[ProgSoc] Corporate sponsorship

John Elliot jj5 at jj5.net
Tue Aug 2 07:29:19 EST 2011


Hello everyone.

Something that's been on my agenda for a few years is getting 
sponsorship for ProgSoc. It's something I would have liked to have 
gotten done while I was president, but unfortunately I spent most of 
that year locked up in mental institutions, and didn't have much of an 
opportunity to get things done.

Anyway, as many of you know this is a topic that has reared its head on 
the ProgSoc mailing list before, and my feeling at the time was that the 
consensus was that getting money for free would be a Good Thing.

We spoke to Optiver about a potential sponsorship deal, but when we told 
them that we were also talking to their competitors (Tibra), they went 
and sponsored our competitors (a club at Sydney Uni) instead! Hah! So, 
we lost Optiver, but Tibra is still a candidate, and I'm sure there are 
many other companies who would love nothing more than to give us some 
money, if only we would ask nicely.

I've been speaking to a contact of mine that's affiliated with Tibra 
about putting a potential sponsorship deal back on the agenda. My 
proposal is that Tibra sponsors ProgSoc for $10,000 per year for 5-year 
terms. So, the plan is that they will send us $50,000 and in exchange we 
will put up a sponsors page on the wiki that links through to any 
"Careers" or "About Us" information on their web-site, and we will also 
make an arrangement for Tibra to send someone to speak about the 
technical challenges of automated trading systems.

There is no plan to give the sponsor any control over the running of the 
club, or anything like that. They simply sponsor us to get exposure to 
up-and-coming talented programmers, and to make the world a better place.

I spoke with Bozic about this, and he doesn't like the idea of corporate 
sponsorship. His concern is that a sponsor might hijack the club, but I 
think his concerns are unfounded. So, I thought I'd try and gauge 
others' opinions. Let me know what you think. Should I continue to talk 
to Tibra about a potential sponsorship deal on behalf of the club, or not?

John.












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