On Sunday, August 24, 2003, at 11:34 AM, Vintage Computer Festival
wrote:
On Sun, 24 Aug 2003, Ron Hudson wrote:
The first time I went, It was great, I left off a
fair ammount of
good-but-old-and-unuseable by me stuff, and walked a way with a
AppleIIc+, a great little machine - with
all kinds of goodies.
The second time it was like you said. I think some tax-type got ahold
of them and told them that they were selling without withholding sales
tax. They said the could
only sell to someone who had a resale license. (but they could
'donate' the equipment to me if I 'donated' to the 'pizza fund')
And
I
also got the 'scram ya bother us kid'
feeling from them.
Ron, the first time was because you were there as my guest. And since
I
had my collection stored there I was part of the team and was allowed
certain priveleges. All the stuff you walked away with was stuff that
I
was entitled to let you take because it was vintage stuff (it would've
been scrapped anyway). And a lot of it you got for free (if not all of
it, I can't remember).
Yes, I remember I did visit you as well Sellam.
Well, I paid between $40 and $80, and donated stuff (my stuff may have
been
considered "vintage" as well. I think my brother and I also donated
some time either the first time or the second time. (well only about
4 hours each)
I don't remember about the second time but indeed, if people want to
take
a small piece of miscellaneous hardware, it is customary to feed their
pizza fund jar. It is true that they cannot legally sell stuff without
the buyer having a valid resale license, otherwise they would have to
charge sales tax and keep everything above board because they are
obligated to. That is too much hassle for them.
You weren't there for the second time. I had not realized I needed to
have a sponsor.
I understand about the Tax issues.
It's not too much to ask for a non-profit organization that is
perpetually running at a deficit. And even then, you still have to be
accompanied by someone who has significant clout there. If you were
to walk in off the street they would boot you out the door very
quickly,
and for good reason. If they didn't, they would have a constant
stream of
all sorts of riffraff walking in there, making a mess, expecting help,
causing problems, getting hurt, raising their insurance, etc.
Oh, Rifraff are we?? : ^ ) <<----- please note smiley
Look at it from the point of view of the ACCRC. Imagine that you are
a
non-profit with very limited resources, just barely getting by in the
weakest economy in memory, sometimes behind on all sorts of bills, and
having to worry about keeping the business afloat. Now imagine having
over ten years of experiences to determine what does and does not work.
Maybe then you can understand why they would rather not deal with
people
coming in off the street to buy stuff.
The ACCRC does have some stuff for the public to come in and utilize (a
free internet cafe for example) but in order to be priveleged enough to
become part of the crew there you must dedicate a LOT of your time to
helping them out.
Well it's all water under the bridge... I have moved to Kansas City MO
Sellam, Thanks for your help.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
Festival
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