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MSU deficit

 
Old 10-29-2009 at 06:40 PM   #16
huzaifa47
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FireDragoonX View Post
I looked at the audit.

I lol'd so hard.

Please stop wasting our money MSU. Negatives in every service. Or just barely making a profit. Quite pathetic.
While I do vaguely agree that some of the services need to shape up their act the issue here is that 90% of the MSU Volunteer/Paid Staff is students and it is very much against the spirit of "student union" to bring in a mob of professional managers and workers.

That being said I am confused about the long term sustainability of Undercovers; I have used that service in the past and despite finding bargains(compared to titles Used Service) I still think the place is a mess. The setup/environment is bleak and unappealing and confusing, I don't see a big need for having two CSR's at the same time doing not much in particular. The Promo needs to be much much more expansive; I still have friends who have NO idea where undercovers is or what it does :S Then it is random incidents like staff putting up a 5 minute leave sign and coming back after an hour or closing up before end of buisness hours and so on. I am told though that the Services committee will take a look at it; what probably also doesn't help the fact is that the Undercovers Manager resigned somewhile ago and they are now apparently without one.

Underground; From what I've gathered the biggest issue with underground is their inability to properly market their design section of the service. They hardly make enough on Copying/Printing. Their design division should be making a killing because Underground charges around $38 per hour(which is a bit too much probably) while only paying $11.50 to Designers; Since there are not alot of COGS there should be a good profit margin.

1280: This one's more complicated to assess; because essentially if we look at last year's snapshot then even the basic wages were costing more then we make for food and wages-COGS and according to that ratio we needed on paper $146k worth of food&drink sales JUST to cover the wages(ignoring all other costs). 1280 seems to have been doing well according to the VP finance's report in September and there has been a jump in revenue. Hopefully it will atleast break even this year.

-I am also still unsure as to what exactly the yearly costs vs revenue of Marmor is; According to theory Marmor should be exactly a break even service(the flat student fees adding up to the costs) but because of the accounting discrepancies that whole idea is distorted and we have all sorts of back logs(i.e: the high postage is because we shipped out a backlog of issues).

Other then that If any SocSci student has any questions I can ask them on the assembly on Sunday(I'm nightshifting at work tonight so wouldn't be able to make it to the MSU office tommorow!). I did my best to formulate questions and asked the VP Finance a few days ago; the rest of my issues have been answered here: https://www.msumcmaster.ca/content/d...20Rep ort.pdf

I'm woeful at finance and accounting but I did the best I could to figure it out!

Hopefully any student management(eg: Shortstop) clusterbumbles will be avoided next year; My only current concern is that the Working Capital fund has decreased by over 200k over a period of two years. IMO it should be going up every single year(but that obviously is dependant on the overall state of budget)
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Old 10-29-2009 at 07:10 PM   #17
FireDragoonX
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Thanks for your financial analysis Rohan. Well done. [/sarcasm]

Quarters is a restaurant/bar/club/"restoloungelol". On campus. HOW ARE THEY LOSING MONEY?

I looked at the audit. The revenues and expenses from last year and the year before are practically the same. Why wasn't anything done then?
A reno, increasing prices and seating won't do anything if no one goes there and the wages are too high.
There is obviously something wrong with their business model and their management.

inb4 September revenues were larger than last year.
Let's see how 1280 does in Oct. and Nov. when the NOVELTY of the place has gone down.

In terms of the other services.. that's another story.
It does seem like almost everyone was in the red.

inb4 Compass made a profit
it is hard to get a loss on a place that just sells tickets.
but then again, I don't know how underground made a loss either.

