[members-discuss] Discussion : Cost allocation

On 03/10/2011 15:00, Erik Bais wrote:
> Hi Alexey,
>
> If you look closer to the RIPE meetings for instance, there is also an income to the RIPE meetings. It is about 250k Euro a year if I'm correct.
> And the RIPE meetings are in fact, open to members and none-members ...
>
> Question that I would have :
>
> Is it required to hire a boat / hotel etc for a week to accommodate the number to participants including full service (foot and free drinks) in order to have the meetings. And why should the membership fee pay for this 625k Euro yearly loss?
The evening events are all sponsored and the dinner is sponsored and 
tickets are charged for.

Having said that, yes, the RIPE meeting makes a loss and has done for 
many years. We are very happy to take an action to reduce the cost to 
the membership of the RIPE meeting either by fully charging for the cost 
(in which case it will roughly double the ticket cost), or by trying to 
reduce costs. Reducing costs will probably mean using a dedicated 
conference venue far from hotels (we've done a lot of work on this over 
the years), but if members want this then we are very happy to consider it.
> I see no shame in using a way of recovering for the open bars .. For instance by the use of tickets / chips. X free drinks per RIPE attendee, additional chips at 2.50 euro per chip. And those chips can be used for food and/or drinks.
Well, as I say. All bars are actually fully paid for by sponsors.
>
> Do I even dare to ask what the cost is going to be for the temp setup of free wifi in the venue's for only 1 week for about 400 people with each (on average) 3 wifi capable devices each ?
The cost of setting up wifi is a long ago sunk cost. We've got all the 
kit and it doesn't get significantly upgraded.
>
> On the training courses, it is my personal view that the setup fee should cover a part of the training cost.
> That means that per new lir there should be a limited number of free seats for each training.. and every additional consumed training seat should be paid for. The companies that have lots of changes in their trained employees, that they should also pay for additional seats used during the trainings.
We've done this in the past, and the members have objected. We can 
easily go back to this. It wouldn't make a significant difference in 
costs, but we can certainly do it.
>
> I'm pretty sure that if the board would look at other expenditures in a similar fashion, that there might be a different outcome to what is currently projected.
We do in fact examine costs extensively. By far the major cost in the 
budget is personnel and we've cut the number of FTEs this year.
>
> I'm not suggesting to look towards a type of membership that just uses RIPE just for the registration services and a full membership that actually uses the other services, but the current way of operating might could be a bit less 'not for profit' by checking to see if there is an earlier break-even point or a way to avoid a loss on certain activities.
>
Nigel