[Sca-cooks] Fw: [Aten_Cooks](long) Feast Policy Draft for Review

[Decker, Terry D.]

They want a review?  Here goes!

>Subject: [Aten_Cooks] Feast Policy Draft for Review
>
>A.      Style, Content or Theme of Feast

Service is a trivial point in a bid, except in calculating complimentary
meals and even then, feeding the servers can often be accomplished by
correctly planning the contingency overages.  Variations in site, can often
change the serving plans.

A tentative ingredient list with quantities and expected prices should be
required rather than encouraged.  If you don't have some reasonably accurate
idea of the cost, all the other dollar figures in the bid are pie in the sky
numbers you hope to make.  Knowing the costs and controlling them are the
key to not going broke.


>B.      Non-Paying (Comp'd) Feasts 

>From experience, the minimum number of servers required to put hot food on
the table is about 6.25% plus kitchen staff, so call it 7%.  Over 12%,
servers start getting in each others way.  Since this document has a built
in overage of 10+%, feeding the servers should not be an issue.

In Ansteorra, there are certain local events where the complimentary dinners
would be higher than listed here (try planning a feast for 200 with 58
possible comps).  It is a real pain for budgeting.  Were we setting limits
for local groups, I would suggest a maximum of 8 complimentary dinners
beyond those listed for Kingdom events.


>C.      Number Of Maximum Feasters

Maximum number of meals and prices are necessary for budgeting purposes.


>D.      Working out the Feast Cost


Unless you have some idea of the costs, all of this is bumpf.

Stressing a cap on spending rather than proper budgeting this document will
likely create situations where less skilled feast stewards will rise to the
limit rather than work seriously at controlling costs.  The feast steward
should set a feast cost maximum based on a high estimate budget calculated
on total meals rather than paid meals.  

Front money will be advanced up to the budgeted amount.

A 10% reserve for emergencies is a good idea, but don't disburse it with the
front money.  Use it to reimburse emergency expenditures and make the person
doing the budget justify the expenditure.

A $7 cap on costs will cause difficulty when putting on an event where a
high quality period feast is the focus of the event.

In my opinion, kitchen and equipment rental are fixed costs and should be
calculated into the site fee.  If you don't have this under a written
contract, then you deserve the financial problems.

Purchases of expendable supplies and small group equipment for feasts should
be worked into the feast budget.  Large purchases of group equipment should
be run through the group purchasing process rather than being plugged into a
feast budget.

 
>E.      Setting the Feast Fee

A cap on fees usually isn't productive. With a cap, it is easy to set the
fee at $8, juggle the estimates to show a profit, and still lose money.
With a serious budget, you have the figures to justify costs and fees.
Whoever is doing the budgeting needs to be aware of their target audience
and what they will pay, then plan and budget accordingly.  

Basically, fees will only be collected from paid meals and they must be set
to recover all feast expenditures plus a little as a hedge against loss.  If
you have variable fees (as with adult and children fees), then the budget
needs to reflect the fees and the proportional streams of income. 


>F.      Advanced/Reimbursed Funds/Recomputing No. of Maximum Feasters

This section is a bean-counter's no brain solution.  As such, it is almost
certain to cost more than it saves.

Historic data on event and feast attendance is a better indicator of what
will happen than any reservation system.  The Kingdom Finance Committee
should have this information on Kingdom Events for the past two or three
years.  This information should be used to evaluate bids.

Once a bid is accepted, it should be understood that a contract exists
between the Kingdom and the feast steward.  The Kingdom should be ready to
advance monies immediately and the feast steward should be ready to present
a regular accounting (monthly is probably best) of expenditures.  The feast
steward can then take advantage of market lows for purchasing.  

Twenty-five cents per person saved on a 200 seat feast is $50.  And, at $8 a
head is equivalent to 6 paid reservations or 3% of the total number of
seats. I make profits on most of my feasts and the best are usually made by
careful purchasing.

Limiting advances to a short period before the feast reduces the ability of
the feast steward to cut costs.  In fact, if the groceries converge to
market highs when you go to purchase, income and expense ratios will be very
tight for the experienced feast steward and will probably end up as a
monetary loss for a less experienced person.

The idea behind most of this section is to cut your losses, before you know
you have them, rather than try to pump up sales.  It works against anyone
other than an experienced feast steward who understands budgeting.

I doubt this would work in Ansteorra, where attendees often don't know
whether or not they will be at an event until a week or two before, but to
cut costs, food must be purchased well in advance. 

Having worked with pre-paid reservations, telephone reservations, and no
reservations.  I can say that my experience is that any reservation system
beats no reservations and that pre-paid or not for any reservation system to
work you need to identify the individuals who have reserved.


>G.      Computing the "Threshold Seats Needed to Cover Costs"

Being able to calculate break even is a necessary part of budgeting.  I find
it amazing that it is mentioned in this document without anything about
preparing a budget as part of the bid.

The Pre-Paid Feast Policy looks cumbersome.  If it makes work for the gate
personnel or irritates people trying to get their reservations or refunds, I
expect it to reduce feast attendance.



General Comments:

I revise my opinion, the people creating this policy have no experience in
catering or in practical business finance.

Running a feast is not about cooking.  It is an exercise in planning,
budgeting and logistics.  To achieve the results desired by this policy, a
feast bid needs to present a menu plan and realistic budget with the details
of fees and projected attendance to demonstrate how the expenses can be
recovered.  Such a bid should be considered in relation to the historic data
available on the feast.

Once accepted, a feast bid should be considered a binding contract and all
parties should focus on making the feast a success based on the written
plan.

Rather than a planned approach to the business side of feasts, this policy
would substitute caps on costs and fees with funding cuts if the feast
steward fails to make particular quotas at particular times.  Additionally,
the policy fails to take advantage of reducing costs over time.  For a feast
steward, these are punative rather than supportive policies.

In my opinion, experienced feast stewards will generally avoid preparing
feasts under these policies, leaving the field to the less experienced
people who do not understand the problems these policies present.  This in
turn may produce worse feasts for more money with a drop in attendance and
revenues.

If the kingdom wants a policy which is effective, go back to a list of the
problems the policy is to solve and ask for input from the feast stewards on
how they should be solved.

Bear