Seeking co-sponsors: 2026 Convention Budget

From reading both sides, I’m gonna have to politely abstain from this one.

I know many will not like my decision (even though I originally voted Yes at first), but after reading it again, I honestly cannot strongly vote either a yes or a no at this point.

I hope y’all will understand. I do see good arguments on both for and against, but nothing too strong enough for a full yes or no vote to decide on my part.
 
After taking into consideration comments from Mr Burnes and others, and rethinking how cash flows would work in practice, I have decided to change my vote to no. If and when the convention fund approaches 0, this body is completely capable of revisiting any projected shortfalls, and shoring that up from the general fund, at that time.

While I have faith we will grow revenues, now is not the time to spend that towards this.

@Kate Prather do we have an idea of how much is due on signing (20%?) to the venue to secure the contract? I would also like to have a general idea of when we expect major outlays, so we can stay on top of that in respect to cashflows, convention and general.
 
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If you are one of the members who voted “no” on this request, I would like to know why as a member of the Convention Committee. Although I believe the motion will pass, all points of view still need to be taken into consideration as we negotiate expenditures and as we make plans to offset costs via various endeavors. Your input would be appreciated. Also, please try to be pithy.
 
Nolan Schmidt said:
From reading both sides, I’m gonna have to politely abstain from this one.

I know many will not like my decision (even though I originally voted Yes at first), but after reading it again, I honestly cannot strongly vote either a yes or a no at this point.

I hope y’all will understand. I do see good arguments on both for and against, but nothing too strong enough for a full yes or no vote to decide on my part.
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That’s okay. If you would like to call me and discuss this further, please feel free. My number is on my FB profile and on the picture of my business card just posted recently.
 
Jack Westbrook said:
If you are one of the members who voted “no” on this request, I would like to know why as a member of the Convention Committee. Although I believe the motion will pass, all points of view still need to be taken into consideration as we negotiate expenditures and as we make plans to offset costs via various endeavors. Your input would be appreciated. Also, please try to be pithy.
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Fundamentally, the budget that was included in the report should be considered an estimate (ROM, rough order of magnitude) in my eyes—a gauge used to compare apples to apples, which I thank the committee for putting that together.

But now we are talking spending those funds, and as I noted, I don't have an idea of when to expect those funds to leave our accounts and how that fits with the larger cashflow picture. With this motion, I feel like we are effectively creating a reserve in the general specifically for convention, when we haven't had a single outflow yet, nor a more accurate idea of revenues and outflows, and when they will occur.

I am perfectly fine with what is in the convention fund being spent in its entirety. When will that account hit $0 and we will need to shore it up? After convention when final bills are due? 180 days prior? Now? Will it ever (assuming convention revenues make it back to convention via motions)?

I feel those are valid financial questions we should at least have an estimate on. I don't expect perfection. For every business case I've worked on professionally, I've had to submit financial models of incomes and outflows, usually for a decade, for good reason. It helps tweak things now, and avoid overruns. It also more importantly, let's the larger business know how much capital is left to invest on other things, and when.
 
I think most of the questions herein have been answered. The bottom line is that this motion seeks authority to spend the amount budgeted for the convention. We will be making diligent efforts to defray the costs budgeted through various means: ticket sales, various convention packages, donations and donation challenges, etc. Some of the questions cannot be answered until we have completed all of our negations. Others are unable to be answered until all of the revenue and expenses have been reconciled. The Convention Committee should be able to give SLEC updates at every meeting between now and the Convention.
 
Jack Westbrook said:
I think most of the questions herein have been answered. The bottom line is that this motion seeks authority to spend the amount budgeted for the convention. We will be making diligent efforts to defray the costs budgeted through various means: ticket sales, various convention packages, donations and donation challenges, etc. Some of the questions cannot be answered until we have completed all of our negations. Others are unable to be answered until all of the revenue and expenses have been reconciled. The Convention Committee should be able to give SLEC updates at every meeting between now and the Convention.
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Will the convention committee spend all in the convention fund before the end of 2025?
 
Kate Prather said:
To clarify how we've done it in the past. The way our payment processing system was set up EVERYTHING went into the general ACCOUNT. Separate tracking was done, as it should always be, to know how much of what got brought in by Convention should go to the convention account. In the past ALL ticket sales, sponsors, and gala fundraising was always going back to convention fund. DAPR, Lifetime, and directed donations were kept either in general fund OR transferred to their appropriate account.

I assume this will be done again as it has been done the last 3 terms I was involved in the Convention finances.
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True and I should have mentioned how it was done prior to last convention. The ability to drop ticket sales directly into the convention account was a new thing that started during the last convention.

Now, QB has informed us that they will soon be ending "classes" and not replacing them with anything. For me, because of this, it is even more important that we ensure monies flow directly into the appropriate accounts where possible. It will make tracking and reporting easier. While tracking isn't as much of a concern to me (although it can be extremely time-consuming if not kept as separate as possible), reporting is. Reporting should come from our accounting software. QB just made that more difficult. I'm working on finding a solution now.
 
