Community Meeting Transcript

Daniel T: [Music playing]

Pablo V: All right, everyone. Welcome to the community call. So, today I want to start the community call by making an announcement about the community call and it is that well, we’ve been setting this whole thing up. The community call has been driven by the board, but now I feel that we’re at the point that we can start transitioning this to the community. Because there’s a lot of news coming from all sorts of departments like creativity, ticketing, build, power, etc. So, starting next week, we will be making calls for the agenda so everybody can decide what goes in there and we would love to have somebody from the community starting to host this.

Pablo V: So if you are somebody who would like to host these calls one time or on a regular basis or kind of throw ideas of how we should run this — basically right now we have this time scheduled for every week. We can do something like a call on Discord for topics. We’ll probably throw the first one in but basically the announcement is if you would like to host this community call it is now belonging to the community. So, please step up and reach out. Yes, Daniel.

Daniel T: Yeah, I wanted to add that even though there’s obviously two components to this community call. There’s the people who are on here right now which sometimes have reached 75. Today seems to be a bit lower than usual. But also these get published to everybody. So the updates — some people read it. They get published usually within a day or two after the community call. So it does spread wider than just the people on the call.

Daniel T: And also I wanted to say if anyone wants to play their non-copyrighted tracks at the beginning of the call, just let me know. Get in touch and I’ll make sure your track is playing at the beginning of the call rather than my track because everyone has loads of music that they’ve made and this is a super creative community.

Pablo V: Thank you, Daniel. Yeah, it’s been great to have the music and we look forward to more music and creativity in the call. From there, let’s take it to Daniela for an update about bank, budgeting, Stripe.

Daniela M S: Well, a very quick update to say that we finally have a bank account, which is great. It means we can move forward with plenty of things that have to do with money and budgets and quotes and renting, etc. So that’s pretty exciting news. Yeah, it only took Daniel 600 meetings and chasing people. So that is great on that side. Also we’re starting April.

Daniela M S: So that means this is the month where we start talking about budgets and about purchases. We’re aiming to do that planning throughout this month. Coordinators from each department will be hearing from Peter and myself to go over this — the how we’re going to do it this year, how we plan to manage it, to show you what we’ve been working on this past month and to get our stuff ready. So, ideally, we start collecting the things like our needs per department and then we’re aiming to do purchases in May. Same with — yeah, and from the vendor side, we’ve been getting a bunch of quotes. Things have been a bit slower this week because it’s Easter here and a lot of people are out until midweek next week. But yeah, we’ve been getting quotes from all our vendors and we have been proposing to do payments in May given that we started ticket sales early and everybody’s very understanding of that and they haven’t had any issues so far.

Daniela M S: So that is good news for our cash flow. I think that’s it from this side.

Pablo V: Do we have any questions about finance, budget, bank account? That means we can also start making payments. Another update again from Daniela is about some progress on the site lease for this year.

Daniela M S: Yeah. So also very good news. We finally had our meeting with the mayor from the area that owns the land where we are going to do the event. And the meeting went quite well. She got to meet the board, the board got to meet the mayor. The meeting was quite productive and we had a really good deal for this year.

Daniela M S: She needs to confirm with the other people in the council, but she’s pretty confident that that’s going to go through, which means we got a very reduced price for the rental of the land, which is of course very helpful because that directly impacts a reduction in the environmental tax and also a reduction in the improvement fund that is a mandatory payment we have to do locally. So that was also really great. We have officially now started the permit process which is two months in advance. They expect this like 30 days before the event and we are two months in advance but they understand we want to do everything with time because it’s the first time for the association. So yeah that is also on track on that side.

Pablo V: Thank you so much, Daniela. And it seems like we don’t have any questions. So, let’s move on to ticketing. Do we have Aaron here from ticketing?

Aaron R: [Audio issues, then improving] Okay, we’ll see if that’s any better. So very pleased to say that we’re on track and that we are seeing the numbers come through as we expected or forecast. So, thank you to everyone who’s bought tickets. Low income will come out very soon. We had a small hiccup. Some of you have been written to about that. And we will get those out within the next certainly 24 hours. All of those people who managed to secure a low-income ticket. And we’ll also be notifying anybody who was unsuccessful in the low-income application. And a reminder, you’ve got until the 14th of April before the wave 2 pricing starts for low-income. Anyone receiving those, if they’re not going to be able to get their ticket by the 14th, then please let me know and we’ll give you an extension.

Aaron R: But otherwise, the low-income base rate will go up by 20 euros as well on the 14th of April. We’ve also had some questions around bus ticketing. I think we’re still on track there. I’m just waiting for bus leads to confirm that we’ve got all the spaces that we’re ready to go with. As soon as that’s confirmed, we will put those on sale as well so that if you need a bus ticket, you can secure one of those. I think that’s it for me. Any questions on ticketing? Perfect. In that case, back to you, Pablo.

