2008/9/18 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>:
After setup
costs I expect income in the first year to be zero or
negative. Second year I expect income probably would cover travel
expenses but if it did little left over for anything else. Path beyond
that is tricky to predict. WMDE has certain advantages (such as the
language barrier) that WMUK will not.
That's an extremely pessimistic outlook. Why are you bothering to take
part if that's what you think? If we can't make any money in the first
year, how will we make it in future years? And if we're not making any
money, what's the point in having a chapter? We won't be able to do
anything we couldn't do now.
Can be useful by being able to use the name. There are quite a
selection of things that can be done on zero budget or by using single
event budgets. Money issues should sort themselves as the organization
gets bigger but I don't think that is going to be a fast process.
Travel expenses can get considerable very fast dropping them on WMUK
would probably be a fairly effective way to kill it.
I would tend to characterise myself as a realist. Sure it would be
nice if WMUK took off fast but what are you going to do if it doesn't?
Do you have a fall back option to run on near zero budgets? It's about
keeping expected costs as low as possible so that you can use what
resources you do have to cover absolute necessities and unexpected
costs. When WMUK has brought in 1K a year and mean brought in not
looks like it is going to bring in but actual money in the bank
brought in then things like travel expenses can be considered.
At the moment we have less than 100 people of all types interested at
all and that is with the first flush of newness. We are ultimately
working from a weak position. As long as we accept that we can succeed
but if we fail to accept that and start racking up costs fast we will
simply find another way of failing.
--
geni