2016 Finance Subcommittee

By admin, 30 March, 2022
Date of Meeting

    2016 Finance Subcommittee

    Date: Tuesday 5th week, Trinity 2016 (2016-05-24)

    Present: Anne Williamson (President), Cealach McKeating (Vice-President (Administrative)), Steven Rose (Secretary), Darryl Braier-Lorimer (Treasurer), Hugo Monnery (Lindsay), Frederick Potts (Foody), Zachary Leather (Foody)

    Agenda


    1. Matters Arising
    2. Treasurers report [Darryl]
    3. Pantry report [Zack & Freddy]
    4. Bar report [Hugo]
    5. AOB

    Minutes


    Cealach welcomed the meeting.

     

    1. Matters Arising

     

    2. Treasurer's report [Darryl]

    “Are they good?” “Yes. Today Fexec discussed the Hilary accounts. Darryl reported that Hilary had seen a £2732 profit overall, and that this was largely driven by the bar. He did, in fact, state that the bar’s Hilary term was “up there.”

    Annie asked about Committee expenditure in Hilary; Darryl replied that it was ÂŁ2485.30. It was agreed that this was good, indicating a particularly active Committee. Cealach asked how much had been spent through GMs; this figure was not on hand.

    Annie asked about the health of the music fund, enquiring about the feasibility of paying the GM donation to the Tingewick Pantomime from this fund. Darryl replied that the fund had ÂŁ3100 at the end of last term, but noted that its health depends on whether or not the JCR purchases DJ equipment. Annie noted that the donation to Tingewick was ÂŁ500, and hence the fund could comfortably accommodate both expenditures. Darryl agreed and offered that running down the music fund is generally a good idea, as ring-fenced funds are not particularly useful to the JCR owing to their lack of flexibility.

    Darryl then reported that Hilary for Pantry was “okay.” He reported that there had been a £1372 loss, and noted that for Hilary “that’s fine.” Given figures from previous years, he speculated that the loss in revenue is largely due to shifts for which Pantry had not been open.

    He then reported that Entz had made a lower profit than usual. He noted that the figures were skewed as there was an income of £2300 in from freshers’ week tickets sales that were bought the term prior on Battels.  He told Fexec that when this figure was discounted, Entz had lost £700. It was noted that this was more than previous Hilarys, and it was generally agreed that this was also a good thing as an indication of activity; Darryl noted the Entz account currently had a healthy £8000.

     

    3. Pantry report [Zack & Freddy]

    Zack reported that there had been a profit over the last two weeks. He reported that costs have been stabilising around ÂŁ1800, and that revenue was around ÂŁ2000, resulting in a ÂŁ200 profit. He noted to Fexec that one or two shifts had been lost, but by and large things had been running smoothly. He told Fexec that he was anticipating a good 9th week, and overall expected a ÂŁ400-ÂŁ600 profit. He however noted that something will probably go wrong, and hence his more realistic estimate was in the range of -ÂŁ500 and ÂŁ500 range. He told Fexec that staffing was working well, but noted that three of the four PESC members have exams approaching and hence will become less available; as will he and Freddy.

    Hugo asked if the Foodys had asked College about the use of the van for the purpose of transporting the freezer for Summer VIIIs. It was noted that the food would be arriving the same day that the van would be transporting materials to Christ Church. Zack asked where the van took the equipment; he was told that the van gets to the bridge near the Boat House; Darryl strongly recommended using the van because carrying a freezer is a massive pain. Zack was convinced.

    Zack enquired about the state of the JCR’s barbecues, noting that there were currently two in the Entz cupboard. Darryl seemed to suggest that they were fine. Zack noted that he likes the barbecues because they’re compact because they’re disassembled, but that dislikes them because they’re disassembled, and this would require prep work (as in, he’d have to check if he knew how to put them together). It was also noted that he would need to buy coal and firelighters. The price of burgers was discussed; it was agreed that the typical £2 would be charged.

    With regards to when Pantry should be operating at Summer VIIIs, Hugo noted that his license to serve alcohol was from 12pm to 6:45pm, and suggested that there would be no need to set up outside of those hours (and that not all of this time would be busy). Darryl suggested the BBQ would be likely to see traffic around lunch time; Freddy therefore suggested setting up for half eleven, particularly to offset any unexpected setbacks and hopefully open for twelve at the latest.  

