AGA losses in 2011 Congress

[direwolf]

This is my issue. The loss at a congress should be obvious well in advance. Typically a group using a site will pay for the rooms they use. I am not sure of exact numbers that the congress uses. but i will use general numbers for this.

Say a congress has budget of 180l to pay a school, all associated costs, and a modist profit. historically there is an attendance of about 400 people. to low ball it and get some breathing room say 390 people attend. that would cost everyone $460 to attend. Typically there is a cut off date for early bird registration that afterwards the cost increases. This is ususally 30 days prior to the event. As of that date there is only 350 registrants red flags and bells should be going off. at this point there is time to try and lower the potential loss.

This is plain and simple. Being that AGA board members and chair of the board was involved in this, it does not give me a warm feeling on how well the aga board plans or even deals with issues.

[fentonaop]

With more and more Pros coming to the US and home-made pros, will AGA reconsider its policy about inviting pros to the congress with subsidies? Do we have a budget each year for inviting them?

[gowan]

With more and more Pros coming to the US and home-made pros, will AGA reconsider its policy about inviting pros to the congress with subsidies? Do we have a budget each year for inviting them?

I haven't been to a Congress for over 12 years but earlier the pros generally only received complimentary room and board from the AGA and their other expenses were sponsored by their home associations. Some even paid their own way to come. Perhaps things have changed in recent years. The oriental go professional associations are not thriving financially so maybe they don't sponsor their representatives any more. As for the pros residing in the USA, some of them have full teaching schedules and attending the Congress represents a financial loss for them so the AGA has to give them some compensation to get them to come.

[daniel_the_smith]

OK, there's a good chance that three months worth of minutes will be posted any day now.

[daniel_the_smith]

Ah, for once something happened earlier than I expected! Happy reading...

http://www.usgo.org/board-minutes

[Joaz Banbeck]

Ah, for once something happened earlier than I expected! Happy reading...

http://www.usgo.org/board-minutes

Thanks, Daniel.

[Admin]

There is a lot of interesting stuff in those minute. I suspect that they will generate a few new comments about subjects other than the 2011 Congress. If you do have such comments, please start a new thread ( or, for subjects such as the tap, there may be a thread already )

Thanks
-JB

[/admin]

[mhlepore]

The minutes from the February meeting don't really shed a lot of light on the source of the loss from my perspective.

In the minutes Lisa makes reference to a break-even point - the number of attendees needed to break even. Their break even point ended up being wrong. As the registrar of the 2005 Tacoma Go Congress, this does not surprise me. Steve Stringfellow, the 2005 Congress Director, planned everything out about as well as one could, and after the Congress we still didn't know exactly what the final bill from Pacific Lutheran University was going to be. We had lots of experienced local people helping to organize, but there was still an element of uncertainty.

Posting a one year loss at a Congress does not automatically require chopping off heads. That said, we should understand why there was a loss and come up with some lessons learned for future organizers. I would also support some program where Congress organizers who put on well run and profitable congresses are brought in to consult on the planning of subsequent congresses - maybe they get comped at next year's congress for their efforts.

[jts]

Having read the minutes, I'm confused. Our conversation in this thread two weeks ago suggested very strongly that the congress had come in on budget, but that too few people came. The minutes from three months ago suggest that the losses were restricted to budget over-runs in two areas: (i) comps for pros and (ii) some sort of penalty rate for needing too many rooms. Which

[Joaz Banbeck]

Having read the minutes, I'm confused. Our conversation in this thread two weeks ago suggested very strongly that the congress had come in on budget, but that too few people came...

Now I'm confused too. Isn't "the number of people who show up" essentially the definition of budget?

[jts]

Having read the minutes, I'm confused. Our conversation in this thread two weeks ago suggested very strongly that the congress had come in on budget, but that too few people came...

Now I'm confused too. Isn't "the number of people who show up" essentially the definition of budget?

Oh, perhaps I misunderstand how they do their accounting. Normally when you make a budget you estimate the red ink and the black ink separately. Whether a project comes in "over budget" or "under budget" is a function of the red ink, and whether revenue expectations were met is a separate issue. But I don't know much about accounting.

So when the April minutes say "We have a clear picture of where the budget was exceeded," they follow this up with "comps were exceeded by 12k-13k", and "there was a 5k charge from SB for facilities for which the Congress had not budgeted," I assumed that meant that the shortfall in revenue was less than 25% of the total deficit.

[Joaz Banbeck]

Having read the minutes, I'm confused. Our conversation in this thread two weeks ago suggested very strongly that the congress had come in on budget, but that too few people came...

Now I'm confused too. Isn't "the number of people who show up" essentially the definition of budget?

Oh, perhaps I misunderstand how they do their accounting. Normally when you make a budget you estimate the red ink and the black ink separately. Whether a project comes in "over budget" or "under budget" is a function of the red ink, and whether revenue expectations were met is a separate issue. But I don't know much about accounting.

So when the April minutes say "We have a clear picture of where the budget was exceeded," they follow this up with "comps were exceeded by 12k-13k", and "there was a 5k charge from SB for facilities for which the Congress had not budgeted," I assumed that meant that the shortfall in revenue was less than 25% of the total deficit.

Hmm...I think that fundamentally we are talking about the same thing. If a the definition of a budget is "the expected number of people who show up" X "the amount they pay", then we are talking about the same ideas with slightly different words.