1. On the geocoins, I think most people, including the current board agree with you that we should do geocoins on an annual basis. This year’s geocoin commmittee, chaired by Cheeto, is doing a great job in spearheading this process, and I think we will get some exciting design ideas.

As far as mandating it annually, it is hard for current boards to mandate to future boards what they will do in the future, though we do kind of do that that with the campout and the geo-picnic. It is hard to know how market changes may impact geocoin sales in the future, and this is something that future boards will have to assess each year.

2. On the T-shirts, we do plan on having T-shirts available for this year’s campout. Renee and Gwyn will be leading that effort. In the past, T-shirts have been more of a member service rather than an income source, and profits from T-shirt sales are not large. I would prefer to keep the prices of the shirts low enough that most people can buy them, rather then set the prices so high, that few are bought.

3. We do have other ideas for income sources over the coming year:

a) Cafe Press is going to be set up differently, so that the WGA gets 10% of the proceeds from items purchased there. Look for an announcement from Renee when she gets this set up. This wont generate a lot of income, but it will be better than nothing.

b) The WGA has been recently approved as an official distributor of Groundspeak, Inc. This will allow us to sell Groundspeak items at events (like the popular Signal) at a profit. Thanks to Renee for working on this, and details will be complete by the time of our campout.

c) Pathtags. We are currently assessing the potential profitabilty of pathtags. Dont expect quick action on this until after we have a design finished for the geocoins.

Thanks for the suggestions.

zuma

@kansas64 wrote:

Zuma,
You missed my point with the TShirts and Cafe Press, after seeing how much they marked up the product I wouldn’t go there. Try pricing something out there yourself. I would guess that if you added a minimal mark up on shirts as I suggested (say $1.00 or 2.00) per shirt it would be a bigger income stream as I dont think many will use Cafe Press given there prices

I guess I did miss your point. We dont expect Cafe Press to generate much income, but wanted to continue that option for those interested in those items, at what we agree is too high of a cost for most people.

And I should clarify my comments on T-shirts at the campout. While the board agreed to do this again this year, we have not yet discussed pricing, so my comments on pricing was just my personal opinion, not a board position, that markups on shirts for the campout should be kept minimal, which has been past practice.

Just my opinion on pricing shirts: If we charge a $2.00 markup for them and sell about 80 of them, net income is only going to be $160. Increasing the markup to $4.00 per shirt does not mean that our profit would e $320, since demand is elastic and would go down. I would prefer to keep the cost down as we have in the past, allow as many people as desire them, to get them at a reasonable cost as a member service. We will discuss this though prior to the campout, and appreciate the input, as a board decision on pricing has not yet been discussed.

Tie would have the actual numbers from last year on the T-shirts, but in general it has not been considered a major income source. We appreciate the input and will take a look at determining the best price point.

z

I’d like to add that it would be nice to order a shirt if your are not able to go to the event. I’d pay for the shipping. Cuz not all members are able to attend event to get a shirt. Is there another option other than Cafe Press?

@cheezehead wrote:

I’d like to add that it would be nice to order a shirt if your are not able to go to the event. I’d pay for the shipping. Cuz not all members are able to attend event to get a shirt. Is there another option other than Cafe Press?

Thanks for the idea.

z

I know i would buy a shirt and a hat even a couple of them so i can wear them at events or when out and about to help promote the WGA and the sport we all love. but we would have to make sure (speaking for myself here) that we have Fat man sizes for me, 😆

I know of two ways in the outsource method that this is done. The first way, the organization decides how much of each size, style and color of each item should be ordered. They pay for all of the inventory but it is sold through the store much like consigment goods.

In the second way, the store holds the individual orders until they have enough to send to the printer. The six to eight weeks your waiting is for all the other people to place their orders and create enough volume for the large order.

Another club that I used to be a member of, would order a bunch of items (shirts, hats, hoodies, umbrellas sweatshirts, visors) and keep selling them off at each event until they were all gone. I know this takes a bit of good guessing so that your not stuck with 20 small sweaters that no one wants. But the person in charge was pretty good, in fact she got to the point that each month she had something new in her “store”

One thought might be to hold a T-shirt sale a couple times a year rather than year round.