I also do not know how the dental plan lost money. Isn't it done through a 3rd party insurer. My fees should cover admin costs for the MSU and the actual cost of the plan is set by the 3rd party. Shit doesn't make sense.
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Last edited by FireDragoonX : 10-29-2009 at 07:12 PM.
Old 10-29-2009 at 07:24 PM   #18
temara.brown
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Quote:
Originally Posted by huzaifa47 View Post
I am also still unsure as to what exactly the yearly costs vs revenue of Marmor is; According to theory Marmor should be exactly a break even service(the flat student fees adding up to the costs) but because of the accounting discrepancies that whole idea is distorted and we have all sorts of back logs(i.e: the high postage is because we shipped out a backlog of issues).
You pay approximately $8.50 per year towards the yearbook that you'll get when you graduate. On average, it takes a person four years to graduate, adding up to $34. I've taken this directly from the quote for the 2008 books:

"Per Book: $31.53 Total Price: $136,850.40
Page alterations made by Friesens, Shipping and Applicable Taxes Extra. Quotes are subject to final approval by head office in Altona, Manitoba.
"

As you can see, there isn't much room left in the budget for shipping from what's collected from that $8.50 we pay each year. I cannot pull up any reference to how much it costs exactly for shipping but I believe a safe estimate is $15/book when you're shipping to individual addresses. It doesn't make a difference whether or not there was backlog because we'd have to pay for shipping either way.

When working there, I had asked for clarification on how this budget was planned to account for this. The executive editor at the time, who had worked for the marmor for four years, said that she was never given any good answer from anyone. She had given it to multiple vp finances to figure out but, year after year, it seemed to always be put on the back burner. Moving the service under full-time supervision will help retain knowledge as editors come and go but doesn't necessarily solve this problem.

Other things to consider:
- The number of years it takes to graduate is not standard. People can graduate in three years, four years, ten years... It amounts to an uneven price paid per book per student
- A person could graduate after three years, return for another year graduate with a second degree, and get a second book without paying very much for it at all
- Shipping that many books to a singular location will only cost approximately $3000 (upper estimate). In 2007, to ship 3,700 residence yearbooks that were about half the size of the marmor, it only cost about $1000. Compare this to $15x4000

Last edited by temara.brown : 10-29-2009 at 07:44 PM.

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Old 10-29-2009 at 08:10 PM   #19
deadpool
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FireDragoonX - When they start teaching you how to analyze the finances of a business in Engineering I'll take your layman's opinion to heart. Until then, my financial analysis of the business holds more weight due to the fact that I have been educated about the issues presented.

Moreover, I don't sit at my computer and ***** about an empty 1280, I actually go in to get meals at rush hours and see that it is damn hard to find a booth because the place is teeming with life.

I talk to the management and find out that the biggest days they had in the restaurant last year are bad days this year, and that they have been at capacity for nearly every Thursday this year, something that has not happened in 3 years. Saturdays aren't as popular, but they have changed their staffing structure to accomodate for these slow nights.

Finally, your inference that on-campus bars should be doing well... HA. The Phoenix has operated at a loss since they opened. They are sustained by the GSA's student fees. Most other bars and restaurants also operate at a loss or at a break-even point. Laurier's student pub finally posted profits last year after 5 years of losses. Brock's bar Isaac's has ran at a loss for many years. Windsor's bar was closed down after nearly a decade of losses and AGCO fines made it a very unsustainable place.

In Hess most bars have a 5 year-life after which they are either closed down and sold, or renovated through renewed debt. The very best bars (RokBar, Sizzle/Koi) have very small operational profits after mortgages and lines of credit are settled. The guy who owns Elixir has spent 10 years building up enough savings to get a $5million line of credit to build RokBar.

When it comes to the financial stability of bars and restaurants, nobody understands the cost and people assume that a campus bar is a license to print money.

--

Undercovers needs to be closed down. It is a money hole.

Short Stop had big problems last year with inventory. That was the fault of the management, and should have been rectified except the costs of firing the manager outweighed the costs of keeping them till the end of their contract (a 12-month contract).

The management this year has drastically improved upon the inventory issues. No longer are frivolous items being bought, and new items are not being ordered according to the season when boxes of old inventory sit in the back room.

