Talk:2013 Activity Plan

General discussion

I just want to thank Jon for putting this together. It's great to get all the (hopefully) uncontroversial stuff down at the beginning so we can make the discussion as productive as possible.

A lot of the budget items so far are continuations of 2012 budget items (which is the obvious place to start), so it would be useful to have some projections of spending against budget for those items in 2012. Do such projections exist? (I see Jon has already adjusted some of the items to reflect lessons learned this year, but is that just based on his personal knowledge of what has been spent or is it written down somewhere?) --Tango (talk) 14:49, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

All based on what is deliverable (well mostly wouldn't want to kill too many babies) Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 19:50, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't answer the question. --Tango (talk) 20:08, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

We are of course doing end of year projections and they are useful but only one factor. The variables are for instance, 'are things underspending because they need more input but are still valid aims' or 'are they overspending because of poor financial management or unexpected demand/success. During this very first year of operation in the real world we need to avoid jumping to conclusions based simply on sums. Bottom line 'what do we want to do - what do we think would be good?'. This is a vibrant community not a sausage machine.Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 08:47, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I never said we should jump to conclusions. Please have enough respect for the community not to assume we would misuse data. This is supposed to be an open planning process, so all the data it is based on needs to be open. --Tango (talk) 13:20, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

We worked through budget projections taking into account our current spending rates in an evening session of the last board meeting - Richard holds the spreadsheet that we worked on then. The problem is that it's very difficult at this point to project what the end-state of this year's spending will be, since most of the project budget lines are still ramping up (e.g. the mass upload tool budget line hasn't seen any spending yet, and the WWI budget line hasn't really gotten started yet), and there's still issues with setting up Sage so that it records the expenses against the appropriate budget lines. So the data isn't really in a good enough state to be made open yet (it could lead to GIGO), but I (personally) hope it can be made public in a few months time... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 15:04, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

3. Staff

Separate section?

I don't think staff should be a separate section. I would pay for the fundraiser out of the fundraising budget, the education person out of the education budget, etc.. The staff costs of an activity are no different to any other costs, they are still money being spent to achieve something, so why should they be budgeted differently? Some staff may need to be split between multiple budgets, with an estimate of how much of their time they will spend on each. The office rent can also be shared across the projects in proportion to staff time - the cost of the bit of office that someone is sitting in while they work on a particular project is as much a cost of that project as anything else is.

One of the things a non-profit is judged on is how much of its money goes on its programmes. Therefore, we should make sure that all programme spending is correctly allocated to programmes, otherwise we just make ourselves look bad. --Tango (talk) 14:37, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

One the things we need to develop is the type of grid SORP recommend, with types of expense (salary, travel) on one axis and purpose of expense (projects, governance, overheads) on the other, giving a far richer and clearer analysis, as well as making full cost absorbtion clearer. We are working on this, both conceptually and in terms of the accounting software. I would hope the final version is able to be presented in this way. Johnbod (talk) 15:36, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Such a grid is useful in an appendix. I don't think it works as the actual plan, though - it's too hard to get the right about of detail into little boxes and the plan ends up being written to fit the layout, rather than the other way around. --Tango (talk) 15:46, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

We could cut it up in any number of ways - please concentrate on what we want to do as a chapter. We are not doing full cost recovery accounting or allocating staff time to individual projects because we would spend, I would say WASTE, time om internal managing 'So far this morning I have spent twenty minutes on Wales, Twenty minutes on governance, thirty minutes managing staff, three minutes making coffee etc..." I want to deliver a programme not be a slavish bureaucrat; In a small organisation like this there is a clear balance to get right.Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 08:53, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

How are you supposed to judge if a project is a success if you don't know what it cost? Filling out timesheets doesn't take long. I do it every day. If I've kept track during the day, it takes hardly any time at all. If I don't, then I have to spend about 10 minutes at the end of the day remembering what I did. I can recommend the software we use, Carpe Diem, which lets you set up a bunch of timers and you just click the relevant timer when you start a job, and then click a different timer when you move onto something else, and it keeps track of how long you are spending on what. It's very simple and quick to use.