Pablo V: Thank you so much. And maybe just a comment on ticketing. I expected usually to have the biggest spike at the announcement and things slowly cooling down, but I think what we’ve been seeing as well is that slowly the word is spreading and that ticket sales are starting to pick up more momentum. And I think the reason is because it takes some time for the word to spread. And it’s been important for us all to have those conversations and explain to new people what is Elsewhere, what has been happening. This is happening for real. There’s vendors coming. There’s artists coming. And all these things take time to spread. So I’m preaching to the choir. You’re here in the community call. But yeah, these things go a long way and the earlier we do them, the earlier the second and third degree people can hear about them. So, today I don’t know if we have Laura from comms to share a little bit about the campaign.

Laura G: It’s a bit noisy here though. I can share something. So, we’ve been planning to post this — to ask for postcards, like stories from people, ideally in voice, so we can share on social media. And yeah, the idea is to do like a reel with a postcard, a dusty postcard and share these stories. I think we already did the first post asking for it. It’s like a call to action for people. But yeah, hopefully they will interact with the Instagram for now.

Pablo V: And why it’s also important for us to kind of get this active is because a lot of burners are connected through Facebook. And what we think as well is that if we get some activity here and we get engagement, so basically commenting or tagging people and so on, it might be that the algorithm helps us by recommending other people that we’re already connected to. So that would be a quite effective way to reach people. So it’s really cool that comms is activating this. As far as I know, there’s a plan coming for newsletters, Telegram, Instagram, and different campaigns. So I guess you’ll get some more details about it. And yeah, if you’re not yet following some of the channels, please follow everything you can, and that way it’s easier to reach everybody. So, what else do we have? I think that’s it for the agenda we prepared unless either Peter or Laura would want to show some of the improvements that they pushed on the Humans app.

Peter D: I can give kind of a budget update and a push at the same time. We have budgets in the app. So this is coming. It’s not fully fleshed out numbers yet. Some of it’s projections, some of it’s allocations, some of it’s actual data from Daniela for things like cabins and toilets. But what you’re seeing is a live version of our budgets. And that is, for coordinators, they can go in and edit their actual line items for their specific department. But for everybody else, it’s kind of the high level pie chart to see what’s going on and where the money is going at the high level. A couple tricks here. This is an accounting view, so it’s income and expenses.

Peter D: Refunding of things like deposits shows up as an income because it’s money coming to us. So that’s why things like cantina and cabins are on the income side, even though they’re not really something we make money from. But if we take off those and I take off these things, this is roughly where our money is going at the moment. The biggest one is welfare, which includes security and Red Cross. LMT includes toilets and trash collection. Permit is the permit for the site, including environmental study and some other fun little surprises from Spain. And you can go down through here and see where everything else goes. That said, it’s not all filled in. Daniela is filling in her stuff from the production side and we’re going to be teaching the departments, department leads, the coordinators how to do their own bits very soon. Any questions? And that’s all in Humans now.

Laura G: But you did a lot more things, Peter.

Peter D: Yeah, it’s been busy.

Daniel T: I just — it’s not really a question, just a huge shout out to Peter again who is getting half the shout outs I think, for all the amazing work there — getting everything wired up into the Humans app and all this amazing transparency around budgets and stuff. That’s really awesome. Thank you on behalf of everyone.

Peter D: To that point, I should add the thing that people aren’t going to like. Starting next week, we’re going to start enforcing Humans for access to drives. So, if you have been added on the side to a drive that you shouldn’t really be on or that you weren’t added to the team properly or things like that, Humans is going to start kicking you out. And it’s going to actually actively monitor. So, if somebody shares on the side, then we’ll get a notification and we’ll remove access. So your only way to get into drives, especially the drives that have been declared sensitive, will be to go through the proper teams. And then that should help us manage things. The whole point is to keep an eye on — just to have people have the right level of access to the things that are things they need, right? Some people can be readers for an entire department. Some folders are literally having one or two people on them because they have income data in them or whatever. So that’s coming — I could turn it on now but it would take a whole bunch of people out. So we need to get the teams right over the next couple days and next week that’ll get turned on.

Pablo V: And that will make it easier for the future. We have a question from Kate.

Kate B: Yeah, thanks Peter. Tell me if this is asking for too much, but could you give any more granularity on the ticket revenue I saw — whether that’s coming from wave 1 or different tiers?

Peter D: So that was kind of our original budget targeting a baseline number of tickets as our starting point for where we are to have a happy event. Internally this thing is actually doing weekly cash flows and taking actuals out of the ticket system and then projecting based on what’s actual to get towards a number toward the end. So it’s self-aligning as we go through time for what those numbers really are versus what we hope they are. And yeah it’s also — as a side note, it calculates both sides of the VAT. So like on tickets we owe 10% VAT, but on a lot of expenses we get 21% VAT back.

