as i see it any organisation trying to raise funds first and foremost looks to use its commodity (whatever that may be) to raise cash.

whether we like it or not, the ONLY commodity we have worth anything is the member clubs and ultimately their members.

this is why i continue to, as Darryl put it "use my hobby horse of donations" to do this.

personally i would like to see the council ask for an 'open book' discussion with GW on the subject of Gamesday and ask them to reveal what their savings amount to in relation the volunteers running tables instead of paid GW staff.

as i have said before i think the answer will be at least 10k, and although i mentioned a figure of 1k as a donation, perhaps 25% of their savings could be muted at said meeting.

they still walk away with guaranteed savings of 75%, and the GCN recieves a very kind donation of the other 25% as a thank you for its services.

lets not forget that to attend in the first place ALL models have to be of GW origin, which means they have made money from these sales, before we even get to put them out for others to play with.

also, we have to take the 'hit' if any are broken or stolen on the day, something which happened to one of our guys the year before last and although the club reimbursed him, he will not now attend as he spent hours painting etc only for some little beggar to pinch several models. i dont know if GW are aware this happens but it is antoher thing every person has to consider if they do the event, the same at any event mind, not just Gamesday.

the fact that any donation would be paid direct to the GCN as an organisation would go a long way to easing the financial burdens of our organisation and help it realise the new 5 year plan. as i said earlier, the continuation of the GCN means volunteers for many years to come for GW and others to call upon, so is mutually beneficial to all.

as for membership benefits, the cheap PLI and the fact that you can go to gamesday / events FOC surely are worth the muted £12 per club per year, aren't they???

this is why i think a poll of clubs with these very important questions / issues is needed URGENTLY so the answers can be evaluated before the Gamesday pack comes out.

lets stop selling ourselves short, and cheaply, and realise that we are worth something, and if companies dont see that or are willing to recoginise it, lets move on / away from them and do things for ourselves regionally instead, in the form of small events, and donate some of the profits from these evnts to the GCN.

with the new representatives we have i'm sure clubs can co-ordinate through these individuals to run the odd event at their own clubs and thereby promote interclub sociabilty as well as making a few pounds for the organisation as a whole so it can grow into what everyone wants it to be.

Gosh, there's a lot of material in here. I'm pretty sure I won't (and can't) answer all the questions here but I have a couple of things to add:

1. The GCN is financially independent. GW has often supported us with indirectly, but never financially. Our organisation has been financed via club donations, events and some personal donations.

2. Gamesday. I would hold judgement until I see the pack. If you don't like the rules, don't participate, we are volunteers after all. This said I still think its a great event for clubs to 'show off' to the wider community, and this is exactly why my club has done Gamesday in the past. While I do understand Carl's point of view and respect it, I disagree because for me, we are volunteers, from many different clubs, rather than the GCN as a whole, and it is for those clubs to decide if they want to take part.

3. GCN Council meetings are held at Warhammer World because it is in the middle of the country and a sensible place to meet. I don't think moving it would prove our independence to the wider community because I do not think the wider community knows (or cares) where we hold these meetings. However...

4. I agree that the organisation should visit clubs more often which is why is it so important to have GCN Respentatives working at a local level (please note Council members also visit many clubs as well). And...

5. Local communities are created locally. It is your organisation and if you want regional meetings bringing together local clubs, organise them! This already happens in parts of the country and works well. In my experience the best approach is to use a central club on a normal meeting.

6. I believe we already provide enough services to justify a nominal membership fee. Without an urmbella organisation, Enhanced CRB checks are £36 a time. The PLI is the best deal I've come across (and is organsed for you). Plus you have this forum provided for you to discuss this stuff and advertise your clubs, and your events. And then you can also advertise in White Dwarf, on the GW website and in GW stores. This alone would answer the question of financial independence in many minds.

7. And finally, our need for financing relates directly to the activities we want to do. For us at the moment, this means financing a GCN show and Konflict. To be honest, talking to the guys at the AGM, I'm not overly concerned by these costs. However having more working capital will enable us to do more in the future.

At the end of the day the requirement for finances and the organisation (in terms of volunteers) comes down to what the membership wants us to do. We have some great ideas such as running a GCN show to start this discussion and at the moment, I think the question "what do we want to do?" is more important than "how do we do it?"

Richard Kerry
President

P.S. Sorry for the really long post

Richard, whilst i too see your point, i am still at a loss to see any other viable suggestions as to how we self finance ourselves for the future.

if a better one can be found other than asking for some assistance for the time, effort and monetary cost each GCN person puts in to Gamesday, then i will bow to it whole heartedly.

peoples time is the only marketable commodity we have and therefore should not be overlooked.

is there any particular reason why the question cannot even be be asked of GW. is there something us mere mortals do not know from way back when that prevents this subject being broached.

whether or not the services and savings provided justify a membership fee (i think they do but...) it is surely down to ALL clubs to vote on whether this is made a requisite to be a member club, as if the council just bring it in without a vote you will simply lose those clubs who dont want to pay a fee, which could impact on Gamesday volunteers for GW if some of those clubs would have provided people for it but then cant because they are not willing to pay to join the GCN, and only GCN clubs can of course attend.

at the AGM you put forward your five year plan for the GCN, but there was no definative way of actually getting to that light at the end of what is already a very long tunnel.

as president, what is your suggestion in how your goals are going to be achieved. in short, what are your ideas for this if you will not even ask GW about helping us out.

to do what you want to do will take monetary backing, something we are seriously lacking in.

