So we had a charity auction at the end of con. Everyone is pretty much aware of it because it made everything run late. When the envelope which had the cash in it made it back to me all that was there was a few quarters and, if I remember correctly, a half-list of what we sold.

Joy.

I tried talking to the people in the area of main stage, and to the only people who handled the envelope. None of them had any clue what happened. It seems to me like someone grabbed the easy-to-grab cash from the envelope. Maybe it was left at main stage and was taken when no one was looking – I don’t know.

I really don’t know what to do to fix it going forward other than make the staffers more aware that over $500 was collected for the NHS and it was stolen. Maybe if they’re aware that that happened then they will keep a better eye on it.

And for the record I believe it was probably an attendee. It’s possibly a staffer, but I’m too close to most of them to really believe they would harm the convention that way.

And yes, we are still sending a check to the NHS for what we took in. I’m not going to say “someone stole it, oh well” and leave it at that. I’m not happy, but I’d rather they get their money and take it out of our net.

Rovers also need to be aware it happened and we need more rovers to be watching for things happening in 2014.

Every year there are at-con purchases. Either I’m the one going out and handling it,, or staff members go out. Either they take petty cash and return change, or they spend their own money and get reimbursed when they turn in the receipt at con. None of these are terribly good options. I can’t leave the con like that anymore. I don’t want staffers spending their own money and I really don’t want to be handing out cash.

So I’ve finally thought of the best possible solution – Prepaid visa cards.

This isn’t super perfect, but it will allow us to send trusted staffers over to WalMart to solve our at-con emergency needs. I figure two $100 cards should be more than sufficient.

I also want to just give one to tabletop to make their purchases for their approved amount. I don’t want to be surprised at the end of the year again.

As always, I need to run it by Nathan, but I think this is the best realistic solution. I should be able to see the purchases in the online account I set up for the card and I can match them to receipts and enter everything into the accounting system.

So at the end of last year, Nathan suggested we raise the price to $40. It came up mostly because the $35 price is a burden on registration (we need LOTS of 5 dollar bills). I kind of didn’t want to because we’ve had the same price since the first year and this is the fifth and I wanted to keep it the same for this year.

Then I ran the numbers and my opinion changed.

For 2014 our projected per-badge net income is $0.07. Seriously, you’re paying $35, and out of that, $0.07 is going into the bank account for next year. That really isn’t a lot. There are some other factors at play, but it all boils down to this – if we have any major unexpected cost then we are losing money for 2014 and eating into 2015’s budget. There is NO cushion.

Sooooo . . . I think we do, indeed, need to raise prices to $40 at-con, and all precon goes up by $5. Does this bring our per-badge price to $5.26? I wish. First, there are about 500 day-badges that are going to stay at $20. Second, the percentage-based taxes take out a chunk of the increased profit. So the per-badge price would be approximately $1.98.

The increase would put approximately $5k extra in the bank at the end of the year.

A final note on the per badge price – these numbers do not take into account income from various departments like artists, vendors, gaming, t-shirt sales, etc. However, it does take into account all the expenses for those departments. So, the per badge number is biased to be low. If I ignore the departments which have income to cover their expenses then the number bumps up to about $4.70/badge ($7.65/badge at the higher rates) which is better-looking. I don’t really use the per badge number to make a lot of decisions – I use the end-of-year bank account estimates.

I think in the end the price hike will come down to one crucial piece of information – What is the GSR going to charge us this year? In 2010, 2011, and 2012, we were charged a flat fee for the space we were in. In 2013, the contract did not change and the price seemed to be the same, but the invoice had our space as $5k higher than we were expecting. Investigations reveal that we were charged daily this year instead of the flat fee as in previous years. I am investigating the reason for the change, but if the venue is going to be charging us $5k more than we expected, the price increase gives us an estimated $5k at the end of the year which will cover it.

If we do this this year, I hope we keep it at $40 for at least 5 more years.