Anyway, I wasn't about timesheets, I was just talking about how budgets are set up. The budget for a project should include all the costs of that project, including staff time. Exactly how we measure how we're doing against that budget is a separate issue. --Tango (talk) 13:25, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Pay rises

A 2% cost of living increase sounds a bit low. Year-on-year RPI for May was 3.1% (although it is forecasted to drop a little). I don't know quite how cost of living in London relates to RPI, but it's probably slightly higher (I believe the housing market in London is more buoyant than the rest of the country). And, of course, staff should be getting additional pay rises to reflect them having a year's more experience and to reward a job well done (assuming they have done well!). There is always a desire to keep costs down, but staff isn't somewhere we should be cutting corners - we need to attract good people and we need to keep the good people we already have well motivated.

A problem with having a small number of staff and an open budgeting process, is that you end up discussing individuals' pay rises in public, which doesn't feel right... Perhaps that would be an advantage of my suggestion above - merge the staff budgets into the programme budgets and then there isn't a need to separate out individual salaries. (The total spend for each programme and the total spend on salaries should be published, but the splits could be kept confidential, probably with the exception of Jon's salary.) --Tango (talk) 14:59, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I think all the staff realise that pay levels are public. They were in my last charity as well and I have always believed in this wherever I worked. Of course 3% would be nice...Jon Davies WMUK (talk)

I think staff pay should rise in proportion to the cost of living. I know next to nothing about economics, but if the cost of living is greater than the annual increase in salary, isn't that a pay cut in what they call "real terms"? While we need to exercise restraint, considering that we're a charity and we rely on voluntary donations, I don't think we need to be cutting salaries. Harry Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:24, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

5.2 Wikiconference 2013

Is the £40k for Wikimania intended to be for the bid, or for initial work on the actual conference if we win? Or a bit of both? The decision on the bids is currently scheduled to be made 3 months into our financial year, so both do need to be allowed for in this budget. I think the intention is to hold a major conference in 2014 whether we win or not, so we can just allocate some funds to organising that conference and not worry at this point whether it will be called Wikimania or not. I think there should be a separate budget for the bid, which probably shouldn't be as large as £40k (it's only 3 months work, after all). --Tango (talk) 14:44, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

The 40K is specifically for the Wikimania bid. The 5K is for the annual conference. As yet there has been little discussion about this but we are testing the idea of offering financial support for the bid from the Chapter. This would obviously be a great sign of our intentions but more practically support those making the bid. What do people think? Should there be a London bid? Should we support it? Should we support it financially? Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 08:58, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I had a lengthy discussion with Seddon about a budget for the bid, and I completely agree with you. If we want to put together a professional bid, then we need to be willing to spend money on it. I don't think £40k is necessary, though, especially for just the last 3 months of the bidding process. What do you anticipate that much money being spent on?

The £5k is for the 2013 annual conference. I was talking about the preparation for the 2014 conference that will happen during the 2013 financial year. --Tango (talk) 13:28, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

The point about it being only a quarter of the year building up to the bid is a valid one. In reality it is more likely to be six months based on 2011's process. If we did get the bid though I am sure the remaining funds would be vital to getting things started smoothly. Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 08:05, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who is involved in the Wikimania bid, I would say it is great to have the financial support, or at least offer of financial support, from the chapter. Obviously, we're far too early into the process to be refining costs down to the penny, and I believe we will certainly be seeking a significant amount of sponsorship. The point is that by setting aside £40k to support the Wikimania bid, as well as offering staff support, WMUK is sending a clear message to the powers that be that it does support the bid, and is willing to put its money where its mouth is. The lukewarm support from the chapter last year (which was understandable, given the sensitivities and given that the bid team was much more ad-hoc and not as well integrated into WMUK compared to the current bid) was cited as a factor in the decision to go with Hong Kong instead of London. Harry Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:15, 5 July 2012 (UTC)