Our expenses are:
- Hosting $1,584.00 / year
- Domain $15.00 / year
We post the paid invoice details every year, so there is nothing hidden from that respect. Y'all can go and check for all the past years.
We have no GC account fees. We don't pay anything to geocaching.com
If we hold a game then there is the cost of the prizes and these vary depending on the AUD / USD conversion rate.
Tag $2.50
Stamp $1.00
Padded Bag or Envelope, plastic snack bag or mailer, paper, toner, address label $0.25 - $0.50
We go through 100 to 150 tags per game which is around $400.00 to $600.00 per game
Other than that, we have product that we purchase and sell and it depends on what we're buying and what we're selling to see the costs and profits.
We pay a designer for some of our tag designs ($25.00 plus two tags) but those costs are absorbed into the cost of the production of the tags.
In general anything I source I mark up by around 100% (some a little less, some a little more).
We lose fees to PayPal on the charges that go through them. 2.6% + $0.30 is paid on every transaction. So a $5.00 donation costs $0.43 and we end up with $4.57.
There are no "costs" to people for anything they volunteer to do for the site. If we stop our games we only have ther server and hosting to pay for.
If we published a statement of "how we're going" then today it would be $2,500AUD. Tomorrow it would be $600 as there are bills to pay and tags to order. Then it might be $650 as we sold some items, then $200.00 as we bought some stock. Then $300 as we sold some stuff, then $0.00 as we ordered more. You cannot tell from any of those numbers whether we will end up in the black at the end of the year or not. I will tell you that if we publish a number at the end of the financial year (June 30), based on what I expect to see in sales, then our financial position is between $100 and $200 in the red. i.e. We are making purchases so costs are incurred now for a profit in the next financial year.
The site is not run as a business or association. It is not under the control of a senate. The site is run entirely by volunteers who have do the activities of keeping the site going. Suggestions for change come from the community (including the volunteers) and if there are no suggestions then the site makes no change. If there is no-one who takes on a role then that role does not get done and whatever is dependent on that role also does not get done. e.g. If no-one steps up to designing or engatging designers for pathtags, then we sell no more new pathtag designs. If no-one steps up to suggest a game and be involved with the running / administration of the game then we have no more games. If no-one suggests we allow for new geocache types, then we stay with the the geocache types we have. These are just examples, but the result is across the site. If no-one does it, it does not get done.
If the community want to run Geocaching Australia as a not for profit they are welcome to set one up for financial purposes. Domain registration and hosting would remain with the site steward. You would need a shop keeper if you're going to take control of the finances as they would all need to be kept together, under a treasurer. You would need a designer for the tags to sell in the shop as well as any more stickers or custom items you would look to procure. If there is an association I would step back to being a site developer and steward of the site to retain the free and open aspect.
In relation to your question. The wiki contains the senate information and you can read all about it in there. The point is moot though as we do no have a senate any longer with the site now being directed by the community.
From the wiki:
https://wiki.geocaching.com.au/wiki/Sen ... ne_2018.29
If there are fewer than 10 nominations then one state, territory or island may be represented by more than one senator.