Monica Cellio [address] September 30, 1994 A. J. Riviezzo 19211 E. Rice Dr. Aurora, CO 80015 Dear Mr. Riviezzo: I am writing in response to the financial report that you released earlier this month. First, I would like to thank you for making this information available; it has gone a long way toward explaining just what has been happening, financially, for the last 9 months. Second, I am writing to volunteer for the Finance Committee. I successfully kept a large kingdom newsletter (Pikestaff) in the black for four years despite major demands on the newsletter's resources; not only that, but I raised enough money to produce a very nice supplemental A&S newsletter each year. The annual Pikestaff budget was in the neighborhood of $30,000; this is rather less than the budget of the corporation, but the principles of careful evaluation and oversight do not change drastically with the size of the budget. In addition to serving as kingdom chronicler, I have autocratted several events; all were designed to break even and all but one did. The last made a healthy profit due to many last-minute attendees. I have never lost money on an event or in an SCA office. I have been active in the society for over 13 years, have received a Pelican from the East, and am well-rounded in my interests and activities. I am good at critical thinking, brainstorming with others, and coming up with solutions that may not be obvious at first glance. I ask that you consider me for this position; I can bring a lot to the organization. Third, your letter invited questions about the attached figures. I have several. Answers to these questions would help me, and others, propose solutions to the Board. These questions are attached. I know that answering them will require an investment of time on your part; so that you don't have to answer the same questions over and over from different people, I will share the information I receive with others who are trying to understand the situation. I thank you for your attention and consideration in this matter. Sincerely, Monica Cellio enclosures Income: - Under the old membership rates the difference between associate and sustaining membership was $13. Now it's $15, but as far as I know you haven't said you're giving more to the newsletters. Where is the extra $2 going? TI? The kingdom newsletters? Somewhere else? - It costs $4.91 per person per year in increased postage to change a third class subscription to first class. The corporation is charging $7 extra for first class. Where is the extra $2.09 going? (I asked this question in a letter to the board in early July, but haven't received an answer yet.) - What is postage income? Is that the money people pay for first-class subscriptions to kingdom newsletters and TI? Why wasn't anything budgetted? Board meetings and other expenses: - How many people does the corporation send to board meetings, on average? I'm assuming about 10 -- 6 board members, the ED, the corporate seneschal, the corporate secretary, and maybe the exchequer. Is that about right? If so, how can are you spending $250 per person per meeting on hotel rooms? This sounds pretty high to me, even if you're all getting single rooms. (When my company has sent me to conferences and the like, I have generally been expected to share a room.) - You budgetted about $6500 per board meeting for travel. If I'm right about a meeting requiring about 10 attendees at corporate expense, that's $650 for airfare and taxis. Yet economy air tickets don't cost that much, especially when you figure in that not every board member will be making an expensive trip for every meeting. Why is this figure so high? What am I missing? - According to the financial statements, about half of the money spent thus far on board conference calls was spent in July. Why? Has this continued? (I would have expected most of the conference calls to fall in March, when you were dealing with resignations and new appointments and couldn't necessarily wait for files to be transferred and assimilated.) - Does the extreme over-budget amount for "board postage" ($7317.10 spent, $800 budgetted) include the mailing the corporation did to the membership in February? If not, what's going on? If so, where are the rest of the costs of that mailing? (Postage should have been closer to $12,000, and then there's printing.) - How much did the corporation spend, total, on the February membership mailing? - What is the $7500 budgetted for committees meant to cover? Travel: - What travel is being done by board members that is not included in the travel expenses for board meetings? (You budgetted $2100 for it.) - What travelling is the TI editor doing? Does she go to board meetings? What about the stock clerk? - What travel is being done by the corporate seneschal as a separate line item from board meetings? Is this her transportation to Estrella, Gulf Wars, and Pennsic to sell memberships? How did you factor in the fact that she would have attended some of those events for personal/business reasons anyway? Compleat Anachronist: - How many subscribers are there to CA? I seem to recall there being about 4500 when last I saw figures (about a year ago), and the budget for CA expenses ($35,500) suggests that when you were budgetting you didn't expect more than about 4400 subscribers. (I am assuming you did not plan to spend more than you were taking in for subscriptions. I am also assuming that almost no one gets CA first class.) If these guesses are about right, then the financial report suggests that an average issue of CA is costing 35 cents to mail and $1 to print. These figures sound somewhat out of line based on my time as a kingdom chronicler. What are the actual figures? - CA has spent under 30% of its postage budget but almost all of its printing budget. What's going on? Stock Clerk: - Why did the stock clerk cost of sales go down from June ($32,356.15) to July ($19,484.75)? Why did printing go down by a few dollars? What happened to the $1537.34 in miscellaneous stock clerk expenses that became $22.50 in July without another category going up? Were these corrections of errors in the June report? If so, were there other corrections too? Administration: - What was the $9891.90 for general/administrative equipment and supplies spent on? Is that general office supplies, or are the new computers in there? If the latter, what is the $14,716.66 for capital expenditures? What did we spend on computer equipment and what did we get? What did we spend on furniture and what did we get? - Were you really planning to pay Tony Provine $90,000 a year? (You've spent $45,171.97 on the ED.) You only budgetted $36,000. What happened here? - What does the $5253.89 of miscellaneous general/admin expenses cover, and why didn't it show up on the July statement? - What moving expenses did we incur this year? The office moved last year, didn't it? - Why is the corporate senesahcl a paid rather than volunteer position? (Office expenses and travel are separately covered.) - What is the $1200 "miscellaneous" budgetted for the librarian meant to cover? - Why is the corporation paying for a pension plan, and who gets to access it? - How did more than $66,000 get spent on a computer system that doesn't even work? What exactly was produced? May I see the specs? I'm a programmer and I can't fathom how it could have even cost as much as the $25,000 you budgetted; I'd like to understand why this apparently- standard DB application was so expensive and unsuccessful. - The general/administrative phone expenses exceeded the annual budget in June. Given that board phone expenses are covered elsewhere, why is this figure so high? - What maintenance contracts are we paying for, and why are they so far over budget? Insurance: - What's going on with property insurance? Did we get a refund? Do we HAVE property insurance? We don't appear to have paid for it thus far this year. - Do we have foreign insurance right now? - You've pretty much spent the budget for insurance for the year. Do you pay for insurance in a lump sum, or do you make payments every month? In other words, are there going to be more insurance charges this year, or is everything paid for? - What are the costs associated with insurance certificates? Are these notarized copies or something? Who needs the certificates? (I've autocratted many events and always managed with just the photocopy of the letter, so I'm curious.) Misc.: - What is the $600 budgetted for TI articles and artwork? When did we start paying for these services? - The June report shows a budget for advertising expenses, though the money has not been spent. What advertising were you planning to do? (This is different from the stock clerk advertising figure.)