Event Levy Proposals, 2010

[mxhornet]

As a reminder, the levy fees for 2009 will be:
Participants 0 to 75 - free.
From participants 76 to 250 - £1.50 each.
From particpants 251 and above - £2.50 each.
(junior-only events are exempt from levy)

So, proposals welcome soon.

Given the above clubs could just take the first 75 entries and save themselves £112.50

[PG]

I’ve been looking at sheet 2 too. As far as I can see (with the spreadsheet calculations password protected), column I shows that the thresholds also use the scaled participation figures. If we use 30% as a figure for junior participation at levy-paying events (can someone with access to the page 2 spreadsheet data work this out? – more useful than overall junior participation), this means that:-
75 free participants would allow

68 seniors and 28 juniors (total 96) if a junior counts as 25% of a senior
66 seniors and 27 juniors (total 93) if a junior counts as 33% of a senior

So as the “Junior as % of Senior” percentage is decreased, the participation bands should also be decreased.

I like calculating with round numbers, so I propose

free 0-60 (e.g. 53 seniors, 21 juniors, total 74)
£2.00 61-190
£3.00 Above 190

Junior as % of Senior 33%

This raises £116.7 K, which is above the target.

The Board meets next week and will consider suggested alternatives before making a proposal for the 2009 AGM.

(my underline)

Why does the board need to make a single proposal to the AGM? I think most of us felt last year our only choice was to rubber-stamp the proposal or end-up with chaos. Why cannot two (or more) alternative proposals which are equally acceptable financially be put to the AGM? People attending the AGM can then decide.

[mike g]

Is it just juniors that would count as, say, 33% of a senior, or is it everyone paying the junior entry fee (i.e. also including students at most events)?

[PG]

An additional note to explain why I think the 2009 levy model is poor and continuing it to 2010 would be a mistake.

Take this scenario in 2009. We have arranged a local event where if things go according to plan with normal levels of participation we will be able to make a £50 sum which can go back to club coffers to pay for the next remap of the area.

Then St David’s school phones the organizers. “We would like to hold our Y6 orienteering championships at your event and bring a bus with fifty 10-11 year-olds. Is that OK?”. Fifty extra juniors will cost the club £125 in levy. If they are paying £1 each, we will only get £50 in income. Suddenly our small surplus is turned into a loss. Do we say yes to the school?

My choice of maximum of £3 and 33% means the maximum levy on a junior is £1. As this is the amount we have been charging juniors at local events, this is the maximum levy we want to pay for them.

[DM]

How can decisions be made when base data has issues like;

1) 151 registered events with 0 runners?

Thats 6.7% of all the events in sheet 2 and a significant number will be revenue generating in 2009.

2) Charity events where levy is waived are included in the levy calculations?

As was pointed out before, everyone should review this sheet 2, accesible from the news item on BOF site and get the missing figures included and anomalies ironed out.

PG, sympathise with your dilemma about the school, we're potentially affected as well. The answer is you say yes and make a loss and then review costs for future events. We have for a long time charged £1 for our Saturday morning events, aimed at beginners. This will now be changing as the numbers have grown to the point that most would be levied to the point of loss and we can't make losses on the majority of events.

[Spookster]

Tiering (like the first 75 people free) actually encourages smaller (or more secretive - i.e. club only) events - similarly not good. Flat rate for junior/senior similarly discourages organisers from ensuring good junior participation.

The way I see it, the new levy system encourages smaller, more expensive events with fewer juniors.

I think more local events (which are often small) is a good thing, and having the first 75 (or similar number) levy free is just the same result as the present £50 deduction from levy - it means things like club training events are free of levy.

Having the levy the same for juniors and seniors simplifies administration. It does not mean a club has to pass on that levy fee directly to the participant in the entry fee, so I don't think this discourages organisers from ensuring good junior participation.

[Spookster]

I hope suggestions here count...

They do - I'll be following the thread closely until next Tuesday and taking contributors' views to the meeting on Wednesday.

I like the simple system you suggest.

Sorry, but which one are you referring to? I've pointed out the Board's initial proposal (as 2009 but with £1.60 and £2.60), but I haven't put forward my own alternative (yet).

