Author Topic: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement  (Read 119525 times)

Davef

Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #900 on: 28 February, 2020, 06:43:50 pm »
I don’t suppose you have link to where Microsoft offer custom website development ?
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/services
You are talking about Microsoft consultants? They were around £3k per person per day a decade ago.


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FifeingEejit

  • Not Small
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #901 on: 28 February, 2020, 06:44:33 pm »
1200 members as per 2018. So about 1/6 the size.

I don't know about SR claimants but I don't see much reason for their proportion of SRs to differ from ours. So for us we have about 750 a year in a PBP year and about 450 in a normal year. I expect their SR stats are more consistent as they're further from France, so probably about 75 a year?
So roughly 10 times the work for the main awards.

It'd end up automated either way.

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bludger

  • Randonneur and bargain hunter
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #902 on: 28 February, 2020, 06:47:52 pm »
I don’t suppose you have link to where Microsoft offer custom website development ?
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/services
You are talking about Microsoft consultants? They were around £3k per person per day a decade ago.
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great so we can hire one for 3 months at this rate!  ;D
YACF touring/audax bargain basement:
https://bit.ly/2Xg8pRD



Ban cars.

Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #903 on: 28 February, 2020, 07:01:17 pm »
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.  From what I've read, Greenbank's posts have the greatest understanding of:

1) What AUK needs
2) How (precisely) to go about it.

Much of the rest is, however well intended, speculative waffle.
The sound of one pannier flapping

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #904 on: 28 February, 2020, 07:39:28 pm »
Well I don't know, but if your guess of 'the default' is £100/month then the sensible thing to do is to contextualise the guesses with the cost implication to the individual paying club member over the course of the month. This isn't even factoring in the non-member fee paid by those signing up for rides without membership. If it was double, triple, or quintiple your estimate of the default then it's still pretty small potatoes for the member paying £18 in annual fees.

It’s not a chuffing guess. It is fact.
It is simpler than it looks.

bludger

  • Randonneur and bargain hunter
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #905 on: 28 February, 2020, 07:43:21 pm »
... ok?
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Ban cars.

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #906 on: 28 February, 2020, 08:40:44 pm »

Re the MS route.

YE FUCKING GODS NO!

You think the amount we're spending now is a lot, you contract someone like MS, and you may as well just give them out bank account and fold.

Oh, and if you think what I've said before about "lock in" and "dependency" is bad, you wait till you have a solely 100% MS solution.

No, of all the ideas so far, sorry to say, but this is the worst one yet. I say that as someone with 20 years experience in this industry.

I do think we should be using the going bust of the primary contractor to pause everything, and if necessary put the next path to an EGM, or similar democratic process. We don't have to go down on the SS GoodMoneyAfterBad.

I have a question for Frankie, what is the current number of lines of code on the old site?

J

--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

Davef

Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #907 on: 28 February, 2020, 09:23:46 pm »
YE FUCKING GODS NO!
^ You expressed my thoughts far more effectively than I did myself.


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Ben T

Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #908 on: 28 February, 2020, 09:35:46 pm »
At least Microsoft aren’t likely to go bust...

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #909 on: 28 February, 2020, 09:38:05 pm »
At least Microsoft aren’t likely to go bust...

No, but don't be certain that any given business area to still be there in 5 years time. This industry moves fast.

J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

bludger

  • Randonneur and bargain hunter
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #910 on: 28 February, 2020, 09:47:45 pm »
OK you're the industry insiders. If your judgement is that MS are finance vampires then that's good enough for me. But I am hugely leery of the prospect of relying on volunteers. Volunteers shouldn't be understood as 'free labour', if a volunteer has a family emergency or some other kind of problem or TBH if they just decide that they can't be fucking bothered anymore, then they are completely within their rights to abandon their voluntary work immediately which could completely shaft AUK. We aren't martyrs, this is a hobby.

