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

[Rick Riolo]

Roger,
Thanks for the feedback and ideas.

I wasn't on the board last year, so I don't
know what the arrangements were for prior SDGs.

It is early relative to other SwarmFest CFP's,
but from other things i have done, its very late,
so i am getting nervous.  (just chalk it up to my
personal foibles...)  I think giving more lead
time will help get better presentations and
help with attendence (by not having people
fill their calenders).

I did hear from SteveR and he is supportive of SDG
agreeing to cover any possible losses (with the
chance for a profit, as you noted).
So if we get a few more people on the committee,
its likely to pass a vote of the SDG.

I booked one lunch because
a) its what was done last year
b) it gives visitors a chance to samply a2 lunch spots

I will draft a CFP and circulate that, and I'll try
to work in the ideas you have below.
I'd be happy to contact Mike North about a toolkit
session on sunday afternoon.   Who else might we invite?
Netlogo and StarLogo folks, I suppose.  Do any of
you know them? Are there still Ascape people active?   
Any other relevant toolkits?

We can think about live entertainment I guess,
if we think we can afford it.  As i understand it,
last year the reception also sort of doubled as
a poster session, yes?  So maybe that would be a conflict?

- 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 Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Burkhart Roger M wrote:

> Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 08:58:58 -0600
> From: Burkhart Roger M <address@hidden>
> To: Rick Riolo <address@hidden>
> Cc: swarmfest 2004 organizing committee <address@hidden>
> Subject: RE: [SwarmFest2004] swarmfest04 -- Budget estimates --- **Please
>     respond**
> 
> No other response back yet from Rick's message despite his
> call for urgency...
> 
> I never heard back from my own question as to whether or not
> SDG had ever offered to cover the risk of putting on a SwarmFest
> for anyone else, but since I don't remember ever being asked to
> vote on it I assume not, which means that the host presumably
> assumed any risk.  But the way budgets have moved in nearly
> every state-supported university I hear about the last couple
> years makes it perfectly understandable that UMich budgets
> not be able to take on the risk.  Personally, I think offering
> SDG funds to cover any risk based on numbers of attendees,
> while keeping SwarmFest registration fees and categories where
> they've been, is an appropriate use of SDG funds, and I would
> vote in favor. Your suggested amount of up to $3000 to cover
> fixed costs, which would need to be covered only if attendee
> numbers failed to materialize, fits well within SDG capacity
> especially since we haven't been spending money on anything else.
> 
> Does anyone else have any opinions before we should take this
> over to the SDG directors list to ask for a vote?  (This list
> alone has a majority of the board so we might as well have
> a consensus here first.)  Unfortunately, I'm going to be out
> of email contact for close to a week after today, so if Rick
> or anyone wants to go ahead and issue a call for vote so Rick
> can get out his CFP, please feel free to go ahead and count
> me as a supporter even if my vote comes toward the end of
> the open voting period.  If Rick has a clear enough consensus
> prior to the final formalities of the vote perhaps that can
> also be enough to go ahead with the call.  Perhaps we could
> make this a request of the organizing committee that just
> needs to be confirmed by the board.
> 
> With the May date I think that this CFP will still make it out
> further ahead of time than any other that I recall.  We should
> give some thought about how to promote the event this year,
> and perhaps the wording to put in the CFP.  I think it would
> be good to emphasize our interest in attracting all cross
> sections of the ABM community on either applications or tools.
> Separate from the CFP we may also want to contact other toolkit
> developers to see if they would be interested in gathering for
> some additional discussions on toolkit directions, perhaps on
> Sunday when the tutorial is going on, similar to what Michael
> North has organized at the Agent 200x conferences in Chicago
> in the fall.  This year's SwarmFest could be well-timed to get
> a read on any new toolkit development directions, especially
> given the shift in RePast support and new toolkits like Mason
> (or any others I haven't heard about yet) popping up.
> 
> On the fine detail of the budget, once we feel we're past any
> risk threshhold, one more budget category we've occasionally
> spent in the past is for live entertainment (of various
> eclectic kinds) at the opening reception or at dinner.  I don't
> know what the logistics for lunch may be, but paying the $720
> for lunch one day but not the other may not be necessary (unless
> this was just for tutorial attendees).
> 
> --Roger
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rick Riolo [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 8:38 AM
> To: Burkhart Roger M
> Cc: swarmfest 2004 organizing committee
> Subject: RE: [SwarmFest2004] swarmfest04 -- Budget estimates ---
> **Please respond**
> 
> 
> 
> 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
> 
> 
>