    The health of tea and coffee sales was enquired after; Freddy reported that tea sales had gone slightly down but not by much, and that the coffee sales were unaffected.

     

    4. Bar report [Hugo]

    Hugo noted that he had stopped calculating the figures of the difference between takings on a given week and the takings on the same week the previous term as these times were qualitatively different, and that he had stopped including a comparison of a given week with the average over the last five years as this actually provided no insight in how the bar should operate.

    He noted that the bar was £1651 up in revenue on this time last year. He noted that this term had the advantage of a Garden Party rather than a Ball, which brought people to the bar, and told Fexec that this brought the figure up by about £600, however he noted that there existed a cost as the bar didn’t open for the first couple of days of term as it had done last year, and estimated that this cost was about £400. He noted that on these figures alone, the bar should only be up by £100 or so, and hence expressed his pleasure at the £1600 increase.

    He told Fexec that takings on Tuesdays was still going down, and hence the bar’s profit margin was better as a result. He suggested that the figures gave the impression that the introduction of cocktails in fourth week had helped takings quite a lot. He told Fexec that the rationale behind introducing cocktails was that fourth week was the quietest week of term last year, which translated to greater time for the bar staff, and that this time could be used creating cocktails as a more desirable product. He noted that the profit margins on the cocktails are quite high, and hence the increase in revenue should translate to good increase in profit as a result.

    He told Fexec that during Summer VIIIs, there would be a prominent alumni event (including a champagne reception). He told Fexec that the plan was that this would take place between 4:30pm and 5pm, and after that, alumni would be back in the boathouse for speeches (however students would not be asked to leave). He noted that this would imply the presence of around 120 extra humans, which could well translate to traffic for the bar and Pantry. He suggested that each service would therefore be planning to prepare more to serve than the last year. Darryl agreed, though noting that Summer VIIIs was notoriously difficult to predict, as it largely depended on the weather on the day of the event.

    Darryl suggested purchasing more burgers than was currently planned and leaving them in Pantry to be retrieved should they be needed on the day.

    Hugo told Fexec that he had obtained permission to sell Pimms on Saturday of 6th week and 8th week, but would not be selling Pimms on the Saturday of 7th week as there would be a College event (the Carol Clark memorial service, which constitutes a “substantial party in college”).

    Annie asked for thoughts on the possibility of an abstract portrait of Carol Clark (abstract as it was difficult to paint accurate portraits of subjects that weren’t living) to be hung in the Library, paid for by a combination of contributions from College and contributions from the JCR Picture fund. Darryl suggested that it would be worth checking out at a GM. Annie noted that the criteria for a portrait to be hung in Hall was that the subject is either a previous Master, or a substantial donor; noting that the recent paintings of Emily Freeman are the first time there’s been an exception to these criteria.

     

    5. AOB

    Darryl noted that he had finals currently, and thanked Zack for taking over a number of responsibilities for the June Jamboree.

    Cealach reported that preparation for Freshers’ Week was moving along well. Fexec were told that there had been positive feelings expressed about the idea of a Pantry lunch on the welfare roundabout day of Freshers’ week (which would be Wednesday).

    Freddy asked about the impossible-to-move-Balliale. Hugo asked him to not ask. He told Fexec that he would be selling Balliale at Summer VIIIs, however it was inevitable that he would have to write some of the stock off; he suggested that 2000 bottles was too large an order, but also noted that this was the minimum order available from the brewery that had been used. He told Fexec that the options were to make the Balliale taste better and use the same brewery; find another brewery; or discontinue Balliale.

    Annie wants an IPA. Don’t we all.

    Zack asked Hugo what the profit margin for a bottle of Balliale was, assuming it was sold at ÂŁ2.50. Hugo replied that the cost of a bottle (to the best of his recollection) was ÂŁ1.10. He noted that this was not a terrible margin, and that it was better than other bottles of ale that the bar sold for ÂŁ2.50 and ÂŁ2.00. He told Fexec that Balliale had just about broken even at this point, but that sales of Balliale diverts sales from other ales and hence the cost of Balliale would be two-fold: the cost of the stock would be noted once the Balliale expired, and the diverted sales would also be noticeable.