Cooking the books

The long-awaited financials for Ebbsfleet United were released to the members yesterday. Having dealt with accounts and detailed budgets at various times, they’re very well set out, especially considering someone’s had to rifle through the drawers and torture the EUFC office staff for information.

There’s probably room for a few lines to be expanded, but I’m reasonably happy for the Board to deal with these if their confidential / irrelevant.

There is progress in other areas, too, might have some good news by next week on a couple of things I’ve been tinkering with.

Coffee in Paris

Next time there’s an offer on Eurostar perhaps… Phillip describes having to choose between scathing looks from Parisians when asking for a coffee to go, or scathing looks from Parisians when he patronises a chain coffee house. The economics of coffee featured in Tim Harford’s book “The Undercover Economist“, which I read recently. A real eye opener and very accessible!

He uses the price of a cup of coffee to illustrate some significant economic, psychological and marketing principles. E.g. whereas in London you have the option of a premium coffee (at a price of your choosing) from a high street chain, there are also ample opportunities for finding a cheaper coffee close by, if you’re prepared to spend a few minutes searching or know where to look.

This illustrates David Ricardo’s Law of Rent, amongst other economic principles. Basically the rent is higher on the high street as the “land” is more productive, i.e. there are more people passing and more opportunities for sales. But because the rent is high, the price of coffee is high. On the other hand, people rushing down the high street are less price sensitive and therefore more willing to pay the higher price. Off the high street (the marginal “land”) the customers are more likely to be regulars, and more price sensitive. Therefore your coffee will be cheaper.

What seems strange about Phillip’s experience is that culturally the Parisians seem to be passionate about “cafe culture”, that they’re willing to forgo the additional profit that customers like Phillip would bring. I guess the loss of prestige (and therefore regular custom) is just not acceptable at the moment, but I would have thought it’ll happen one day, driven by the two extremities.

There are other revelations and illustrations (if you’re not involved in marketing or economics) that make the book great fun. See also Freakonomics and the Freakonomics blog.

(this is also my first go at a trackback, hope it works!)

Retro Radio

For a while now I’ve found that even in North London, at least as far as Upper Holloway, I’m able to listen to Radio Jackie.  Jackie reminds me of what local radio used to be like before it was taken over and santitised by huge corporations.  The adverts are mostly local, often for schools, libraries and charities, and the chaps behind it clearly have some technical skills if they’re able to get a signal so far north, especially with all the pirate stuff around.  They also provide a wide selection of streamed audio so you can listen now on a variety of media players and bandwidths.

Of course the main reason to listen to Jackie is the music – it’s the kind of music we play at discos or have on MP3 playlist.  I frequently find myself humming along to something I’d not heard in ages, something not poppy enough to get on “your better music mix” (better than what?) that you get on Magic, Heart etc.  And it’s rare that I find myself flicking stations.

So for a different mix of music from the 70’s to the present day, check it out.

Frequency is 107.8 FM, if you’re within reach!

Wembley wobbles

A long gap between posts, the result of too many other things going on, mainly the pre-Wembley exctiement.

Shortly after my last post it seemed that things were getting really out of hand:

• The board and web team were being constantly criticised, with one board member in particular being singled out for not communicating with the members they were supposed to represent.
• The web team found themselves bogged down with preparations for Wembley, rather than being able to concentrate on the site, society and board.
• Team Selection was as contentious as ever – members were criticised by the web team for not using the application, members responsded that the application was not particularly useful and that they lacked the information to be able to make those choices. For example the BBC had fitness and availability reports long before matchday whilst the selection application was still showing out of date information. There was also little feedback on how the members selections compared to the Coaches.
• In addition to this there was a row about the Authority of the Forum team, moans about financial information, perceived “rubber stamping” of votes, and many a storm in a teacup.

The whole venture is still based around a web forum, with only a minority of society members taking part, and discussions going on for ages without any real resolution or means to take action. I think there’s a sizeable portion of the main forum users that have never used an internet forum as extensively. At the same time (showing my age here) it feels like the generations below me just don’t know how to deal with people and opinions they disagree with.

This is not helped by confusion from the top: the lines of communication are still not established, with the roles and relationships between the Operator, Board, club management, forum team still not clearly defined or set out anywhere. For me, this has to be the priority.

There is hope

Member contributions are starting to produce improvements. Diffdude created a simple calendar of Club / Society acitivies which can be viewed on the site, or downloaded into your own email client. The Podcast has been brought into the main site, and the weekly newsletter has also led to a daily newsletter. Best of all has been the MyFC Scout site, which aims to collate member’s scouting reports from matches so that we’re more informed for team selection.

These resources will only thrive if they are integrated or affiliated with the main site. The MyFC Foreign committee, set up by a group of users with the aim of translating important articles or propositions, also seems to have been left out in the cold for now.

I’ve been told that there is going to be a shift in emphasis of the main page, and hopefully some restructuring of the forums sometime soon. What I would like to see is a roadmap for development, so that we can see what is coming, and frame any discussions about functionality and requirements around that.

So there’s still a long way to go, and I hope the web team crack on with improvments over the summer and open up to the talent that’s available from the members.