i'm not trying to be funny or arguementative, simply asking where the funding is going to come from to do what you want us to do in the future.

hi richard,
with reguards to what ndo the clubs wqant from the GCN i think after the EGM and AGM in my opinion it was very apparent that the clubs wanted to see more from the GCN for being a member especialy support in there events as well as there clubs with reguards to general help and advice.the other point was a clear visable independance from GW and should champion the club voluenteers that give there time up to assist GW and other companies whilst our members do it becouse they love there hobby we should be assured that there time and effort should be appreciated more.
whilst funding of the GCN is a sensative subject it is an unescapable fact tyhat it is needed for the GCN to grow and evolve, becouse it is such an important matter i think ALL clubs should be asked for there opinion i am quite sure there there a lot of differing opinions out there but without there input we will not know the best way to procede and if a club does not wish contribute then we can only asume they either dont have an opinion or they are happy to go along with whatever is decided.

Quote:

Carl, I know its still a while away yet, (in fact its exactly one year away this coming Sunday), but some of the finances to help maintain and run the GCN in the future which you refer too should be forthcoming when the GCN merges with COGS to run the Hammerhead show in 2011.

Will any profit generated by the show be enough for what the GCN hopes to implement in the future, who knows we will have to see, but one thing is certain, its a very good start, and it should see a bright future for the GCN.

We just need to give it time for the wheels to start turning, granted other options for raising finances need to be looked at as well, as it never hurts to have options.

Tony; how much did the last show cost you to put on exactly, as you stated at the AGM it was quite a bit, and was why this years was cancelled.

our club put on a show instead of GW's (cancelled) Midlands Conflict a few years ago and it cost us over 3k to do this, and we got the money through a grant from the lottery fund (although this took me two atempts over 18 months before getting accepted) which means if this is the sort of level for Hammerhead then the GCN's £750 just aint gonna cut it, especially as they also need some of this to cover standard running costs.

my point was that if we dont have enough money BEFOREHAND, the GCN simply wont be able to finance or co-finance the 2011 show or anything else for that matter, which is why i'm asking how we are going to raise funds now.

we cannot wait another 12 months to start generating the sort of funds needed to convert Richards plan, otherwise come next year people will say he has not done or started to do what he promised and another protracted election battle will be thrust upon us all again, something i'm sure Richard or anyone else does not want.

we need to act NOW with ideas to generate this income, it wont simply drop into our laps, which is why i asked what ideas Richard has up his sleeve to get the money, thereby to start his plans rolling.

IMHO we should either as ghostrider put it 'start to play hardball' over our time at events etc or simply walk away if we get no aid, and use our money and time to put on smaller local gatherings and donate money internally to the GCN through these sorts of things.

perhaps some of the monies saved by clubs NOT attending gamesday, i.e costs saved on scenery building, petrol costs, figures, accomodation can be donated to the GCN to start to self fund itself. just an idea mind!!

Just for anyone wondering, my club is quite concerned over what might happen over Games Day regs, E-mailed Bek, she said that hopefully they should have it out by next Tues.

B

our club is also concerned about them i have told the guys interested in doing a table i was putting a hold on it till we see the full details of what GW want and expect and the simple fact is if they are asking for too much we will not go!

Richard; please can i ask if you could reply to my earlier questions posted above, including what ideas you have to push forward your five year plan?

also, are we going to see a poll of clubs with questions relating to points raised at the AGM and this 'chat' eminating from it.

Carl, sorry for for the delay in responding to you, my connection has been a bit iffy for the last couple of days, and I have been somewhat busy trying to catch up with stuff that I did not get done when I was ill over the last two weeks, all sorted now hopefully, both myself and my connection.

Hammerhead show cost, while I am happy to discuss most aspects of the show, I don't want to go into too much detail regards costings on the forum if you don't mind. However suffice to say that in total the show costs are in excess of the 3K you mentioned, its not a cheap show to put on, although it is a profitable show and we are happy to keep hosting it.

On to why the show was canceled for 2010, it got complicated last summer truth be told, we got the distinct impression that the owners of the venue had another motive for their actions and attitude towards us, let me explain....

In previous years we have paid a small deposit of £500 to secure the venue and show date, this is usually paid around May or early June. We then have to stump up 90% of the balance by September, and the remaining 10% is paid post show, usually within a week or two at the most. By late September we are getting either deposits or the full amount from traders wanting stall space, many pay up in full as they want prime stall space and the only way we guarantee that premium space is if they pay up in full. So we have a good cash flow and the cost of hiring the venue is pretty much covered by the revenue the traders send us.

The system works very well for us and has done so for a number of years now. However this year the management of the venue stated that they wanted the 90% cost of the venue hire charge in June not late September, not the £500 deposit we would normally have paid at this time.

We think, as I mentioned previously, that as the show date fell on Feb 14th,Valentines day, that the venue managment perhaps had another show or event lined up, but had to offer us the date first. Quite simply we did not have that kind of money in the bank for an up front charge of that amount, so we had a committee meeting in early June to discuss what we wanted to do. When we realised that the show date was in fact on Valentines Day itself we checked our records to see what effect if any it would have on us holding the show on that date.

Bottom line was the last time that happened cost us about 20/25% off the attendance expected, so when we digested that bit of information we decided to pull the plug on the show as the costs are too high to lose that amount of punters, plus you get nothing but grief from the traders when this happens.

So basically the venue management made it extremely hard for us to hold the show, we could have done so had we had 2 1/2K in the bank, but we did not and that was that.