Jack Westbrook said:
If you are one of the members who voted “no” on this request, I would like to know why as a member of the Convention Committee. Although I believe the motion will pass, all points of view still need to be taken into consideration as we negotiate expenditures and as we make plans to offset costs via various endeavors. Your input would be appreciated. Also, please try to be pithy.
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@Jack Westbrook I think I outlined my concerns in my comments earlier in the string, but I’m happy to have a phone conversation to elaborate. I did try to be pithy! 😉
 
Billy Pierce said:
I would be 100% onboard with authorizing the expenditure of all the monies in the Convention Fund account. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the additional amount, and the order of operations.

Extra thanks to @Joe Burnes, @Mike Coogan and @Anastasia Wilford for the conversations seeking clarity. These are questions worth asking, and we're all on the same team here.
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Same. Heck, I’d be fine with even a bit of buffer beyond the convention fund.

Truly, I don’t want this to be administratively burdensome for the committee, and I realize sometimes you gotta move fast on good opportunities.

But I am not comfortable with the amount, nor the wording of the motion.
 
Request for information here: Did our previous convention stay within the available convention funds? Was there any point where the funds in that account reached 0?

Also for what it's worth, I am of the opinion that when a department has funds allocated, with a clear direction, they reserve the RAA (Responsibility, Accountability, and Authority) to dispense with those funds as needed. In this situation, that would be the convention acct.

For example, if the final 25% of the $82k is due after the convention completes, it is very well possible that the reserve we are placing against the general is not needed, and this motion may not be needed. Reason, inflows from packages, sponsors, tables, ect making their way into the convention acct cover this without needing the reserve. However, in an odd hypothetical, if those inflows don't occur until after the final bill is paid (i.e. a net 90 like terms), then I see the need for the reserve against the general.
 
Seeing as how our convention fund never crossed $37,000 and the convention cost more than that, I can't imagine that it "stayed within" the amount available in the convention fund. Now, whether or not the convention fund ever reached 0 is a harder question to answer considering ticket sales, booth, sponsorships, etc and the timing on when those came in.
 
Anastasia Wilford said:
Seeing as how our convention fund never crossed $37,000 and the convention cost more than that, I can't imagine that it "stayed within" the amount available in the convention fund. Now, whether or not the convention fund ever reached 0 is a harder question to answer considering ticket sales, booth, sponsorships, etc and the timing on when those came in.
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Cash flow vs working capital.
Depending when inflows and outflows happen, it's possible to run a convention many times the size of that $37k.

The way this motion structured, it guarantees the convention will occur if we don't sell a single package. It also locks up working capital that may not be needed, because I expect we will sell many packages, booths and land sponsorships.
 
Anastasia Wilford said:
Agreed, which is why I said it's harder to answer.
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Admittedly, it takes a little work, but for something this size completely doable.

@Jack Westbrook @Kate Prather if the committee would like assistance in answering my (and others) question on the topic, I would be glad to offer my time to help model this out. This one seems fairly simple to model out, all things considered.

I'm not trying to be difficult. I don't want us locking up funds that afterwards we decided never needed to be locked up.
 
Put plainly, my concern is with the $30k additional budget.

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Let's start with a very basic breakdown:
  • Convention Fund Amount: $69,414.40 (we'll round this to $69,415 for simplicity)
  • Budget Authorization Amount: $81,827
  • Difference: -$12,412
Now this clearly is not a full picture as it does not account for ticket sales, sponsorships, and the committee's efforts to re-negotiate parts of the contract. In other words, that $12.4k would almost certainly be offset be convention revenue. The question is: Will we make up that $12.4k in revenue AND still net enough profit so that we have at least, say, $50k in the Convention Fund for the 2028 State Convention, which is a Presidential year when we'll need to be in the Triangle and will likely have higher costs?

Just to say it, that $50k is an arbitrary number, and I'm open to debating a realistic target convention fund amount for post-2026. Point is, though, that we need to be looking beyond the end of our noses here and make sure we're setting ourselves (and our predecessors) up for success for the next term. And the fact of the matter is that our financials have been on a downward trajectory. I know I said this during the meeting (and I believe Mr. Bradley reiterated it too), but we will not be getting $50k+ of Vote With Your Dollars revenue this time around.

Let's take a look at some QoQ General Fund balances, which is the fund we would have to pull from for amounts above and beyond the what's in our Convention Fund.
  • End of Q2 2024: $103.6k
  • End of Q3 2024: $85.3k
  • End of Q4 2024: $79.5k
  • As of 4/30/25: $75,853.36.
Guys, this isn't about who your friends are/aren't or the trust you have in the committee or lack thereof. You are all aware the Ms. Prather is one of my best friends in the Party, and she sits on this committee. (And bless her heart, she has had to hear the unfettered version of my concerns, lol).

But we have GOT to stop making decisions (and annual budgets!) based on what we "hope" we can achieve/fundraise and start taking an objective look at our financials with an eye to the future.

I am all about stretch goals, and I WANT us to have a nice, professional convention. I am not Team Bingo Hall ;) But approving an overly-padded, albeit transparent, budget is bad business practice. "If you pass a bloated budget, you will always be under budget." (Unless you're the US Government)
 
Anastasia Wilford said:
So what would you like to see instead of that $30k?
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I'm honestly not trying to be overly prescriptive in that regard, but I'm happy to work on that with anyone who is interested.

If I'm just looking at 2024 Convention P&L, it looks like the Speakers/Guest/Parliamentarian line item was around <$8k compared to the $15k Entertainment cost in this budget, so that's probably a darn good place to start.

*Edited because I'm old and my eyes looked at the wrong line!

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