Sponsorship Opportunity

Geocaching Australia governance issues
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caughtatwork
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Post by caughtatwork » 06 October 08 4:55 pm

Spruce Mooses wrote:Place my faith in the Vic reps to make the decision.

I feel that companies who are not environmentally friendly (eg. Hummer) or not family friendly (eg. alcohol producer) would not be suitable. While I understand it's an offer that has been given to us, would a school full of fat kids take money from McDonalds just because it's offered?

My final issue is, would those who donated get their money back as it would no longer be needed?
Not to trivialise your points at all.

McDonalds DO provide incentives, etc to schools as prizes. My 8 year old has a bunch of freebies given out by the school for achievements. We don't use them, but they are there.

Donations received to date can be refunded or held by GTi for the future when the sponsorship lapses or if the sponsorship doesn't get up.

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Post by Jardry » 06 October 08 5:12 pm

Spruce Mooses wrote:My final issue is, would those who donated get their money back as it would no longer be needed?
As one that has made a relatively small donation, I'm not fussed about a refund.

Without wanting to hijack this thread, subject to approval from other donators, perhaps some of the funds could be used to fund the creation of the entity (be that a not-for-profit national association through ASIC or whatever) which will ultimately sign off on any sponsorship agreement.

Further funds may also be needed to get a legal eagle (unless a GCA member is one in their other life) to cast there eye over the sponsorship agreement to make sure that it is a "win-win" for both parties, and if not, GCA can then negotiate to ensure that it is.

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Post by SG-3 » 06 October 08 7:21 pm

caughtatwork wrote:
SG-3 wrote:OK, to make my position (for what it is worth) perfectly clear: I would be appalled if sponsorship was from a "product" that would not be allowed to be advertised during children's TV viewing time.
We're screwed.
There is a huge restriction on what can be advertsied during C classfied programs.
http://www.freetv.com.au/Content_Common ... actice.seo gives an idea.
<p>Not screwed at all, as long as you look at the right standards. The above reference is to the (mostly) voluntary Code of Practice; advertising during C periods is controlled by the Children's Television Standards 2005, found here: http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/ma ... s_2005.pdf .
<p>
To help you skip within the short 13 page document, go to:
<p>
CTS 13 Advertisements
(1) Only G classified advertisements which also meet CTS 10, and CTS 17 to
CTS 23 (inclusive), may be broadcast during C periods.

<p>
Nothing there that would stop Harvey Norman, DSE, Myer, Garmin, Magellan, Holden, Ford, Toyota, Fisher Price, (need I go on), from advertising during a C period. I did say would not be allowed to be advertised not would not choose to.
<p>
Heh, my original post was going to say:
<p> I would be appalled if sponsorship was from a "product" that could not legally be used by someone under the age of 18...
<p>Until I thought that someone would say "what about cars?"!!!

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Post by Richary » 06 October 08 8:56 pm

caughtatwork wrote:We would prefer 1 senator for each state / territory plus the developers for a total of 11.

If there are a reasonable number of senators above 11, we'll just do it.
If there are too many, the state in question will need to "vote" for their representative. That keeps the numbers workable.
<p>Is there a feeling for when this senate will start, or when votes need to be organised? Otherwise the talk about contacting your Senator and finding out if they agree with your views is premature. Contacting your potential Senator maybe! 8) <p>

Personally, rather than a voting process I would prefer that if we had multiple nominations in a single state that needed to be culled, it happened by discussion between those nominees and a rep chosen between them if possible as happened in the ACT. <p>

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Post by ian-and-penny » 06 October 08 9:07 pm

caughtatwork wrote:There will be no "ads" as such. All that will be there is "Geocaching Australia sponsored by ..." That will be on the front page and nowhere else, not even in the forums.

The logo may have the same verbiage, but that is yet to be discussed / decided.
But what will the sponsor put/have on their website?

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Post by Richary » 06 October 08 9:30 pm

ian-and-penny wrote:But what will the sponsor put/have on their website?
<p>Ask your Senator - once they know :twisted:

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Post by svn07 » 06 October 08 10:12 pm

I have been reading this thread intently, and whilst I have been caching for a full..ooohh...two minutes, I don't want my silence interpreted as apathy...so here goes.

I just want the website to be there tomorrow night. And the next night. And the one after that. SUSTAINABILITY. Whatever happens that is the key. With the current situation, one or two unfortunate incidents may see the VERY generous developer/s unable to continue (I should hope they are not allowed out doing 5/5 caches together - like the heirs to the throne flying together). This happens in so many arenas (too much knowledge/interest invested in too few) and I would like to see some sort of "insurance" against that. If that means sponsorship...so be it. True, that can also fall over, but, six of one and half dozen of the other.

I don't think that sponsorship or otherwise will necessarily "change geocaching" as in the sport/recreation/hobby/obsession (however you play it). Due to the nature of the activity it is not everyones cup of tea (even if WE can't understand why OTHERS don't understand what ISN'T to love about it!).