In short, the costs are cut and instead of buying rampantly, the manager is conservative with his spending. Plus he is doing an excellent job marketing Short Stop to athletes as he is a former varsity athlete with good connections. ShortStop still has life.

Underground had one giant issue which I personally brought light to. They were renting a lot of equipment that should have been purchased and amortized according to set MSU schedules. The rentals led to a large amount of cost, and now that the Underground has settled (it's only 6 years old) and the business has found a semblance of a niche, the costs will go down dramatically.

Still, the MSU needs to market the service much better to students, and make it such that it is more convenient for a student to print at the Underground than for a student to print at the library. Moreover, design should be pushed, starting with a revamp of the Underground's website.

Union Market is doing excellent. If there were convenience stores that made as much money as Union Market does, there would be many happy owners.

--

The MSU also has a few zero-cost centres: Avtek, Day Care and Compass. The point of these is to reconcile their costs with their revenues with a year-end total that is slightly in the black.

Avtek loses money, but the Day Care and Compass profit enough that they have balanced out the deficits of Avtek

--

Everything else in the MSU is a service. It is willfully run with the intent that those services can exist year to year based on the student levy. Each and every one of those services does an excellent job at balancing their budgets. I was a service manager last year and I was $8000 under budget.

--

Lastly there is the Sil, which is unique. The Silhouette is a $100,000 money hole for the MSU. In my opinion, we students should have a referendum to establish a Silhouette levy which would separate them from the MSU and force them to worry about their own finances.

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Old 10-29-2009 at 08:20 PM   #20
micadjems
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Quote:
Originally Posted by deadpool View Post
FireDragoonX - When they start teaching you how to analyze the finances of a business in Engineering I'll take your layman's opinion to heart. Until then, my financial analysis of the business holds more weight due to the fact that I have been educated about the issues presented.

I just want to point out that engineering and management does this, as well as 4th year engineering economics which all engineers not in management must take.
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Old 10-29-2009 at 09:12 PM   #21
FireDragoonX
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Quote:
Originally Posted by deadpool View Post
FireDragoonX - When they start teaching you how to analyze the finances of a business in Engineering I'll take your layman's opinion to heart. Until then, my financial analysis of the business holds more weight due to the fact that I have been educated about the issues presented.
I'm not in Eng.
I've taken accounting as well.

Well thank you for your anecdotal evidence bro'
So you went at lunch and during "rush hours" and couldn't get a table huh? cool story bro'
thursdays are packed? great, I was referring to the restaurant operations.

Sorry, I don't see how comparing other establishments and saying how bad they are doing justifies operating at a loss.
Your mentality is why the MSU is a piece of shit.

If anything, seeing how other campus and near-campus pubs are doing should be an indication to you to shut the place down.

but hey, what do I know right?
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Old 10-29-2009 at 09:53 PM   #22
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If this stuff doesnt make sense to you, then come to the meeting (this Sunday, 6:30, GH 101) and talk to us.
Go to the MSU office and set up a meeting with Andrew Caterine so he can help explain whatever you want and you can share your ideas with him.
The MSU is never going to improve unless the students provide comments of more substance than 'the MSU is a piece of shit'.
I dont know what faculty you are in FireDragoonX, but email me at [email protected] and we can meet to discuss any ideas you have for improving the MSU.
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Old 10-30-2009 at 04:38 PM   #23
deadpool
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I fail to see how me comparing similar businesses while trying to express a point about the market isn't valid.

My anecdotal evidence holds more weight than your blind attempts to talk about something you clearly have no idea about, and as Joe has pointed out, the MSU isn't going to improve while the brunt of your rhetoric is not constructive in the least.

If you are so intent on making bold statements, do so in a place where it's to the people who make the decisions. There's an SRA meeting on Sunday at 6:30 in Gilmour Hall 111: Council Chambers.



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