Peter D: So it’s doing both of those calculations along with that being like six weeks delayed into the next quarter kind of thing. So I’m trying to make it as accurate from a cash flow perspective as we can. And I hope to add an actual cash flow view internally for next week.

Kate B: So the ticket revenue currently is like the forecast based on the baseline number?

Peter D: It’s actually updated until last week. So it internally does weekly. It has through like Sunday as actuals internally and then it projects out a certain number of tickets per day until the gate opens.

Kate B: Okay, awesome. Thank you. Well done.

Pablo V: Yes, it’s nice to see everything coming together. This is a community call, so if somebody wants to share something openly, either bring it to the next one or we can also raise our hand here. I think the last update that we had planned for you today comes from Legal — Pepe. So, we can go to him.

Pepe C: Hello. Thank you and welcome to your favourite part. We have two updates for you today. The first update has to do with the asset acquisition contract — as you all probably wonder and are curious about.

Pepe C: The process is moving very well. We have what we believe is a final version of our contract. We have accepted each and every one of the proposed changes and we have a good inventory. Thank you for everyone who really helped and always dug in on their drives and did all sorts of work. So, thank you very much for that. And yep, we’re waiting for them to confirm that we are good to go. And as soon as they give us the green light, we will be sending a signature version, which we believe can happen sometime next week. Progress is made. We are excited that we have made it to the end of this road.

Pepe C: And finally on the second update — brand. We finally secured the legal protection for Elsewhere. Elsewhere is a fine, viable name that we can use. We confirmed with our lawyers. We did a search. We will be doing a trademark filing very soon. As soon as the contest for the logo is completed — and thank you everyone who participated in the logo. We are excited to see what the final logo will be and once we have it, we will have an officially registered trademark on the go. And those are the two legal updates for this week. Any questions? No questions. Amazing. Thank you.

Pablo V: Thank you so much. And I see Ant is commenting on the chat. So, Ant is saying: we really need to get volunteers for build and strike, particularly strike. If you know people who would like to join in the big cleanup and container stack, encourage them to apply now. It’s a great way to finish your burn. The food is great. You’ll make friends for life. Strike lead is needed as well. Ideally, two people to plan and organise strike. So, if you know anybody who enjoys building, striking, who wants to set up, or if you are one of these people, get in touch with Ant. I did forget to ask Creativity if they wanted to share anything about the Temple Art Call which was announced today. For the Temple Art Call — it’s on the usual channels, but for the first time, we’re creating a dedicated space for reflection, connection, and souls in the desert. They’re inviting artists, dreamers, and builders to co-create the temple. And there is a call and there will be art grants. So if anybody is interested in bringing your art to Elsewhere or being part of the temple, all the information is now online.

Daniel T: Yeah, kind of a statement just about the website. So the website is a static HTML site. Adding new pages to the site is super easy. So if there’s a thing you want to add, both Laura and myself have access to the site. When Creativity needed to add that page with all the creativity stuff, they sent me a document, it created a page, it looked good, it went out in like 10 minutes. So the website is not a bottleneck. There are multiple people who are able to update it and who know how to do it.

Daniel T: If you feel like the FAQ should say this, get in touch with one of us. If you feel like there really should be a page about this new temple or there really should be a page about this, just get in touch. We’ll figure out how to fit it in. It’s a very dynamic thing even though it’s a static HTML site. So feel like you can contribute to this. It’s not a thing that you’re gatekept from — there are ways, just get in touch. It’s easy. Don’t think of it as hard. If you want something on the website, ask for it to be on the website.

Pablo V: Yeah, huge shout out as well to Laura who’s been making the website so much more usable and beautiful and also with the new features coming to the Humans apps. Yeah, so much better. And some of those UX improvements from Laura also making their way into the Humans app. So you’ll be using them when you pick your shifts or when you send your bario mates there. So yeah, everything’s getting better every day. So I think we’re going to close the call here, but I would really love somebody to throw in topics for the next one. I’ll make a call on Discord and if you are the next host, please reach out. That’s it, right? We don’t have anything else. So thanks everybody for coming. Enjoy your Easter holidays.

Heather W: Can you hear me? Sorry, I’m not very used to using this kind of technology. But I try to be involved as much as I can. I unfortunately with my work, I can’t be involved in strike, but I can be involved in build. And I would also like to be involved with — I think it’s Aaron — to kind of help with bus lead because I know in previous years it’s kind of been lacking. Anyways I’m trying to figure out how to navigate all of this because I’m not very technologically competent.

Pablo V: Do you know who to reach out to?

Heather W: Aaron, it seemed Aaron is in charge of bus, right?

Peter D: I mean Aaron’s organizing the ticketing side of it. So I think he’s on that side of the bus, but the rest of the bus is not Aaron, I think.

Pablo V: Daniela would know. Are you on Discord already, Heather?

Heather W: I’m on Discord. I just need to connect and find everything. So I’ll make that a mission this weekend to try to get into that. Perfect. Okay. Thank you so much. Thanks.