As for the money that has been raised so far; if we end up with this sponsorship deal, I think it should be retained for "worthwhile purposes" (creating an "entity", rainy day, aspects not covered by deal etc). I for one made my humble donation AFTER this discussion commenced, because I wanted to show that the site and the sport mean something to me and that I appreciate the vast amount of work that has been undertaken to date and I'm sure will continue in the future (and I'm not normally given to such acts of generosity).

With regard to senators...I trust those experienced parties who have nominanted/been nominated to do what is in the best interests of GCA...after all, they too have a vested interest, do they not? I am in no position to assist and I certainly don't have the relevant experience so I simply offer my support and thanks.

Thanks for opening this opportunity and discussion to all. After all, THAT is what is FUNDAMENTALLY important.

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Post by caughtatwork » 06 October 08 10:17 pm

ian-and-penny wrote:
caughtatwork wrote:There will be no "ads" as such. All that will be there is "Geocaching Australia sponsored by ..." That will be on the front page and nowhere else, not even in the forums.

The logo may have the same verbiage, but that is yet to be discussed / decided.
But what will the sponsor put/have on their website?
Good question and I have no real idea. In talking to the marketers it would be a website set up specifically for information out the sponsors product, the association with the GCA website and possibly (probably) rules about the games / prizes they are offering. They would drive traffic to our website and their caches.

What sort of advertising they would have I can't say. As a large Australian company they will be required to follow the ACMA guidelines with regards to their product advertising even on their own website. As far as ours, we get "Geocaching Australia sponsored by ...".

If you have detailed questions, when the senators are proposed, you could ask them to ask the questions and give you answers. They still can't tell you who the sponsor is, but they might be able to provide some light on various questions and concerns.

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Post by CanSolo » 07 October 08 12:00 am

Firstly, I would like to say thankyou to C@W for his continued discussion of this proposal that has been presented to the GCA community. I would also like to thank all members who have currently voiced their opinion, and those that will in the future.

I am not fundamentally against the GCA website, or by inferrence, geocaching in Australia being sponsored by a corporate entity. We already have that with the GC.com site. I know this is a 'game changer' for caching in Australia, and needs to be considered carefully. I see it has already inspired/put a candle under everyone to form a few formalities that we have been avoiding doing, so that 'no one' was making decisions to upset others. I can understand the trepidation that many cachers have with a commerical influence being put into 'our' game.

Just as an aside, the use of the terminology 'GCA sponsored by ...' seems to put quite a few people off, would alternate wording to say the same thing be more palletable to more people. It is a two way discussion, so something a little less sounding like 'ownership' is perhaps more of an option.

I will place faith in our senate to make a decision that is best for ALL geocachers in Australia, as any decision such as this is bound to upset as many as it pleases. I would be disappointed to see an opportunity like this to be passed up, to provide GCA with long term stability, introduce new players from a wider cross section of society.

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Post by PesceVerde » 07 October 08 2:37 pm

I understand that the senators must be quite busy at the moment so to state my personal opinion here in a nutshell, I see a positive outcome from this sponsorship, if it eventuates, including:
  • The longer term financial security of GCA
    Strong sponsor support for responsible geocaching
    *Minimum possible chance of damage to bushland and coastal areas
    Sponsor signage etc. that would be acceptable to any reasonable viewer [Notwithstanding that what's reasonable to one, etc. etc.]
    Some tangible benefit for the developers of the GCA site

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Post by Spruce Mooses » 08 October 08 10:23 pm

Donations received to date can be refunded or held by GTi for the future when the sponsorship lapses or if the sponsorship doesn't get up.

Cool that works for me.
But what will the sponsor put/have on their website?
I guess this was more of my concern than the 'sponsored by' on our website. Will the Senate be able to have a say in how GCA or the sport of Geocaching is represented in the company's advertising? Will it be consistant with general geocaching guidelines?
I'm imagining an ad with a vista over one of NSW's national parks... I'm sure the NP&WS would be happy about that!


All said though C@W, you're slowly convincing me it's not as bad as first thought. :P Someone's gotta ask the stupid questions. :roll:

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Post by caughtatwork » 13 October 08 8:38 pm

Spruce Mooses wrote:
Donations received to date can be refunded or held by GTi for the future when the sponsorship lapses or if the sponsorship doesn't get up.

Cool that works for me.
But what will the sponsor put/have on their website?
I guess this was more of my concern than the 'sponsored by' on our website. Will the Senate be able to have a say in how GCA or the sport of Geocaching is represented in the company's advertising? Will it be consistant with general geocaching guidelines?
I'm imagining an ad with a vista over one of NSW's national parks... I'm sure the NP&WS would be happy about that!


All said though C@W, you're slowly convincing me it's not as bad as first thought. :P Someone's gotta ask the stupid questions. :roll:
Sorry for the late reply.

One of the questions we will have back to the marketers is how the name GCA will be used. If it's in ads, then we want approval of the manner that our name is used. I think that's a reasonable position to take. As far as what imagery is used, that's an interesting question and one that we may nor may not have much control over if the name of GCA is not mentioned.

