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Hi everyone,<br>
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I apologize that I missed yesterday's meeting. Kathy let me know
that the EOB has a traditional policy of wanting to approve
conference budget expenditures if they exceed 10% of the
approved budget cost. As it turns out, the room rental fees are
higher than expected, currently at about $4,250. Negotiating
with this hotel has been different than in previous years, as
they're not as used to hosting conference as most of the other
venues that have hosted the conference in the past. We
anticipate having a contract done sometime next week.<br>
<br>
In light of this, and now being aware of the the policy on
budget overruns, I wanted to present a slightly revised budget.
The idea behind these revisions is to take away some of the
elements that have made previous conference budgets somewhat
stressful, namely the food & beverage minimum. I'm much more
comfortable increasing some of the fixed fees (space rental) so
that we're not going to have to stress about hitting particular
attendance or buy food that's more expensive or plentiful than
we need. This is not, of course, to say that we don't still want
to have lots of attendees! However, we'll be on safer financial
footing by making the budget less dependent on changing
variables.<br>
<br>
All of the revisions are under the expenditure lines. They are
as follows:<br>
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<ul>
<li><font face="Verdana">Increasing budgeted facilities fees to
$10,000, from $3,500. This should cover all contingencies,
including rental</font> fees and other facility-related
costs. I don't anticipate the line item actually being nearly
this high.</li>
<li>Eliminating the sit-down lunch and instead offering boxed
lunches as an option. The venue would prefer that we have a
sit-down lunch, but we would prefer not. To satisfy the hotel,
we have agreed to offer boxed lunches from the hotel as a
registration option. Therefore, there is still some money for
lunches. These boxed lunches would go toward our food &
beverage minimum with the venue.</li>
<li>Eliminating the Internet line item of $8,000. Recent
upgrades to the venue's network make this line item
unnecessary. The venue has a connection of 100mbps download
& 25mbps upload, with backup capacity of equivalent
bandwidth.</li>
<li>Increasing equipment rental from $3,000 to $4,000, to
provide more of a buffer.</li>
<li>Rounding up the three finance fees. In the approved budget,
those numbers were calculated by formula based on the relevant
revenues or expenditures. I rounded up these numbers to ensure
compliance with EOB policy.</li>
</ul>
<p><br>
Given these revisions, the net profit from the conference is
anticipated to be $8,200, $3,000 higher than I previously
budgeted. I would appreciate the Board's insights into whether
to decrease the registration fees in light of this. As more of a
numbers person, I somewhat prefer to leave the fee as-is.
However, I'm not sure whether the Board has viewed the
conference as a small revenue source to support other Evergreen
activities. The registration fee could probably safely be
lowered to $200 and $250 for early and regular registration.
Keeping the registration fee as-is, however, would help if other
sponsorship or exhibits revenue do not come in as anticipated.<br>
</p>
<p>I'll be traveling today (Friday), but please feel free to ask
me questions. I can be reached via mobile at 971-270-0527.<br>
</p>
<p>Cheers!<br>
Buzzy Nielsen<br>
</p>
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************************************<br>
Library Director<br>
Hood River County Library District<br>
502 State Street<br>
Hood River, Oregon 97031<br>
541-387-7062<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://hoodriverlibrary.org">http://hoodriverlibrary.org</a><br>
<br>
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