[Ansteorra] Itemizing Expenses (WAS: Children in the SCA)

[Rose]

So you would have a tournament with no water, save for what you bring yourself, and no restrooms? It's possible that children do so more than knights, but I have it on the very best advice that everybody poops. And an air-conditioned hall for 125 tables (That's 250+ artisans!) sounds wonderful, but not very realistic. In truth, we practice our arts everywhere, including in the full heat and view of the field, while we watch the fighters walk back and forth from the air-conditioned halls that we normally rent for Crown Tournament and other fighting events. And surely the view of our displays have dazzled your eyes, for even our upcoming Kingdom Arts & Sciences event has but 30 entrants, some of whom don't require a table at all. 

Also, I am a little confused by some of your costs. A grand hall like the one we're using this weekend, with air-conditioning, setup, and cleanup included, is less than a thousand dollars while a popular site in Oklahoma City with two halls and two kitchens is less than five hundred. One hall is open air, to be sure, but that has yet to stop a bevy of activities and wonderful taverns from being served there. Indeed, you have also left out the marshal's tabards and sticks, the gates, the ropes, the pavilions and related-equipment, water bearing supplies, and so on. Why, thinking back, it would seem that almost everything in our Baronial storage unit is for the fighters, and almost all of our Baronial costs are for the equipment and events that we hold for the purpose of using the same. (And the most recent area of legal concern has been fighter support, yet the water bearers like myself have seen fit to take that liability upon ourselves, which should
 surely be a cost to be borne by the fighters, as well as a portion of my event fee, to cover my services... As long as we're itemizing.)

Again, I don't begrudge the fighters' their gear, nor the costs of the attorneys to make their game legal, nor the costs of reporting forms, waivers, fighter cards, and the immense staff that is needed for all of the various fields, from the Shire's marshal to the Society Earl Marshal, from the Baronial Seneschal to the Kingdom Waiver Secretary, from the teenaged water bearer to the Kingdom Chirurgeon. I simply don't believe that martial activities cost the least nor incur the least liability. In fact, I believe the opposite, but judge martial activities to be worthwhile of supporting with my membership, my site fee, and my non-financial services, such as waterbearing, scribal, etc. (Upon further thought, perhaps we should be paying the Pelicans to attend...)

Good luck with your itemizing. Please remember to review your Baronial end-of-year report, as well as the same for Kingdom and Society, before you declare your report to be complete, and please do forward your results to me. I shall be very interested to see how the costs add up for each activity.


-Rose the Obnoxious

tongue lightly in cheek


 
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Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile. ~Hippocrates



>________________________________
> From: Cionaodh O'Hosey <CionaodhOHosey at verizon.net>
>To: Rose <rose_welch at yahoo.com>; "Kingdom of Ansteorra - SCA, Inc." <ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org> 
>Sent: Thursday, February 9, 2012 8:39 PM
>Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] The original complaint filed.
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>On Feb 9, 2012, at 7:48 PM, Rose wrote:
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>The problem with dividing costs is that you'd have to do it for everyone. How much do fighting activities cost? Surely more than art activities.
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>OK, i am willing to do that, i have no idea what the legal fees have been for fighting but the fighting community should pay for it, that said there are more fighters attending and paying full price at events, than there are underage participants attending and paying half price or less.
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>On a event cost scale underage participation costs are minimal, the next lowest is fighting, the largest tournament in the kingdom can be held in a 125 foot X 100 foot field and have 125 or more fighters most city or state parks can do that for free. A & S activities are a much more expensive thing, barring a free site, an air-conditioned site that could have 125 participant's display tables would cost thousands. 
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>Feasts costs have bothered me at times, we generally only charge the food costs at feast events, never mind that the site that has a kitchen costs $500 more than a site that does not and we need the kitchen for the feast. So everyone at the event has to pay more for a site with a kitchen so the feast eaters can have their feast at food costs, not the costs of the kitchen plus the food. This is why events with feasts tend to cost more than events with out feasts.
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>If the costs of underage participation is 40% of our costs, and the revenue from underage participation with their families is about 40% or even 30% then it is no big deal, but if the costs to serve underage participants are 60% or more and the revenue raised from underage participants is closer to 15% then we have a problem.
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>With family discounts on membership fees, half price children and family maximums (for a couple all children after the second are free) I doubt the 15% level is reached.
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>Remember, while there are a lot of them, revenue wise they only count as one-half or less .....
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>Cionaodh O'Hosey 
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