At this stage I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, except to keep an open mind if possible. I can see that some are unhappy with the experience so far and regrettably 100% of the people will not be happy 100% of the time.

If the site went ahead with the current proposal, some would be unhappy. If we didn't go ahead with the current proposal, some would be unhappy.

What the senate will try and achieve is the best result for GCA in terms of our financial security, presence in the geocaching market and a reasonable association with the sponsor.

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Post by caughtatwork » 13 October 08 8:46 pm

The temporary Senate have been discussing the proposal and at this stage we feel that we do not have enough information from the sponsor to say yes or no to the deal.

As such, we have taken a vote to determine whether we will proceed to what we have termed "step 2".

The vote concluded this evening with a unanimous decision to proceed to step 2. It should be noted that even though the step 2 decision was unanimous, it was very clear that the final position is very much undecided and that much more vigorous discussion and debate will occur.

Step 2 will be to take a series of questions back to the marketers to see whether we are singing from the same song book. The list of questions have not yet been finalised. When they are finalised, I would like to present them here, but they will be sanitised to remove any indication of who the sponsor is and what their product is.

The initial timeframe proposed by the marketers was a start in November or Decmeber, hence the initial flurry of activity. That date has moved a little to "early" next year. This gives us more time to ask questions and discuss differences of opinions.

What this actually does though is very much push the limits of our current server arrangements to near break point. It is likely that before the sponsorship deal can be put in place we will need to move to an upgraded server. I'll try and keep you posted on what will be happening in that space as well.

Thanks for your feedback and opinions so far. It's not a done deal and the senators are very serious about you voicing your opinions, so as you continue to have more questions, please post them.

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Post by Guest » 21 October 08 8:48 pm

I'm new here and sorry in advance if my comments upset anyone, I was drawn to this site because of the openness, I really dislike how closed and money driven groundspeak/geocaching.com seem to be.

I also find it astonishing that 1 site costs $3600/yr to run, in fact in this day and age you are better not running your own server and using a virtualised system as there is a lot more benefits, especially as the number of cores increase.

Who ever commented about .org.au v .asn.au, .org.au is cheaper and more recognisable compared to .asn.au

Also having been involved with non-profit assn's in the past I'm more than happy to deal with benevolent dictators and/or informal organisations that are friendly and open.

If you must have advertise or sponsored by bits low key seems to work best, I'm guessing a large percentage would be techno-savvy and possibly have ad blocking installed etc.

Don't sacrafice principals for a quick buck, stuff doesn't make you happy, and large amounts of money can potentially lead to more problems then people think they will solve.

Just a few cents from a rambling newbee, but if this becomes membership driven how is it any different, from an outsiders perspective, than geocaching.com?

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Post by caughtatwork » 21 October 08 9:40 pm

delta_foxtrot2 wrote:I'm new here and sorry in advance if my comments upset anyone, I was drawn to this site because of the openness, I really dislike how closed and money driven groundspeak/geocaching.com seem to be.

I also find it astonishing that 1 site costs $3600/yr to run, in fact in this day and age you are better not running your own server and using a virtualised system as there is a lot more benefits, especially as the number of cores increase.

Who ever commented about .org.au v .asn.au, .org.au is cheaper and more recognisable compared to .asn.au

Also having been involved with non-profit assn's in the past I'm more than happy to deal with benevolent dictators and/or informal organisations that are friendly and open.

If you must have advertise or sponsored by bits low key seems to work best, I'm guessing a large percentage would be techno-savvy and possibly have ad blocking installed etc.

Don't sacrafice principals for a quick buck, stuff doesn't make you happy, and large amounts of money can potentially lead to more problems then people think they will solve.

Just a few cents from a rambling newbee, but if this becomes membership driven how is it any different, from an outsiders perspective, than geocaching.com?
Everyone's opinion is welcomed.

It may be worthwhile (if you're inclined) to check the threads talking about the server requirements. At the moment we serve 45K+ caches and 1M+ logs. The calculations required to geospatially determine the caches from your home co-ordinates and provide the cool statistics and graphs that we are known for is non-trivial.

$3,600 (USD) gets us something like this:
https://www.theplanet.com/servers/confi ... &series=18

We have one (or something similar) and it struggles, especially with the forum software. An upgrade won't hurt by the way.

ideology provide us this server and we want / need to move to 2 servers of similar capability. One for the webserver and one for the database server.

If i! continue to provide a server, then we need $3,600USD a year for the second. If a sponsor comes along then we can have two brand new boxes for $7,200USD and i! get to have their box back for their own use again.

The benevolent dictators (I like that term) are against ads per se, but a sponsorship opportunity which is an unobtrusive "sponsored by ... " could mean financial security for a number of years without the need for memberships, ads, other annoyances.

It was too good an opportunity not to present back to the community for discussion. The principles of free and open will not be compromised and I feel they will be enhanced as GCA reaches more and more people through the possible sponsorship opportunities.

As I said, I welcome your comments so please don't be afraid to post what you feel / think.

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