For this reason I am very keen that the actual hard, tedious work be palmed off to a firm that can be relied on to A. not go bust and B. not get caught up in knots building up a 'bespoke' website which ends up being an abortive, one-third-completed mess, by C. using proven models and systems as much as possible, if need be sacrificing functionality such as automated awards. I appreciate SR must be retained in order to make PBP qualification convenient come 2022.

I am actually OK with the costs spent on the job per se - if it costed £200,000 but the end result was a quality service that set up a strong foundation for AUK in the century ahead then that would be worth it.
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Ban cars.

FifeingEejit

  • Not Small
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #911 on: 28 February, 2020, 09:48:43 pm »
The best outcome of asking Microsoft for assistance is a big bill for receiving a list of "certified partners" it's likely to be out of date enough that the now bankrupt supplier is on it.


Still, from 2nd hand accounts of dealing with MS, they consultants are pretty decent.
Oracle on the other hand couldn't even understand the licence we have with them.


I have similar concerns about volunteer labour to bludger from experience of being one of those volunteers for other clubs in the past.

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Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #912 on: 28 February, 2020, 09:52:06 pm »
It is simpler than it looks.

bludger

  • Randonneur and bargain hunter
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #913 on: 28 February, 2020, 10:15:33 pm »
YACF touring/audax bargain basement:
https://bit.ly/2Xg8pRD



Ban cars.

Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #914 on: 28 February, 2020, 10:54:08 pm »
For reference the quoted cost of annual maintenance by CF1/IIP was going to be roughly £3 per member. That, in of itself, doesn't sound like much but it seems (to me at least) a lot more if you put it as taking £25k of the usual £40k annual surplus. Less of a problem if that size of surplus is reliable and repeatable, becomes a problem if unexpected costs arise in another area.

Source: https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=109207.msg2344865#msg2344865

OK you're the industry insiders. If your judgement is that MS are finance vampires then that's good enough for me. But I am hugely leery of the prospect of relying on volunteers. Volunteers shouldn't be understood as 'free labour', if a volunteer has a family emergency or some other kind of problem or TBH if they just decide that they can't be fucking bothered anymore, then they are completely within their rights to abandon their voluntary work immediately which could completely shaft AUK. We aren't martyrs, this is a hobby.

All true, but AUK is run completely by volunteers. If you live in fear of volunteers all upping and leaving you'd have to worry about the whole of the organisation. What you need is to have a group of volunteers that's large enough that there are no single points of failure, no-one feels so over-burdened that they want to jack it all in, people get to do a share of the "fun" stuff and some of the boring dull shite, and there's a healthy churn of people as they're able to contribute more when they can or duck out when life gets in the way, but careful that there aren't too many people sticking their opinions in to the point that there's just arguing about the way to do something rather than just getting on with it.

As I've said before I don't think the answer is to entirely do it on a volunteer basis, nor do I think the answer is to completely outsource it. I think there's some work that could and should be done by volunteers and some work that will probably end up being best be done by a paid third party. But I think that the premise that it can only be sorted out by throwing money at the problem is complete insanity.
"Yes please" said Squirrel "biscuits are our favourite things."

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #915 on: 29 February, 2020, 12:00:05 am »
At least Microsoft aren’t likely to go bust...

Their customers, on the other hand...
It is simpler than it looks.

S2L

Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #916 on: 29 February, 2020, 06:25:57 am »
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.  From what I've read, Greenbank's posts have the greatest understanding of:

1) What AUK needs
2) How (precisely) to go about it.

Much of the rest is, however well intended, speculative waffle.

And yet recent political events show that it is stupid to ignore the speculative waffle...

Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #917 on: 04 March, 2020, 08:09:55 pm »
Latest AGM minutes from Jan/Feb/Mar are up: https://www.audax.uk/about-us/minutes/

(Haven't read them yet...No reports yet...)
"Yes please" said Squirrel "biscuits are our favourite things."

Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #918 on: 04 March, 2020, 08:16:48 pm »
I have. Fucking disaster.

