RE: [SwarmFest2004] swarmfest04 -- Budget estimates --- **Please respond**

[Rick Riolo]

Hi All,

Roger, thanks for your comments.

I want to get directly to finances, since that is key
before i go ahead and invite a keynote and post a CFP.

Roger asked about expectations, eg based on last year.
In short, registration fees did cover the basic costs,
and in fact i guess there was a little profit.

One message i received (from greg or jim, i forget who):

Attendance:  83
  Swarm Conference fee collected:  $8,834.00
  Expenses:   $6,325.00
  Balance deposited to WF savings: $1925.00 + $584
  Additional Contribution: $6637 (keynote speaker, more?)
  Tutorial: Earned $920.
We received a spreadsheet with registration info and it showed:
The breakdown is 54 paid, 28 free:
     Amt   #
   $  25   2
      50   6
      75   2
     100  13
     125   6
     150   2
     175   3
     200   5
     225   8
     250   1
     300   5
     325   1
       0  28  -- mostly ND students
  $ 8250  82
I'm not sure why the amount sent in a msg (see above) is more.
I also don't know how many actually attended the dinner (which
would affect the cost a lot), e.g., did the free attendees (students)
from ND get to go to the dinner?

Just to remind you, these fees are from this pricing structure:
$  0  for SDG group members !!
$ 50  off for indivdiual members (of any type):
$300  -- corporate and government
$200  -- academic
$100  -- student
$ 50  -- tutorial (could be 2 people)
Add $25 for registration after XXX.

Anyway, Here are estimated expenses for this year @um:

So for 60 people:
$ 1200  reception
$ 1600  breaks (2 days)
$ 1500  dinner (1 day)
$  720  lunch (1 day)
$  640  rooms (sun evening, mon, tues) -- maybe $0
------
$ 5660
$ 1800  keynote   (could be less, depend on flight costs)
------
$ 7460
$  250  tutorial refreshments
------
  7710

If we get 80 (1/3) more people, add about $1500.

Our fixed costs are keynote and rooms, approx $2400.
The rest are (somewhat) adjustable based on attendance,
since they are all food related.

So...

I don't know how to estimate the risk to SDG if it has
to cover expenses, perhaps $2000-3000 i suppose is a reasonable
max estimate.  

If we get the number/distribution of paying attendees as we
got last year, we earn about $8200.
Our costs are $7700-9200, depending on total attendence
and free attendence (and whether they get dinners and lunch).

***Please*** 
let me know your reactions to this (or a confirmation of "no reaction"!).
I want to get the CFP *really soon*, but I can't do that
until I know that SDG will cover the deficit, if there is one.
So I'd like your reactions and then I'd like take this
to the SDG board (or i guess roger could, if he would...)
and get a vote on the potential deficit issue.

Thanks,

- r


-- 
Rick Riolo                           address@hidden
Center for the Study of Complex Systems (CSCS)
4477 Randall Lab                
University of Michigan         Ann Arbor MI 48109-1120
Phone: 734 763 3323                  Fax: 734 763 9267
http://cscs.umich.edu/~rlr

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003, Burkhart Roger M wrote:

> Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 17:13:53 -0600
> From: Burkhart Roger M <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: RE: [SwarmFest2004] swarmfest04 -- Budget estimates and related
>     issues
> 
> In response to Rick's message:

...snip...
> 
> Seems reasonable to me.
> 
> > *** Note Well ***
> > CSCS will not be able to put in large amounts of $ as Notre Dame did last
> > year.   We can provide organizational work, materials, etc.
> 
> Perhaps Greg can help fill in, but leaving aside the keynote
> that was covered by a broader departmental account, did the event
> cover its own direct expenses?
> 
> > So...we (CSCS) have to have some commitment from SDG that
> > if revenue is substantially below income, that SDG will use
> > its funds to make the difference.
> > (CSCS could cover a few hundred dollars, if it was that's all it was,
> > but UM has taken 2 $ reduction-in-State-support in this fiscal year in
> > support (6%, now 3% more!) and that has been passed on to CSCS, so things
> > are very very tight here, alas.)
> 
> Given that the biggest risk is likely to be attendance, the
> ability to scale the costs based on final registrations may
> help somewhat.  Since putting on SDG is one of the few things
> the formal organization does anymore it seems appropriate to me
> to consider SDG funds.  Can anyone indicate whether we provided
> any option to fall back on this for the most recent two SwarmFests
> at Washington and Notre Dame?  
> 
> > Should I send a message to the SDG to ask for a vote on that?
> 
> We should probably pin down the budget amounts a bit more here
> first.  How close do you think we could come in arriving at a
> maximum amount to be covered if registrations were to fall short?
> 
> --Roger
> 
> 
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