NZLARPs Auckland Gear Meeting 26 February 2014
Present: Mike Curtis, Dave Luxton, James Cooper, Hannah Jackson, Rowena Knill, Prema Cottingham, Anna Klein, Nikki Brown, Phillip Brown, Clare Stones
Note: These minutes are a record of the discussions and decisions that took place at the meeting. Discussions are not word for word.
Meeting start: 7:15pm approx
- No submissions from people have been sent in.
- Everyone at the meeting is aware of the current gear situation – that we need a long term storage option.
Storage options up for discussion:
Nikki has had a look into all the options she could think of for storage.
1) Council options – Nikki contacted the Community Liason at Auckland Council. The liason said there’s more than a years waiting list; the chances of being given storage are increased if you team up with another group. Leases do not come up very often as the rental rates are very good.
-> Nikki called up community groups, for example theatre groups, to see if they had space we could store in or if they were interested in going halves on storage. -> no luck here, resounding no – community groups are short on space
2) Lottery grants. The Lotteries Commission offers much larger grants than we would need, and for purposes that don’t match ours. Their grants are for costs over about $30,000, for building purposes etc, and we would have to own the land we stored on.
3) Rotary/Lions – these grants do not cover rental.
4) Motu Moana – Said no to a container on their grounds, and no to storing in one of their storage spaces. Their storage is for scouts only.
5) Professional storage – Nikki has researched online to find information about various places, has been to see one – thinks this is the direction we should go in.
Questions from meeting attendees:
What about vehicle access? The place Nikki visited had enough space to move trailer in and out easily, and had access to power. It had plenty of off-street parking. It was a smaller, private, independent storage place, so a bit cheaper than the storage chains. Owner OK with gear rationalizations. 24 hour access, good security record – no incidents in the 7 years they have been in operation. Sounds like someone lives on site. The storage space was of a good height, and we can build shelving into the unit.
Would go and get quotes from more places before making a decision.
How easy would it be to get at gear in the storage space? Shelving would allow for boxes to be stored easily and be visible.
What happens if we apply to council, and we get a space that is too small? General opinion among meeting attendees: Stick with paid storage if this happens.
Existing gear shed – can we sell it, once we move to paid storage? Sounds like there is enough space to move it out of where it is now, and put it on the back of a truck.
Discussion:
- There is a slim chance of getting community storage, otherwise we are looking at a paid space. (Hannah)
- The options are not mutually exclusive. (Anna)
- We can apply for council storage, and in the meantime pay for storage. (Prema)
Hannah – Motion – NZLARPS Auckland to pursue option of professional storage for gear. Prema – second
Passed unanimously.
James – Motion – NZLARPs Auckland to make application to Auckland Council for community lease. Seconder not noted?
Passed unanimously.
Hannah – The different options of how to get funding are:
- Do fundraising as an independent project.
- Ask National Committee to release some NZLARP fees.
- Charge a fee for projects/affiliates using NZLARPs gear.
- Do all of the above
Discussion around other options:
We could increase membership fees. We could include a gear charge and change the constitution.
-> Reluctance from meeting attendees, as this relies on collecting money only from the NZLARPS members, and not all users of the gear.
Discussion around budgeting:
- Estimated cost of storage $3000 - $3500 (Nikki)
- The Auckland financials for the last three years indicate we spend most money on gear, trailer, and a bit on operational stuff (about $400 a year for the last), occasional venue hire for AGMs, trailer insurance. We have no pressing financial burdens outside of funding games. We pay $500 to Hannah’s mum – this would be redistributed into professional storage. (Anna)
- Chimera is on board. (Obviously not expecting Crucible to pay for the weekend game coming up) (Anna)
- Crucible is on board as well. (Nikki)
- $2100 can be raised from the Chimera and Crucible weekend games each year. Additional amounts can be raised from smaller games. Nikki is happy to run some combat fundraising events. $3500 is achievable. (Anna)
- Anna is also prepared to sell a certain amount of “first picks” for Chimera games, for further fundraising.
- Discussion about selling in game advantages – Mike thinks this should only be an option for fundraising gear, we don’t want to encourage games to allow players to pay extra for advantages.
