SC - feast $

[Philip W. Troy]

Valerie A Carson wrote:
> 
> I don't know how other places handle this, but where I live we just held
> 3 events in 3 months.  This led to nearly all of the money being in the
> hands of cooks and autocrats who needed it to purchase food and reserve
> sites, etc. Making profits isn't a bad thing especially if the area tends
> to be busy because sometimes money in the bank is necessary.  We also use
> the money to buy things for the barony - such as the new kitchen
> equipment the cooks have been clamoring for.
> 
> Arianwen

Correct. I doubt the exchequer's report forms have changed all that much
since I last saw one or filled one out. A group's income has capital
expenditures as well as event expenses deducted from it, not to mention
various other operating expenses as well. What's left (if everyone is
doing his/her job properly) is generally around zero. Even if a group
does show a profit at the end of the year, there are circumstances where
this is acceptable. A not-for-profit organization is not the same thing
as a non-profit organization.

One relatively simple way to handle the question of capital expenditures
(purchasing pots and pans, water coolers for the fighters, etc.) is to
build their costs into specific events at which they will appear. Having
a large fighting event? Buy an insulated water cooler or two. Two
hundred or more fighters won't mind paying fifty cents extra for having
cold water or Gatorade at the edge of the field. Now, these also happen
to be good for mulled cider, afterwards. You wouldn't want to throw them
away, would you?

Same holds for pots and pans, or whatever durable goods your group
needs. My local group has built up quite a respectable supply of
Provincial feastgear that way: it took years to do, but it is good
enough that we are frequently asked to bring it to other group's events,
including the Kingdom's.

As for seed money for events, I always tried to build and maintain
enough money in the bank for my group to hold one event for free, just
in case of a disastrous event in which we took a big loss for one reason
or another. Many people considered this to be quite conservative, and
since I left the local office of the exchequer, I believe we have built
up more than that. Not that anyone is taking this money and going to
South America with it.

Okay. We were speaking of cooking, weren't we?

Just two cents from the accounts payable column...

Adamantius