EPF 2026 - Budget & Links

[frecklebombfic]

Some useful links for you to bookmark, and a detailed look at our budget this year, for those curious about how the EPF finances work.

Links

EPF weekend overview - Take a look at our last Dreamwidth post for a quick look at what the EPF weekend schedule and activities looks like.

Code of Conduct - Take a look at the Code of Conduct (or mark it for later).

Pitch’n’Pod guide - Refresh your memory on (or experience for the first time) the glory of Pitch’n’Pod!

Budget

Covered in the EPF budget

• Booking accommodation for 3 nights: 1,449€
• Buying food for the weekend: ~650€
  • Ordering groceries in advance to be delivered to the apartment on the day we arrive. This is mostly for breakfast and snacks - experience shows that people rarely want to make time to cook at EPF :D (We’ll ask attendees for a shopping list closer to the time.)
  • One delivery meal on Saturday evening for everyone (using Lieferando - we will be taking orders in advance closer to the time).
  • One meal attendees can purchase for themselves and be reimbursed for.
• Enabling attendees to travel to Europodfriends who may not be able to afford it on their own.
• Misc extra costs (stationery, exchange rate losses, etc)

Not covered in the EPF budget

• Additional grocery shopping after we arrive at the EPF accommodation.
• Additional delivery/takeout meals during the weekend.

How does the budget work?

Contributions

Firstly, people can contribute as much or as little as they want to EPF accommodation costs, which includes zero. We total up everyone’s contributions to get our budget and calculate what percentage of the total budget will cover our accommodation costs, and we ask everyone for that percentage of their individual budget.

This means everyone pays the same percentage of their budget, rather than the same fee for everyone. For example, if we needed 50% of everyone’s budget to cover costs, then if someone’s budget was 40€, we’d need to ask them for 20€. For another person offering 240€, we’d ask them for 120€.

This year our accommodation is less expensive than in the past (and our attendees were generous <3) so we needed around 37% of everyone’s contributions to cover our costs. In previous years, we’ve needed between 40-70%.

Donations

Separately from accommodation costs, we also ask for donations towards other costs. These include all the food, a fund to help people travel to EPF, and misc costs. We try to keep these two funds (contributions and donations) separate, mostly for transparency and to keep track of our budget, and also so that people with more money to put towards EPF can put some in the donations where it might get used at a higher percentage rate. This year we needed 47% of everyone’s donations.

Doing it this way means more people can afford to come, because of the more equitable financial split and because of the travel fund. It also means we end up with a little money left over, which we use for the advance booking fee for the apartment the following year (which we have to book before we can fully calculate everyone’s payment). This little extra is very appreciated by whichever mod is covering that advance cost!

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As always, if you have any questions about the budget, this post, or EPF in general then please reply here, or email us on europodfriends at gmail dot com!

Very excited for February already!

Your mods, Dell, Robin & Sylvie