One loophole you need to close - you can't hold more than one event on the same day in the same place. Otherwise I'll have a junior event, an Open event and an age class event, and pay levy only on the last group.

I agree, but that's really only the same loophole that already exists today (by which I mean that you can't claim three lots of £50 levy deduction by splitting one event into three), and I would hope clubs won't start trying to do that next year.

[Spookster]

But tinkering with the above parameters does ignore the biggest variable and that's the reliability of the base data.

[......]

So I then looked at sheet 2 (did you all find that?) which details the actual activities each club has registered. I discover SLOW's figure is mostly a lot of primary school stuff that the in-house RDO gets up to - fortunately none of it producing a projected levy - so no harm done there. But she also does a level one coaching course (training people to be level 1 coaches) and that in BOF's projection produces a levy - £270 in 2009. Sorry - wrong!

So I think all clubs should check the data on sheet 2 for anomalies, but can it all be done by next Tuesday's Board?? I doubt it.

Agreed, the base data is important. Sheet 2 is basically the returns made by clubs to BOF for the year 2007, plus the calculations of what the levy would be in 2009 and 2010, if participation in 2009 and 2010 followed the same patterns, and the clubs held the same events. Of course as we know, the event structure is changing, clubs will hold different events, and participation will grow year on year (we hope!). But it's the best we have to work with, and it's better (in my view) than was available to members last year.

[Spookster]

As far as I can see [...] the thresholds also use the scaled participation figures.
75 free participants would allow

68 seniors and 28 juniors (total 96) if a junior counts as 25% of a senior
66 seniors and 27 juniors (total 93) if a junior counts as 33% of a senior

You are correct, that's how it works.

The Board meets next week and will consider suggested alternatives before making a proposal for the 2009 AGM.

(my underline)

Why does the board need to make a single proposal to the AGM? I think most of us felt last year our only choice was to rubber-stamp the proposal or end-up with chaos. Why cannot two (or more) alternative proposals which are equally acceptable financially be put to the AGM?

Sorry, poor wording on my part. The Board hasn't discussed whether it will propose one or several options, nor the mechanics of voting for them if there were several. I expect this will be discussed next week, when we see what alternative suggestions from members we have.

People attending the AGM can then decide.

Do you mean "People voting (in person or by proxy) at the AGM can then decide."

[PG]

The Board hasn't discussed whether it will propose one or several options, nor the mechanics of voting for them if there were several. I expect this will be discussed next week, when we see what alternative suggestions from members we have.

Sorry, rereading Mike Hamilton's document (see link on Spookster's 2nd post) he indicated that options might be a possibility.

Do you mean "People voting (in person or by proxy) at the AGM can then decide."

Yes - might get more proxy votes than usual!

Spookster has provided me with the participation data used in the spreadsheet and I have calculated the following participation rates.

Junior participation in 2007 events:-

that would have paid levy with the 2008 calculation = 34.2%
that would have paid levy with the 2009 calculation = 28.8%

So junior participation is 34% if we exclude the smallest events including most school league events. If we also exclude all other junior-only events (2009 model), we get a figure of 29%. I suggest that this should be the figure that people use in calculating event fees to provide an appropriate levy return when you expect to have to pay one.

[Spookster]

How can decisions be made when base data has issues like;
1) 151 registered events with 0 runners?
Thats 6.7% of all the events in sheet 2 and a significant number will be revenue generating in 2009.

The data is only as good as the 2007 returns made from clubs. All those 151 events are level 5; some may be training sessions that were registered but then didn't take place. The fact they have zero participants means that there is no associated levy in 2008, 2009 or 2010, and therefore they make no difference to the spreadsheet totals.

It would be great if we had a model of predicted attendance (juniors and seniors) at all events from all clubs for 2009 and 2010 . We don't, so we've got to try to make the best decisions with the data available.

2) Charity events where levy is waived are included in the levy calculations?

Waiving of levy (a) is unusual, (b) is dealt with on a case by case basis, and (c) represents a very small amount in comparison to the overall levy income.