“A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward.”
- Anonymous
Recently, while conducting our department fest "Mosaic", all of us came across the term 'budget' for the first time.
I mean, yes, we have all seen budgets at home and on the 28th of Feb on the TV, but never participated in the making and under-taking of one on a large scale.
And the experience is exhilarating and mind-boggling at the same time!
We were a batch of 20-odd students who were heads of various departments in the fest and every planning and innovating fell upon us while our 180-even volunteers or 'team-builders' were the ones who made it possible for us to execute them. :)
So to start off, the fest was to happen in Jan 2011 and we had to start preparations from June 2010 onwards. There are so many things to take into consideration while conducting a fest, the last part is the easiest and the first part is the toughest. Execution is easier than formation, any given day!! Phew!!
Well firstly, we divided the work in different departments and had a leader heading each of them, with their own share of volunteers to help them.
There was Graphics, PR, Marketing, Hospitality, Infra, Security, Finance, Logistics and Protocol which were the strong base of the fest and then, there were the events like Films, Media Arena, PR, Sports, Journalism, Advertising, PA and Radio which formed the main structure of the fest.
All details aside, it was the job of the Marketing department to get in the cash and the sponsors for the fest and the Finance department was supposed to allocate the proper amount of cash to the various departments and for the various things required.
Since it was a new fest, getting in big sponsors was bleak and we had to chalk out all our spending details in a tight and stringent budget.
Money had to be spent for the PR trips and calls; then Graphics required money for the designing, printing and website; Hospitality required money to buy gifts, bouquets for the judges and food for CL meets and judges again; Logistics needed money to provide every little thing to the various departments and so on...
So little money and so many things to do... :O
The first step was to allocate a certain amount to all the departments except the event departments because these don't really need any money!
After the allocation, whatever money was left, was kept as the Emergency Fund and could be used only in the most dire situations.
A big portion of the money went to the college for letting us host the fest..no offence but how rude!!
Although we tried to provide refreshments for the volunteers, there weren't enough funds to help us out! :(
During the three days of the fest, most of the money in the Emergency Fund was also used up for various things and the Event heads also contributed for their individual events to save costs.
The Logistics department saved costs by not buying many of the things but instead got them from their homes.
The Hospitality department also did the same and saved up on the budget to a great extent.
We even took care to save all the stationery so that they could be used again next year and further save costs. :)
In the end, the fest was a great success and all of us learned a valuable lesson in budgeting and cost-cutting and most importantly, on saving up.
:)
No comments:
Post a Comment