P3D Cleveland - Numbers and $$$

["Dr. George A. Themelis" <DrT-3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I hope you don't mind if I bore you to death with a few numbers.
This was our first year in operation and none of us is in the business 
of running clubs.  So we were surprised by these numbers...

First, the most amazing thing:  We close our first year with money
left in our treasury!  Despite our first months of running without
members, despite our membership campaign money, low fees and initial
expenses, we managed to finish with $200 in our account.

Here is the break down:

$840 Memberships (15 family, 36 individual)
$902 Newsletter subscriptions (66 domestic, 6 international)
$610 Donations
-------------------------------------------------------------
$2352 Total Income

Under donations we have cash donations ($234) and donations via sales
and services ($362).  A few members donated a portion of sales of items
that were sold to club members.  NSA is by far our greatest donor, 
through Stereo World magazines donated to the club which were bought
by our members.

Where did all the money go?  Here it is:

$1633 Copying & distribution of newsletter
$ 531 Everything else (membership campaign, club memberships in stereo
      organizations, projection, programs, competitions & awards)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
$2164 Total Expenses

Here is a very simple calculation:  If we divide the cost of the newsletter
with the total amount of "paid" subscriptions/memberships (123) we get a
cost of $13.28.  So, our $12 subscription rate was a bargain since
subscribers got more than their money's worth.  Also, if we divide the other 
expenses ($531) by the total number of members (66, theoretical maximum for 
family = 2 members) we get $8.06.  So, the price of individual membership 
($15) was also a bargain because the actual cost is $13.28 + $8.06 = $21.34.  

The question is:  How did we end up with money when we gave subscriptions
and memberships for less that they cost us?  The answer of course is this
donation figure.  Without the donations we would be deep into the red.

Because we cannot depend on donations and because we want to built a strong
treasury that will allow us to invest more money on club property and
membership campaign efforts, we decided to increase our newsletter 
subscription rates from $12 to $15 and our memberships from $15 to $20.  
These figures better reflect the cost of the goods and services provided by 
our club.

I'd be interested to hear similar observations by other clubs and also
to hear ways to reduce the expense of copying and distributing a newsletter
(by far our biggest expense).

Regards - George Themelis, OSPS


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