On Saturday the Agents faced a new challenge. How to budget! Being a team of supremely awesome facilitators (Flora Newbigin, Deanna Rodger, Rap Man Josh & Roisin Feeny) who all tend to find budgets pretttty boring (having just competed our tax returns this was fresh in our minds) we decided to flip-mode squad the task and get them to run a festival for £2000. Way more fun!

When the Agents arrived they were presented with an itemised list of things they could purchase with their money for the running of the festival. The shop was open in the corner of the room, run by Mr Providence Providence, and they had 30 minutes to decide as a group what they wanted and fill three ‘spaces’ (tables labelled space 1, space 2 & space 3) with their purchases to satisfy their punters (us with wigs).

This was the shopping list:

Budgeting Activity

Venues

Field £50

Devas Free

Battersea Arts Centre £250

Hyde Park£750

Boat on the Thames £500

Technology

Kareoke machine £15

Function 1 sound system £500

Portable phone speakers Free

Basic sound system £150

Silent disco £50

Radio Free

Strobe light £20

Head torches£1.50

Your laptop Free

Food and Drink

Burgers and chips £80 per 100 people

Champagne and Oyster bar £200 per 100 people

Krispy Kreme Donuts £100 (1 for each guest) 

Vending machine £10 each

Candy floss £12 per 100 people

Banquet £30 per head

Sushi bar £7 per head

Popcorn £2 per 50 people

Creature comforts

Portaloos£5 each

Tent £100 each

Bunting £1 per meter

Tables and chairs £150 per half day/ £250 full day

Disco Balls £20 each

Ice sculptures £75 each (+ £25 cooling unit)

Fiireworks £175 per 15 minute display

Limosines £50 per hour

Bubble machine £40

Marketing

TV advertising £750

Facebook site Free

Flyering£1 per flyer

Word of Mouth Free

Logo £65

Ticket sales

Free event Free

500 @ £7 each

5000 @ £15 each

The festival was a lot of fun. There was a function 1 sound system and a firework display at the end of the day – (a post-it note that said fireworks that Mohammed hung from the ceiling). The budget was on point, it even had a contingency fee in it. The only problem was when we went we decided that the burgers they served us gave us food poisoning that meant there toilets were oversubscribed that led to some other problems. We took this opportunity to talk about risk assessment. Also for some reason the Agents put the sound system outside the tents which none of us really understood.

After a small break Tref then blew our brains with what actually really book keeping looked like and how efficient you could be if you knew how to work Excel like a magician. Deanna was actually on the edge of her seat and looked like she might at any point tattoo Tref’s name on her hand as permanent show of her gratitude for this world of budgeting possibility.

After this all Agents got printouts of a basic budget template and had to started breaking down their projects into categories they needed to budget for. This is a sneak of some of the things on Christian’s. I paid him £10 to let him show you. He likes to keep things close to his chest.

Next week more tips on how to make admin fun.

ps. yeah yeah I know. budget photo.