Re: [AGA-sc] One little thing -- one big thing and lots of little things

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

I'd like to toss in a couple more cents on Erik's comments.

We know the convention did not have as big an impact as in
2003 although it was sizeable. But the real performance
gain was across the board. And the credit goes across the
Board.

The ads are a very important element financially -- much
more important than the convention. And they have that
importance for mainly two reasons. One is the good work
Kathy and Phil did/do with the vendors. The other, to put
it very briedfly, is what Karen has done for the content of
TAG and Cheryl has done for it's appearance. And too
everyone else's work that helps promote and maintain AGA's
reputation and membership. Without those things, we
wouldn't get diddley doo for ad space. I suppose this is
all sort of obvious but I thought it was worth saying
anyhow.

I think the disks, like TAG, are right at the heart of
AGA's mission -- the Tshirts are on the periphery. While
the shirts give a good return over costs and help promote
comaradery, the disks are educational and entertaining --
in terms of AGA goals, I think their importance is right up
there at the top of the list. And that importance derives
in part from the convention and the contest.
Synergistically, they are more a key element than the books
or the shirts.

It doesn't hurt that they are so well produced. 

sh
--- Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com> wrote:

> As of late, I have been noticing that I really have
> immediately zoomed in 
> on some odd triviality and completely missed the more
> important bigger 
> message in several posts.  So, over dinner, while I was
> grousing about the 
> bookstore income not looking right, Kathy asked me: "How
> much money did 
> the AGA lose this year?"  "Lose?  We're actually fifteen
> grand ahead!"
> 
> Which led to us thinking back over the year or two and
> all the programs 
> folks have been putting in place to make the AGA viable
> without counting 
> on convention revenue... so I'd like to give a big pat on
> the back to 
> everyone who helped make this happen.  Having the website
> and paypal stuff 
> streamlined is nice, and the DVD's are cute (and will be
> a bigger blip in 
> 2005 :), but the real heart of the changes are:
> 
>    * Kathy for getting the ad program up and running (and
> Phil for shifting
>      it into third gear)
> 
>    * Cheryl and Karen for figuring out how to reduce the
> printing costs
> 
>    * Fixing the bookstore rates so that we actually made
> money on each sale
>      rather than losing money
> 
>    * Cheryl, Scott, Karen, David et. al. for blanketing
> conventions with
>      flyers & bringing up the membership numbers
> 
>     - Erik
> 
> On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, Erik Olson wrote:
> 
> > Something's bugging me about these numbers... OK, the
> $640 net for media 
> > sales sounds right, but I know that we sold a boatload
> more CD's and DVDs 
> > than books last year.  So why does Book Sales show a
> disproportionately high 
> > net revenue, which then feeds in and allows it to grab
> a proportionately 
> > higher slice of the allocation pie in your final
> analysis?
> >
> > Ah, I think I know...Didn't we buy those books (APHB
> and Tropica) in previous 
> > years?  So there would be no expenses for the actual
> cost of the books in 
> > 2004, and any books sold would appear as pure profit
> (minus mailing). So we 
> > probably didn't REALLY make $2200 in book sales, it's
> just that if a similar 
> > analysis was done for 2003 or 2002 it would show it as
> a loss or closer to 
> > break-even.  Had we been replenishing stock at the same
> rate of sales, the 
> > net would have been lower.
> >
> > I'm also note sure of how back issue sales related to
> books in the Allocation 
> > analysis... guessing it was one of the categories that
> got eaten up and fed 
> > into the six that were analyzed.
> >
> >  - Erik
> >
> > On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, S. Hieber wrote:
> >
> >> Hearing Dave's name mentioned made me think about
> money.
> >> And that's when I remembered my deadline for stitching
> >> together a 2004 financial report.
> >> 
> >> Letting the quest for neither quantity nor quality
> stand in
> >> the way of progress, I am submitting for question and
> >> comment a draft report.
> >> 
> >> If it flies, we can commit it to the archives. Those
> that
> >> misbehave will have to stay after class and commit it
> to
> >> memory.
> >> 
> >> ciao,
> >> sh
> >
> >
> 
> -- 
> Erik Olson
> erik at thekrib dot com
> _______________________________________________
> AGA-sc mailing list
> AGA-sc@thekrib.com
> http://lists.thekrib.com/mailman/listinfo/aga-sc
> 

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