On 26 August 2012 16:34, HJ Mitchell hjmitchell@ymail.com wrote:
Nobody is seriously talking about spending £40k on the bid. As far as I can tell, the number was plucked out of thin air. I've just come from a two-hour meeting with the bid committee, where the idea of spending ~£17k on the bid was discussed. Even that's not a formal proposal - it's something that's being investigated, along with other options, and will have to undergo extensive discussion before we even get to the stage of asking the WMUK board to approve it, and which faces considerable opposition (including, to some extent, from me) even at this stage.
Have you looked at the budget proposal from the bid committee (I linked to it earlier in this thread)? That £17k is just for paying the professional conference organiser and it in addition to a proposed £45k to go to the bid committee themselves to pay them for their time. As far as I can tell, that is a serious proposal from the bid committee. It is linked to from their minutes with the title "budget proposal agreed".