[TechieSam]

There have been some innacurate assumptions and statements made here. I'm not an accountant, but I have worked on a Regional Planning Committee and do know some of the real answers. I can assure everyone that:

- FIRST does NOT lose money, if they did they would show a loss on the report and they wouldn't have a cash fund in the bank
- The registration fees DO NOT go to pay for the Regional Events for any of the three programs
- The planning committee have to raise every penny for the events
- The cash line people are talking about is the excess funds, if that figure goes up, then they made money that year, if it goes down, they lost money.
- If as someone said, it went up over a million last year, that means FIRST brought in over a million more than they spent
- any non-profit should maintain a reserve of funds. It should be a certain amount and maintain that level plus increase for inflation. If it goes up beyond that, then people should question any fees being collected.

That's my quick comment. I'm going to go look at those annual reports on the web site and see if they show what people are talking about here.