Calendar Policy

[Gotcha6]

To date, there are only 6 entries in the calendar contest. I do not know if the photography rule has anything to do with this low turnout, but with 2 weeks left until voting, we may need to stimulate some interest.
Regarding the photography rule, I would suggest a policy change to re - word the rules as follows:

Please remember that this is primarily a Photo Contest, therefore, only photos that can be made to fit within the size and resolution requirements will be accepted.
Also remember the contest reflects your wood working [STRIKE]and photo[/STRIKE] skills. Photos submitted are implied to be released from copyright liability to NCWW. Any liability regarding the creation of photos will be the responsibility of the member submitting said photos.

I can't think of a way to express this with more brevity. Any ideas?

I'd also suggest as soon as we could agree upon a solution that we post it to the general membership, as it may further stimulate participation. We don't want the calendar to be decided by default.

 

[cskipper]

Looks good to me.

 

[TracyP]

Looks good

 

[Gotcha6]

I realize brevity is the soul of wit, but this isn't meant to be witty, just CYA, or in this case COA.

 

[Gotcha6]

This has been hanging out there for ~2 days with no further comments. If there are no objections by mid afternoon, I'll make the necessary adjustments to the contest rules & also amend the deadline for submissions because of the problems with photo downloading.

 

[Trent Mason]

Looks great to me Dennis. :thumbs_up:thumbs_up

 

[McRabbet]

Look like a real improvement. Thanks. Go for it!

 

[CaptnA]

read -
We are committed this year, but may really need to look at crunching numbers to determine if this is viable to continue after this one. It isn't all about the money, but that is an issue!

Since I've been on the site the number of calendar contest entries have really dropped. Not saying interest has - but I'm just not sure/convinced either way. There used to be a lot of entries and a lot of activity on the site associated with the contest. Most of what I've seen this year is people talking about not being able to submit their entry, and I've not seen many of those.

The thread I found from Scott last year said he initially ordered 50 calendars. With $100 for the cover and $50 for each month that is $700 in prizes. With 50 calendars that means we need $15 profit per calendar just to break even. How many calendars did we sell last year and how much of our prize money did we recoup?
If the contest was increasing activity and interest was booming, the dollar amount wouldn't be nearly the issue I'm seeing right now. I'm just wondering if this is good stewardship I guess. Two weeks from voting and we don't have quite half the entries needed to make the calendar.

 

[Gotcha6]

Scott forwarded me some emails he's been getting & the consensus is pretty much the same. I suppose many people are also strapped for disposable income to spend on this sort of thing as well.

 

[CaptnA]

Scott told me we sold about 60 calendars last year and made $4 on each.
So we spent $700 and got back $240, a net loss of around $460.
If we garnered the interest we once did and the entries we once had, I would think that was money well spent. Based on the contest participation so far this year, is it?
How can we step up the contest and site participation in general?? Million dollar questions, that we are charged with trying to answer.
We are getting ready to ask people to give what they can to help support the site with our Fall Donation drive. I get questions like what does this money go for, are we getting the best bang for our buck, and the like. I feel we as the BOD do our best to be good stewards of the site dollars.
No easy answers, and it is all food for thought...

 

[Gotcha6]

With the cost of calendar printing being an expense, and with many members already having printers possessing photo quality printing capabilities, is it worthwhile to consider offering the calendar as a .pdf file to be printed by the members? This could possibly be done after Jeremy edits and compiles the calendar. It would save mailing costs (and with the Post Office considering folding, that may not be a bad option). What is the cost to us of the printing? Is there a minimum, and what do we typically have printed as a quantity? I looked in the minutes of last year's August and October meetings and couldn't get the answers I needed, so I thought I'd bring this up for discussion here.

 

[b4man]

read

Wish I had a useful opinion:no:

 

[cskipper]

read

 

[CaptnA]

The calendar is NOT a money making event. It costs us.
I've talked with Scott about this and he said last year we sold about 60 calendars for $15 each, and made roughly $4 on each of them. $11 of each to the printer. We took in about $240. We gave out $700 in prizes, so do the math.

IF we had the contest bringing in lots of entries, sparking lots of interest in the site, causing lots of posts, and really moving the site along, then MAYBE it would be money well spent.

JMTCW