-> Raffles for physical in game items – this creates a sense of fairness, allows people to put in a bit towards a chance at a really good item/reagent. - All these ideas are fundraising inside community. (Rowena)
- What about events for kids? (Dave)
- We can’t rely on our big games if they are ambitious games. Can’t rely on them making a profit. (Mike)
- The committee has to be convinced that we can raise enough money through fundraising avenues. (Hannah)
- This is a fundamental shift in how games will work– aiming to make a profit rather than break even. (Rowena/others)
- We still need to stick to NZLARPs original goal of supporting small games. These small games will be aiming to break even. (Anna)
- This is about a community attitude of games paying in to support other larps. Not many people at meeting tonight, clearly there is apathy in community. (Nikki)
- We have had some resistance to additional costs previously - New Horizons (vampire monthly larp) had objections from some people who didn’t want to pay costs for venue, as previous vampire larps were free because Uni venues were used. (Rowena)
Anna – Motion – if a game uses significant amounts of gear (more than one or two items), paying the gear fee should not be optional.
Games should be able to put in a koha for gear if they are not using much or not using any.
(We discussed this motion, but did not vote on it)
- The Auckland community already spends money on gear. With gear charges, we are just talking about how we account for it. Comes down to whether game is popular and whether it is well managed, as to whether it makes a profit. (Mike)
- Community will have to get used to paying more for games, so we can rely on having enough money coming in for overheads. So we don’t have big risks, but so we can still support small games that are not guaranteed to generate money. We should look at every game on a case by case basis, but big games will be expected to make a profit. Both the Crucible and Chimera GMs/organisers are on board with this. (Nikki)
– Games will be expected to make not just a profit, but a level of profit. (Muppet) - Will never vote for a game that comes in with a budget expecting to make a loss, if other non-profits did this they would be out of business. (James)
- Witch house always projected to make a loss or break even, because it was a small game with high gear expenses. Some events were in the red, but maybe only about $50. (Anna)
- The committee will have to be much more careful about approving games. Players and crew will have to get used to paying more. (Nikki)
Nikki read out the information presented on Diatribe about charging a flat fee based on game size. Based on Chimera and Crucible, we can rely on $2100 coming into society.
– Games like Witch House would have to project more profit in their budgets. (Rowena)
– The minimum projected profit for games would have to be the gear fee. (Nikki)
Anna: Should the gear fees be charged for:
- All games? Including games that use no or very little gear, like Changeling.
- Heavy gear users only? Eg. Sabbat
- Should affiliates as well as projects be charged gear fees? - > Everyone agrees that they should also be charged.
Affiliates
Rowena: What agreements do we currently have with affiliates? Should we contact affiliates, tell them about the new charges, and ask if they still want to be an affiliate?
-> general agreement that we should contact affiliates and ask them.
Prema – when setting up agreements with affiliates, include gear charges in the contract.
Draft motion: Hannah (Mike/Anna) Set up a fee to be charged to NZLARPs projects, and a fee to NZLARPs affiliates. These will be separate. Any existing affiliate contracts to be renegotiated. What to charge affiliates and projects, and under what circumstances to charge them, is not part of this motion.
(We discussed the wording of this motion, but did not vote on it, in favour of the one below)
Prema: Motion: Move to implement 2 overhead fee structure schemes, one for affiliates and one for projects. 2nd – Hannah
Vote – Unanimous.
Charging according to game type
Hannah : There are 4 types of projects:
- One off small day game/Theatreform
- Weekend games (large/small)
- Monthly game (eg Changeling)
- Convention
Maybe any game with less than 40 people should be able opt in to gear charges? (discussion around number)
Keys to the storage site– We are likely to need to have set people with key access. Having random larpers being able to access the storage site is a security risk.
Discussion around profits and gear fee
Discussion about small games like Robin Hood – sometimes these have very low expenses (especially if using a free venue like a public park), hence they often make a relatively large profit compared to the size of the game.
Discussion of whether the gear fee is the expected profit, or whether we are expecting games to make a profit, with the gear fee on top.
