Re: [AGA-mcm] Kent stiffed us -- or I Kent disagree with Cheryl even though I try

["S. Hieber" <shieber@yahoo.com>]

--- Cheryl Rogers <cheryl@rightstuffwebsites.com> wrote:

> All due respect, Karen, I meant real advertising.
Well, then never mind the never mind I previously issued.
> 
> Of course we should be cautious. Of course we should keep
> tabs on it to 
> see what works and what doesn't.

I think it's pretty hard to tell what advertising is doing
for you, short of some colossal response. Was the slight
increase in memberships due to ads or would it have
happened anyway? Was the lack of increase or decrease due
to ads offsetting what would otherwise have been a
decrease, etc.

I think you make an strategic effort and it's a gamble.
Probably one we ought to try. I think the last time we were
in this sort of discussion, it was generally agreed that
TAG was our best advertisement -- at the time, we were
talking about the once and future subject of Big TAG.

> I think we do have the money. We have money in the bank.
> What are we 
> saving it for?

Of course, what Cheryl means, implicitly is, "How much do
reserve cash do we need to have?"

I'd like to propose answer. We need a reserve of funds to
cover one full year of operational costs [If we had capital
expenditures we need some capital reserve but since we have
virtually no assets or capital expenditures, we get off
pretty easy there ;-). ] If things went south very quickly
and very badly, we'd have up to a year to re-group,
re-plan, and undertake act ivies.

How much is year's worth of operations? Last year,
operations cost approximately $36 thousand. But AGA's
portion of AGA2K4 costs accounted for about $10 thousand of
that. If we assume a convention will at least breakeven (a
dead on certainty for 2005, btw) then annual Op. costs
excluding convention were about $26 thousand.

Costs have gone up -- inflation of about 2% and bigger TAG
59%, etc. so I estimate the 2005 op. costs (sans
convention) to be about $32 thousand.

I suggest we keep at least $32 thousand in reserve.

Let's assume I am right. I find this very easy to do but
*you* might have to suspend doubt the way you do when you
read, say, Stephen King or the Congressional Minutes. That
means that we currently are running a surplus over reserves
of about $6 thousand. About $4,000 short of paying for a
40-page, full size) Big TAG, but enough to do something
else tangible, noticeable, and beneficial.

Actually, that's the picture at midyear. The bank balance
more or less steadily but slowly has been climbing.
However, a conservative approach would be to not "bank" on
a continued increase -- for example we've lost a couple of
TAG advertisers recently and other such adverse events
might be forthcoming..

What costs $6 thousand?

sh


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