Rules for event hosts
First off: THANK YOU for your hard work!
Unfortunately nothing in life is free. Therefore we need to charge fees at our events as well. The fee per person should be up to 50 cents more (rounded up to the next 50 cents or full Euro) than the price of the courts per person, due to the costs associated with organizing (see below). Doing so will allow each organizer to keep a buffer fund for unexpected situations (detailed in the costs associated with organizing events).
Costs associated with organizing events
- Booked courts need to be paid, even if not all people are showing up (sometimes it is possible to tell the person at the reception to cancel one court at the beginning of the hour, but no guarantees that it will work)
- Uneven number of people playing means eitherway it will not be possible to divide the fee exactly (and varying fees from event to event are a major source of confusion for the participants and stress for the organizers, we tried that)
- Shuttlecocks are being destroyed / lost and need to be replaced
- Sometimes people do not have enough money on them to pay in full
- Some people just leave without paying anything
- The Meetup group subscription costs currently around 69 Euro/6 Months, therefore a minimum of 1 Euro per event for the Administration Fee should be saved at each event
- There are transaction fees for remote payments by card
- Despite all of these potential problems, the organizer still needs to have enough cash to pay for all the courts from the proceeds without paying anything from their own pocket
- And because the work of an organizer starts before the event (setting up, answering to comments, sending messages, booking), during the event (organizing people, making sure there are enough courts, collecting payments, etc.) and after the event (filling up the VBC - Host Reporting Form in Event Management and paying the Admin Fee) - they should at least play for free at their own events
Money Management / Flow
- The extra cents generated from each player should cover the costs listed above under the numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9.
- The Administration Fee should be transferred from each event organizer to the main organizer (after each event or monthly) to be added to a pool from which the Meetup subscription (point 6), the fees for remote payments (point 7), replacement shuttles (point 3) and perhaps other events are to be paid from. Here are the bank details:
Dragos-Cristian Vasilescu
IBAN: AT48 1925 0653 1982 6206
BIC: DIRAAT2SXXX
- The revenue generated from the payment links sent to no-shows and people that canceled too late is therefore important, as the admininstration cost will barely cover the Meetup subscription fee. This revenue will be the main source of income to buy new shuttles from or have the chance to organize unique events.
Tips and guidelines for event hosts
- Keep an eye on your event and make sure everyone is having a good time. Try to be welcoming and include newcomers in the group, especially if they do not know anyone or need instructions on how to play badminton.
- Always use our booking details when booking the courts as much in advance as possible, and as many courts as possible. It is always possible to cancel some of them free of charge up to 24 hours before the event on the booking platform. If you have people deciding to stay extra for a second hour or if you can get some more courts on the spot, always make sure that the employees at the reception book these also under our name "Vienna Badminton Community".
- (suspended with the introduction of the form) Please flag in the Meetup app people as "No-Show" that did not show up or canceled with less than 12 hours before the event (and do not flag as no-shows people from the waitlist, even if they canceled - as they could not participate anyway). Then decide what type of message you want to send them after the event: (1) that they don't have to pay anything, but remind them of the rules or (2) that they would have to pay if they want to participate in other events - with the option to pay via payment link (just add to the database) or next time (only give this option to people that did come to a few events in the past). Either way, at the end - please add them to the Organizer Database.
- Due to past conflicts - please do not let people play on courts that we did not book or play (much) past the booking time!
- If you cannot organize an upcoming event, write in the WhatsApp VBC Organizer group chat as soon as possible so someone else picks it up rather than cancelling. You should cancel an upcoming event only if no other organizer can host that event!