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<font face="Verdana">Hi everyone,<br>
<br>
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>
</font>
<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 class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://hoodriverlibrary.org">http://hoodriverlibrary.org</a><br>
<br>
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