The gear fee should be budgeted as an expense, not counted into existing profit margins. (Anna)
NZLARPs is no better off if games take gear fee out of existing profit. (Rowena)
The gear fee is like a guaranteed savings scheme to ensure we have the funds available. (Anna)
Gear fee as itself as profit isn’t enough. (Rowena)
Games adjust their costs according to whatever pressures are there. Chimera is likely to make less of an additional profit once the gear fee is introduced. There is only so much money in community, and inflation has gone up in the last couple of years. (Anna)
Rowena – Based on previous incomes, would we have been able to pay for gear storage in the last couple of years?
Anna – Can’t say, as we tried to reduce NZLARPs profit in previous years to avoid paying tax.
Rowena – Do we need more money than we currently have coming in? James – Yes.
General agreement that the gear fee will be classified as an expense rather than a profit. This affects how it will be presented on game budgets and actuals.
Nikki – When events submit a budget, we do need to look at event budget and see if it’s too low, and ask them to raise profit margin if necessary.
Anna – Current operational costs – trailer WOF, insurance, repairs. Gear costs likely to be mitigated somewhat by better storage conditions. (Hannah disagrees with this last bit).
General agreement that society needs around about $1000 a year for operational expenses.
Nikki – Flat fee needs to be applied to all projects so we can be sure of having operational expenses paid.
Discussion about whether operational expenses or gear fee is more relevant to people in the community. Feeling that operational expenses is more relevant to people.
Hannah - Motion: To charge an overheads fee for each project. That projects with less than 40 people have the option to opt in.
(We discussed this motion, but did not vote on it)
Anna – overhead fee based on projected turnover of the game. Low financial turnover games, for example monthly games, should be treated differently to higher financial turnover games (eg. Crucible, Chimera).
Hannah - Motion: To charge an overheads fee for each project. Should we have one scheme that applies to all projects regardless, or should games be charged on different schemes based on style of games?
(We discussed this motion, but did not vote on it)
A bit of discussion of trying a system out for 6 months to assess how well it works.
Mike – Create a report for games over the last 3 years. How would different models affect each game?
Anna – Charging per game an attendee attends would work best for Chimera. Would not work for Crucible or any other model.
Mike – It would be hard to get the charges right, right now. However, there is agreement on the principles.
Discussion around charging a flat percentage fee for gear storage.
- Prema, Clare, Rowena and Nikki are strongly of the opinion that a percentage based system is difficult to understand.
- It would ultimately be the fairest way of charging (Anna)
Discussion around how different GMs work out game costs. - Revenue percentages easy to do with spreadsheet, and allow fee to be calculated based on no of people paying. For example, a game where crew is free would pay a monetary percentage for players only, because crew do not pay anything. (Mike)
Rowena works game costings out based out on venue fee, food and drink, etc divided by number of people. This makes a flat fee much easier to calculate than percentage. Wouldn’t run a game under percentage system.
Anna – Interested in measuring by turnover. Thinks it should be based on value of game, not number of people. Gives a better indication of what the game can afford. Make it opt in based on total money going in and out – eg if less than $500 (eg $250 going in $250 going out), opt in.
Prema – Prefers basing charges on projected number of people.
Nikki – agrees with Mike that we need to go away and model on past games, then come back together.
Hannah: Motion: Investigate options for varying overhead fee structures, that allow for different game types? Prema – 2nd
5 Ayes, 1 abstension
Action Point: Nikki to look into modelling different fee systems for game types. She can draw on rest of committee to help. Hard deadline of May committee meeting, with aim of putting the proposal on committee forums a couple of weeks beforehand.
Anna happy to help Nikki regarding past financials.
Once the fee system is settled, we should be able to determine what needs to be raised through fundraising. (Anna)
A committee member should be voted in each year to be responsible for fundraising. (Hannah)
Discussion about whether the constitution might need to be changed to allow for this, and whether it should be a project or a committee role.
Anna: Projects are very flexible; it could be owned by the Auckland committee and someone could be appointed to run it.
Rowena: If the committee assigns someone to run it, the committee is responsible for that fundraising.
Action Point: NZLARPs Auckland committee to investigate appointing a Project officer for fundraising.
Put this on the agenda for next meeting. Everyone agrees that it is something we should investigate.
Ideas around costumed sausage sizzles (people in armour!).
Meeting closed: 9:12pm.