gate fees.



as well as a copy of the event pricing guidelines spelled out in
> the
> Exchequers' Handbook, to help him or her to put together a reasonable and
> workable budget.  Some Autocrats don't seem to know where to start in
> developing
> a budget.  Often Autocrats begin by setting feast and gate fees, often
> conservative, and then manipulate their other estimates to make this look
> good
> on paper.  Sometimes this can work out, sometimes not.  Have any of you had
> some
> of these problems, and how have you overcome them?
>


If you have done the above you will then be able to set gate.  IF you
have other things happening at the event then you put those expences
at the expence portion and refigure your worksheet.

IF you need a copy of a good budget work sheet let me know. ( I have
sent copies of Altavian Exchequer paperwork to many groups and it has
helped.)

Yours,

Master Timotheus


Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
1f. Re: Financial Policy
     Posted by: "Ann Wisnieski" ann.wisnieski at gmail.com dulcia at ameritech.net
     Date: Sun Aug 28, 2011 7:23 pm ((PDT))

Hi All,

Our Barony has many events each year, and all have to be submitted by bid to
the officers at least six months prior to the event or the event will be
canceled.

We have a couple of autocrat and feast  checklists online for
people to use for the bid (I also have an exchequer checklist but that is
not available online yet). If it is one of our big events we like to pair
people up with a person who has run a large event before to cover any
problems.

If there are any overruns on the event bid, for example if a feast
went over the amount allotted, the payment is then discussed by the
officers. We have never turned anybody down about feasts (things happen),
but it does help to talk about the situation and how to prevent it in future
events.

If a payment is submitted that was not spelled out in the bid that
discussion will go to the officers, for example they buy 20 tiki torches and
the Barony already has 100, this may very well be rejected.

We also have
people tell us who are comped for an event and if it is outside our normal
grouping (Baron, baroness, king, queen, prince, princess, one retainer each
for royalty) the comp must be with the permission of the officers.

To submit
a bid the minimum information we require: autocrat, feast coordinator,
gatekeeper, location, date, amount for rent, feast, other misc payments and
cost per head.

We also request a complete event bid if we don't get one,
then it will not be voted on. We were having a problem for a while about
people getting signed up for an event that were never asked, so now we ask
for a signature for each of the spots on the event roster.

I have also just gone through our paperwork for the last 10 years and I have
a large spread sheet with all of our events. This shows attendance (adults
and youth), how much was made or lost for the event and feast, and an
itemized list of expenses. It has already come to be very handy.
We try to price our events so we break even, to making a modest income (we
need to cover rent at our meeting place.) The autocrats normally put a bid
in with low attendance numbers to cover the worse an event has made and if
there are extra people then that's a bonus. We make sure the event sites can
hold traditionally high numbers just in case we get a lot more people than
expected. This has really worked out for us in the past.

Ann Wisnieski
Dulcia Wylde
Barony of the Cleftlands
Middle Kingdom


On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 9:22 PM, jim_hannold <jim_hannold at yahoo.com> wrote:

> **
>
>
> We have a specific budget already set for our Autocrats. Our Financial
> Committee (in our case, that's all paid members of the group present at a
> business meeting) is required to approve all event bids. For example, for
> our spring event, we take the average attendance of the last 3 spring
> weekend events and that's the estimated attendance. It's written into our
> Financial Policy that the Autocrat gets $1.50 per person for a weekend
> event, based on that estimated attendance number and that's their budget. If
> they need to go over, it has to be brought to a vote of the Financial
> Committee ahead of time or else they will not get reimbursed for any
> overage. We do the same with the Feastocrat based on the number of feast
> spots they are providing for.
>
> We have a handbook for the Autocrat that has an Excel spreadsheet that
> takes the calculated expected attendance, Autocrat budget, Feast budget, and
> site fees, and calculates all of the gate fees. The Autocrat is required to
> bring that completed spreadsheet to a vote of the Financial Committee along
> with their flyer, theme, feast plan, etc. If they are missing anything, then
> there is no vote, and thus the person does not get the bid.
>
> That way the Autocrat MUST give us a budget before their bid is ever
> approved.
>
> YIS
> THL Jakob
> Reeve, Barony of Grey Niche
>

Messages in this topic (12)

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