[SCA-AE] NMS--wider consideration

[Lindsay Baldassano]

That's what worked so nicely with how we were working things on a local level with offering NMS "reimbursement".  The event accounting was not affected, but the newcomer who paid got a ticket (to show they had paid), then made their way to our stand where we collected the ticket (and their information for chatelain purposes) and gave the NMS fee out of pot of donations from the populace collected just for that response.  This can easily be adapted to other "promotional ideas" as well, where if the donations are collected in advance you could figure out how many NMS can be refunded for the event and announce it "first x-number newcomers get a discount from their local populace" (however it needs to be to read correctly legally) .

Elli





________________________________
From: Iain mac an Bhaird <iainmacabhaird at tigerfire.net>
To: discussion at aethelmearc.org
Sent: Tue, February 23, 2010 11:02:47 AM
Subject: Re: [SCA-AE] NMS--wider consideration

The other side effect is how this would affect Exchequers.  Right now 
the NMS is easy to calculate at the end of an event as these can be 
totalled in an extra column on the gate sheet.  That makes it really 
easy to figure out exactly how much to "send up the chain" to Kingdom 
within 2 weeks of the event (as required).  If the NMS is being 
collected by omission (those not claiming their membership discount) 
this creates a greater potential for headache for the exchequer (who 
is also trying to consistently remember that the event fee is not 
really the event fee) in handling event and quarterly reports.  Not 
every exchequer in the Society has had a class or two on accounting 
and it should be important to keep things easier for these 
often-unsung heroes (as well as keep the books straight).

Event announcements also need to be considered.  Current policy is 
that announcements must include the sentence about collecting the 
NMS.  This is easy to include and easy to enforce.  It gets trickier 
to enforce "must have a sentence about collecting the NMS or offering 
a membership discount" and being sure that the advertised site fee 
does include the NMS if the second route is taken.

-Iain


>The psychology for this is all wrong in the first place. You don't put a
>surcharge on non-members. That says "we don't really want you here".
>Corporate needs to rethink how they spin these things. You set the event
>fee to whatever amount including the corporate "cut" and then offer a
>member discount. It all amounts to the same thing in the end, but you
>are putting the stress on a positive note rather than a negative one. It
>says "we value our members" not "we hate outsiders." (Carrot, not stick,
>please.)

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