So we’re moving servers again. We’ve done this almost every year. I used a personal server first – Webmasters, which was really good in like . . . 2008. In 2010 or so, when we started SNAFU in to the Webmasters servers, they were kind of okay and on their way downhill. After the 2010 con, I moved from my personal Webmasters server to buy SCIENCE its own Webmasters space. This caused the fall outage of the forums in 2010 which effectively killed it. The forums have never recovered fully.

Webmasters is the reason that in 2011 and 2012 the webpage would go out every night at about 1am, and randomly drop at other times. They claimed no downtime, but we all knew better.

In late 2011 and early 2012 I started developing a strong admin team which knew much more than I did about webhosting. I could only tell this group that Webmasters used to be good. It was now pretty terrible. Webmasters finally pissed off the admin group enough that at the end of 2012 we moved to Amazon. Amazon had 1 year free and I was told it would cost us $120/year or $10/month which was the same as Webmasters. So whhhy not?

My amazing webmaster admin people set up Amazon. It took a little while, and we’re STILL trying to get everyone’s emails set up, but all-in-all it’s been a great move.

Then in November 2013, or so, I started seeing $30-ish charges. . . . Uhm. That’s not $120/yr. That’s $360/year and going up to $450/yr depending on the month (charges varied).

After some exploring, it was determined that we could get it as low as like $20/mo with Amazon if we paid for a year. Okay. Well, that’s not what I was told last year, but okay of that’s what we need to do. There was some aspect of the charging that was overlooked by the admin initially. So, they started looking for a new server to move to that was comparable to what we were actually using on Amazon. Nothing really surfaced immediately.

Last night (2/4) Thomas found a service VPSDime which looks like it’s our answer. So I paid for a month ($7) and we’re going to see if it works for us. If it does, then we cancel Amazon.

It will be an easier move and shouldn’t require everyone to set up their email again. In fact, no one should notice at all, AFAIK. But it is one more thing that absolutely has to be completed before we open registration for 2014 since it will likely take the site down temporarily if/when we actually switch over to the new server

We bought a 3-size button press machine and I’m so excited! I have to get the OK from Nathan but I think giving away the smallest ones at other cons and events in Reno would be really wonderful marketing because unlike fliers, people tend not to just throw away a button. Yeah, some will get tossed, but it’s something of value (albeit a small value). People put buttons on their lanyards at cons, on their backpacks, jackets, car seats, stuffed animals . . . all over the place!

So I want to give out 1-2k of free buttons this year, maybe more, and back off the fliers. Of course, fliers are insanely cheap. We got 15k for $335 – double-sided and color. Another thought is to attach buttons to fliers and then give the buttons out. They toss the flier after reading it, and keep the button.

The buttons will persist through the years not only reminding the individual who keeps it about the con, but friends and family of that individual who happen to come in contact with that button. That is totally worth more than a flier.

I love buttons. I’m so excited.

We can also use them as prizes/awards because we can buy ribbons which attach to them and use the 3” ones as specially designed awards. We can use them in all of our contests. =D

And, of course, to help offset the cost of the machine and supplies, we can sell the 2.25” buttons. I figure we can sell designs related to the new achievement system and of course buttons with the annual theme and other things we like at the 2.25”, and 3” sizes.

Finally, I’m excited because I can buy my own supplies and make buttons! I love buttons. I can make some for fully unscripted and PictureNV and just myself. Of course, I’d never use the SCIENCE supplies, but if I’m making thousands of buttons this year for SCIENCE/SNAFU, then I have no problem letting me use the press for my own handful of buttons.

Oh! Maybe we can give an at-con prize or discount if people bring the button in to reg. Something like get $1 off your registration for next year if you bring a marketing button. . . . Or an entry into a drawing for a free registration. Or both! Just something to encourage people to keep them.

Once we get some designs, there will totally be a button-making party at my place (invite only)!