Post by Valerie on Sept 22, 2011 12:35:43 GMT -8
Hello again! I hope you all missed reading these as much as I missed writing them. 
As we look at going back into the BGC for the cold season, here’s where we sit financially. During the summer we pay a lot of bills and receive much less income than when we’re indoors, so there’s some things we need to take into consideration as NOTR and would ask our donors (that’s you!) to take into consideration as well. This is in a slightly different format from our Official Monthly Financial Reports which I do every month during the "rent season" and will mostly serve to let you all know where we are $$$-wise, why that's the case, and what we can do to help get things started on the right foot.
We had $1123 listed as the amount we had in the bank at the beginning of April. Here’s a breakdown of what we’ve made and paid since then:
Fundraising:
• We collected donations in April. Donations were a bit low in April as people knew we didn’t have to pay rent in May. All that money went in the bank.
• We raised a modest amount of money over the summer. We had a single-item raffle which raised $50 somebody donated $1 to the general fund. Donations are given at the snack bar, but for the most part that money goes back into paying for the snack bar as a service, except in events where somebody donates special goodies like ice cream.
Expenses:
• We continued to spend $45 a month on website costs for the boards and Vampire website, as was voted on at the annual meeting.
• We invested some of our general fund money into opening a snack bar. The snack bar holds its own, financially speaking - donations for snacks cover the cost of buying the snacks - so it has been re-incorporated into the general fund. (If it failed, we were going to cut it loose.)
• There were some operating expenses, such as the monthly fees Chase charged us before we switched banks this summer & the cost of ordering new checks for the new bank account.
• We just paid rent to the BGC for October - rent costs the same as it did last year.
Rent is a huge amount of our our budget. Paying rent for October and covering the summer expenses listed above leaves us with about $700 in the bank. So, less than we had at the end of the cold season, but that was expected - we still had bills to pay but we didn’t have a business desk taking donations all night because we didn’t have to pay rent.
This is important because it means that at this time, NOTR cannot pay for anything else without dropping below the “Rent x 1” baseline of money-in-the-bank. When that happens, we stop paying for things like the website and snack bar replenishment to ensure we can always pay rent, even if our donation table collections are a bit under target. (We did OK last fall & winter, so great job there - let’s keep it up!)
In addition, dropping down to this level of funds is an bigger consideration than it would otherwise be because of the Haunted House coming up soon. Because putting on the Haunted House is part of our agreement with the BGC regarding our rental arrangement/pricing, it does fall under the NOTR umbrella to help pay for it. Obviously rent will always come first, but if we can keep paying our bills (including that rent) we’d like to make room in our budget to help pay for the Haunted House.
Thankfully, we have an awesome raffle going on right now. Tickets cost $1 and you can buy as many as them as you want. A lot of that raffle money will go towards Haunted House supplies. So, if you were planning on spending $40 on Haunted House supplies, you can either go out and spend $40 on supplies yourself... or you can buy $40 of raffle tickets to help NOTR buy Haunted House supplies, and then you also have a chance to win things.
TLDR: We didn’t make a lot of money this summer but we still had to pay our bills. Since we’re now paying rent again and want to donate supplies to Haunted House, which cost money, you should buy some raffle tickets. Also, remember to please donate to help cover rent once we’re back indoors on October 1st!
As always, if you have any questions, just ask.
Sarah B.
NOTR Treasurer
As we look at going back into the BGC for the cold season, here’s where we sit financially. During the summer we pay a lot of bills and receive much less income than when we’re indoors, so there’s some things we need to take into consideration as NOTR and would ask our donors (that’s you!) to take into consideration as well. This is in a slightly different format from our Official Monthly Financial Reports which I do every month during the "rent season" and will mostly serve to let you all know where we are $$$-wise, why that's the case, and what we can do to help get things started on the right foot.
We had $1123 listed as the amount we had in the bank at the beginning of April. Here’s a breakdown of what we’ve made and paid since then:
Fundraising:
• We collected donations in April. Donations were a bit low in April as people knew we didn’t have to pay rent in May. All that money went in the bank.
• We raised a modest amount of money over the summer. We had a single-item raffle which raised $50 somebody donated $1 to the general fund. Donations are given at the snack bar, but for the most part that money goes back into paying for the snack bar as a service, except in events where somebody donates special goodies like ice cream.
Expenses:
• We continued to spend $45 a month on website costs for the boards and Vampire website, as was voted on at the annual meeting.
• We invested some of our general fund money into opening a snack bar. The snack bar holds its own, financially speaking - donations for snacks cover the cost of buying the snacks - so it has been re-incorporated into the general fund. (If it failed, we were going to cut it loose.)
• There were some operating expenses, such as the monthly fees Chase charged us before we switched banks this summer & the cost of ordering new checks for the new bank account.
• We just paid rent to the BGC for October - rent costs the same as it did last year.
Rent is a huge amount of our our budget. Paying rent for October and covering the summer expenses listed above leaves us with about $700 in the bank. So, less than we had at the end of the cold season, but that was expected - we still had bills to pay but we didn’t have a business desk taking donations all night because we didn’t have to pay rent.
This is important because it means that at this time, NOTR cannot pay for anything else without dropping below the “Rent x 1” baseline of money-in-the-bank. When that happens, we stop paying for things like the website and snack bar replenishment to ensure we can always pay rent, even if our donation table collections are a bit under target. (We did OK last fall & winter, so great job there - let’s keep it up!)
In addition, dropping down to this level of funds is an bigger consideration than it would otherwise be because of the Haunted House coming up soon. Because putting on the Haunted House is part of our agreement with the BGC regarding our rental arrangement/pricing, it does fall under the NOTR umbrella to help pay for it. Obviously rent will always come first, but if we can keep paying our bills (including that rent) we’d like to make room in our budget to help pay for the Haunted House.
Thankfully, we have an awesome raffle going on right now. Tickets cost $1 and you can buy as many as them as you want. A lot of that raffle money will go towards Haunted House supplies. So, if you were planning on spending $40 on Haunted House supplies, you can either go out and spend $40 on supplies yourself... or you can buy $40 of raffle tickets to help NOTR buy Haunted House supplies, and then you also have a chance to win things.
TLDR: We didn’t make a lot of money this summer but we still had to pay our bills. Since we’re now paying rent again and want to donate supplies to Haunted House, which cost money, you should buy some raffle tickets. Also, remember to please donate to help cover rent once we’re back indoors on October 1st!
As always, if you have any questions, just ask.
Sarah B.
NOTR Treasurer