[wlug_org] Re: [wellylug] Installfest fees

[Wood Brent]

--- Jamie Baddeley <wellylug@vpc.co.nz> wrote:
> On Sat, 2004-04-10 at 18:02, Jethro Carr wrote:
> 
> > Just checking:
> > There is no entry fee, just a donation is requested, right?
> > 
> 
> There's no entry fee AFAIK. But last time we charged $5 for Knoppix, and
> $10 for any other distro.

That was basically $5 for a single disk distro & $10 for a 3 disk distro. Note
supplying the disks & the writing was all done by wellylug members. Some was
supposed to cover the cost of their disks, etc. I'm not sure it was ever taken
by them tho. This cost is no longer there thanks to the sponsorship Jamie
organised with inspire.net.

> Which raises several questions.
> 
> 1. What shall we do with the money?*
> 2. Do we want to charge an entry fee ($5) instead, and avoid the hassles
> of having money associated with providing software? This may in fact be
> a better way to go...
>
> *My vote is we use it to (part pay) for a social event - i.e a Thursday
> Night Curry - which is on my list of things to organise.


I'd rather not charge an entry fee, as far as I'm concerned we do not run this
as a money making event, the sponsors are not charging for services so we don't
have any costs to cover. The disks cost us nothing, & I feel it is contrary to
the philosophy of open source & installfests to charge for more than our costs.

Make sure people know it is free because of the generosity of sponsors & wlug
members- that is how Linux works.... make the point up front, it is due to
sponsors donating time, facilities & services, so make donations the approach
to extracting any $$.


If it is to be a profit making event, then as someone with a hardware supply &
PC sales/support business, I would expect to be able to attend it in a
commercial role, instead of donating time & whatever expertise I have, & I'll
present wellylug with an invoice at the end :-)

Planning for a $$ return is NOT how I envisaged the installfest, or presented
it to the sponsors when asking for their support.

(Quite aside from how Ewen might feel about all this traffic if it is actually
all about selling things to make money :-)


Brent