FifeingEejit

  • Not Small
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #919 on: 04 March, 2020, 08:29:14 pm »
The previous years reunion was in the old mills at Tilicoultry?

Nothing new there then on the IT front.

Failing to recognize a directory retiring by rotation isn't great...

No mention if any due dilligence was used in relation to the new developer and his company (presumably he's spun it up as soon as he realized he was out of a job and started poaching work)

Still think people are getting too hung up on the stack picked and that it's partly Linux piety Vs corporate drones who don't really care what they use as long as there's a pay slip at the end of the month...




reminds me,. hiking club AGM at the end of the week, must avoid calling a former member an utter reprobate if anyone asks why a code of conduct for members is being introduced.

bairn again

Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #920 on: 04 March, 2020, 09:35:13 pm »
The previous years reunion was in the old mills at Tilicoultry?
Oh please tell me thats not happened.   :facepalm:

Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #921 on: 04 March, 2020, 09:54:00 pm »
No mention if any due dilligence was used in relation to the new developer and his company (presumably he's spun it up as soon as he realized he was out of a job and started poaching work)

As I read it he was already contracting in to CF1/IIP (rather than being an employee of them) so he already had a company set up.

Still think people are getting too hung up on the stack picked...

I don't see that at all.

[EDIT] To clarify, it's their approach that's wrong (IMHO). They could have picked exactly the same stack as is currently in use and implementing it in the same way that they're doing now would still be the wrong way to go about it.
"Yes please" said Squirrel "biscuits are our favourite things."

FifeingEejit

  • Not Small
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #922 on: 04 March, 2020, 10:06:38 pm »
No mention if any due dilligence was used in relation to the new developer and his company (presumably he's spun it up as soon as he realized he was out of a job and started poaching work)

As I read it he was already contracting in to CF1/IIP (rather than being an employee of them) so he already had a company set up.

Still think people are getting too hung up on the stack picked...

I don't see that at all.

Afraid so BA, Sterling... :shakeshead: It's a bloody furniture store.

GB, I only got that it's now his company that's contracted, no indication of whether he was a contractor or not.
Having a contractor as lead developer on a project that's going to out last their employment is a bit dodgy. Particularly with IR35 rules since they are designed specifically to stop contractors doing the jobs of permanent staff. (We're held to it strictly as the government forced it on us first, the contract tester rejoices greatly every time we shuffle off to a meeting that he can't attend for tax reasons)

This thread is full of comments that boil down to "shouldn't have picked the .Net stack, should have used LAMP" (where the subtext is they know it so of course it should be used)
Whether the documented failure to obtain volunteers who know LAMP to help Frankie with Aukweb is down to resources available or management is another question though.


Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #923 on: 04 March, 2020, 10:11:05 pm »
GB, I only got that it's now his company that's contracted, no indication of whether he was a contractor or not.

"KL noted that the lead developer on Phase II was, in fact, a consultant of the supplier and not employed directly by them."

This thread is full of comments that boil down to "shouldn't have picked the .Net stack, should have used LAMP" (where the subtext is they know it so of course it should be used)

Sure, but the only people getting hung up on that kind of thing are on the periphery of the discussion.
"Yes please" said Squirrel "biscuits are our favourite things."

FifeingEejit

  • Not Small
Re: AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement
« Reply #924 on: 04 March, 2020, 10:15:18 pm »
GB, I only got that it's now his company that's contracted, no indication of whether he was a contractor or not.

"KL noted that the lead developer on Phase II was, in fact, a consultant of the supplier and not employed directly by them."

This thread is full of comments that boil down to "shouldn't have picked the .Net stack, should have used LAMP" (where the subtext is they know it so of course it should be used)

Sure, but the only people getting hung up on that kind of thing are on the periphery of the discussion.

Ah I missed that.

It's in the notes for the AGM too, from someone who goes by the same initials ITRW as me.


Monolithic back ends are old hat anyway  :P