Dear friends, hello again! Finally you can see some tracks of your Treasurer, and even, let me tell it, some tracks of myself, after a long absence. As you probably already know, friends, I had several serious problems with my computer, losing a lot of precious material that was in the memory of this diabolic machine. A long time spent trying to adjust it, to save some part, to survive. Finally I’m back. I came back in time to see the last fight between one of us and the others. Unfortunately it can happen when in a group you can find different ways to work. But then I finally checked our financial situation for the 2003 and for the current 2004, and then I was sure: actually there’s a crisis, here! You can see the results of my short and little work in the attachments: the first one is about all the NetCom Trips of the last year, meanwhile the second is just an overview of this current time. First of all, some notes. In 2003 our budget was of 4000 ˆ , divided into 2000 ˆ devoted to the NetCom Meeting expenses, and 2000 ˆ devoted to the NetCom Trips. This year, in 2004, the budget is higher, and we have 4800 ˆ divided into 2400 for the NMs and 2400 for the NTs. About the overview of the current year, there’s not so many to say! No NetCom Meetings were done since the beginning of January and then no reimbursements (the first expenses for this part of the budget will be the one for the reimbursement of the Speaker going to the Agora in Ohrid), and even no NetCom Trips already reimbursed. At the moment I know that only Serge made a NetCom Trip in this term, but he still didn’t ask for the reimbursement. If somebody else made a NetCom Trip, please let me know! The summary has to be updated day by day. But let start talking about last year. Fortunately we have a clear overview of the whole year and we can comment the results. NetCom Meetings (Bruxelles and Zielona Gora, and Bucuresti and Zaragoza for the Speakers) cost 1.780,89 ˆ. 2000 ˆ were forecast and we saved 219,11 ˆ. Considering in Bruxelles Far-West and Spirit were not present and in Zielona Gora DACH, Far-West, North and Spirit were not present too, maybe it’s not a great result! Then, unfortunately, if we focus our attention of the other part of the budget, the one devoted to the NetCom Trips, we can notice that the situation is radically worse! In 2003 the Treasurer of AEGEE-Europe appointed 2070 ˆ to the whole Commission for NTs, but even if we planned to spend the whole amount, in the end we spent only 641,05 ˆ, that means only 30,97% of that amount. In the summary of 2003 in attachment you will see even in which percentage each of us actually spent the money he asked for his/her NTs. You can see a clear result: two big trends, and no one of them is positive. 1. NetCommies not planning any NT (when you see only the name of your predecessor and not yours, it means he/she made those NTs indicated there, and you… simply didn’t plan to do any of them during your term; the same is when you see only the old name of your Region: it means that part regards only the old term when your Region was called with the old name, and if there’s no tracks of the new name, it means even no tracks of NetCom Trips planned in the last term!). 2. NetCommies planning even many NTs, but in the end not putting anything (or putting just a very few of them) in practice. In such a case simply check the percentage between the brackets!). I hope, I really hope a discussion will start now, cause these results are really serious and negatively impressive! I invite all of you to express his/her opinions concerning them. I will start expressing my ideas, then I hope other ones will follow! Generally speaking this is the image of a Commission really in crisis. NetCom Trips should be the best instruments we have for reaching our locals and trying to be really in touch with them: when we decided about our budget, we gave the priority to the NetCom Trips guaranteeing a reimbursement up to 100%. It means we consider NetCom Trips as our most precious tools… but in such a case why don’t we use them really? In the ouline 2003 we can see that 61 NetCom Trips were planned, and in the end only 12 of them were reimbursed. No one reimbursement was requested for the other ones. Fortunately it doesn’t mean that 49 NetCom Trips were planned and never done: maybe some of them, or even many of them, were done and nobody asked for any reimbursement! Nobody knows that, and for sure detecting about this is not the task of a humble Treasurer. Concerning me and my Region, I can say that only one of the NTs never reimbursed present in the outline were done without a successive reimbursement, and it was the one to Verona (Veneto), made by my former-SubCommie and now precious support Francesca Fedrizzi. For all of the others, then for 7 NetCom Trips, half a part of the ones in the outline, unfortunately I have to admit they were never done. For sure all of you missed definitely less NetCom Trips then me: I know for sure somebody is working a lot without asking for any reimbursement, but please, let me highlight a crucial aspect! Even if some of us are so generous to work also without asking for reimbursements, this is one of the worst way I’ve never seen to use funds, to deal with money: we always book money, and then always we give it back. We could be the best friends of each Treasurer, cause practically we are a wonderful, efficient emergency fund, a real precious guarantee for the finances of AEGEE! But are we sure we are even the best friends of our locals? We have a lot of money we can spend to serve and protect them, and we simply decide to give it back each year! Often the most common and effective excuse of the administrators when they don’t work properly is that there’s no money enough. Well… we really can’t use that excuse, my dear friends! Money is there! A lot of money, and we decide to use only the 30% of it! Then… there are only other two options: 1. The Network doesn’t need we use that money, cause everything is going really fine and it’s better to save money for critical moments. 2. We are simply not able to do our “work” properly. Now, let me say about the number 1 that in the last period there were not candidates enough for the CD, there was a serious financial crisis that blocked many useful activities of the Network and demotivated many locals, there was the crisis of the Year Plans, there were 3 harsh and serious MemCom cases, there was the deletion of a PM and the necessity to find immediately an emergency place for it, there was the Magusa crisis, the human resources crisis of the Human Resources WG, a general lack of participants to ALL the AEGEE events. Hmmm, it really doesn’t seem the image of the Paradise, where we can save money cause we don’t need any “extra”-activity!!! Mainly it seems the image of the Hell!!! Meanwhile, about the number 2, I don’t comment, leaving all of us the opportunity to think about it. Waiting for feedbacks, even cruel and aggressive feedbacks, always your friend Luca ====================================== Luca Falcone "Rainbow" Region Network Commissioner AEGEE-Napoli Honorary Member AEGEE-Ljubljana Ordinary Member [log in to unmask] ============================================================================== RAINBOW-L is a regional discussion list of AEGEE. Check out http://www.aegee.uni-karlsruhe.de/archives for the archives of public lists. To unsubscribe send 'unsubscribe RAINBOW-L' to [log in to unmask]