[PROPOSAL] Reimbursement for Candy Purchases

[Arnob Kabir]

Hello everyone,

For the Downtown Mesa Halloween event that happened on October 25th, I bought the lab $169.70 of candy (with the expectation of being reimbursed) because we did not have enough to give out and effectively participate in the event. Below is an online copy of the receipt for it:

Some additional context: I had told our other Board Members David Lang and Landon that I would get $100 worth of candy. When I went to Walmart and saw how much candy that was, I decided to get $170 worth instead. After the event, we had quite a bit of candy left, and in hindsight $100 may have been enough after all. As much as I would like to be reimbursed for the full $169.70, since I ended up buying more than I said I would and that extra ended up being potentially unnecessary, I can understand being reimbursed for only $100.

I believe all the bags were opened, so I don't think any of them can be returned to recuperate the losses.

In an attempt to make things easier and fair, I am dividing this proposal into two parts:

Part A

Arnob shall be reimbursed $100 for the purchase of the initial $100 worth of candy that was agreed by him, David Lang, and Landon.

I believe I definitely deserve to be reimbursed the initial $100 because I said I would be purchasing $100 worth of candy and the other Board Members agreed that this was a good amount.

Part B

Arnob shall be reimbursed $69.70 for the purchase of the extra ~$70 worth of candy that he independently bought.

I am unsure about this additional $70 because, as was said prior, I believe the extra $70 worth of candy ended up being unnecessary.

I could certainly be overthinking things, but I would rather overthink in an attempt to be fair.

Thanks,

Arnob T. Kabir

[David Lang]

note that I gave Arnob $20 in cash and commited to provide another $20 if
needed.

David Lang

On Wed, 5 Nov 2025, Arnob Kabir wrote:

> Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2025 07:42:33 -0800 (PST)
> From: Arnob Kabir <arnobka...@gmail.com>
> Reply-To: heatsy...@googlegroups.com
> To: HeatSync Labs <heatsy...@googlegroups.com>
> Subject: [HSL] [PROPOSAL] Reimbursement for Candy Purchases

>
> Hello everyone,
>
> For the Downtown Mesa Halloween event that happened on October 25th, I
> bought the lab $169.70 of candy (with the expectation of being reimbursed)
> because we did not have enough to give out and effectively participate in
> the event. Below is an online copy of the receipt for it:
>
> [image: Walmart Receipt Screenshot.png]

> *Some additional context:* I had told our other Board Members David Lang

> and Landon that I would get $100 worth of candy. When I went to Walmart and
> saw how much candy that was, I decided to get $170 worth instead. After the
> event, we had quite a bit of candy left, and in hindsight $100 may have
> been enough after all. As much as I would like to be reimbursed for the
> full $169.70, since I ended up buying more than I said I would and that
> extra ended up being potentially unnecessary, I can understand being
> reimbursed for only $100.
>
> I believe all the bags were opened, so I don't think any of them can be
> returned to recuperate the losses.
>
> In an attempt to make things easier and fair, I am dividing this proposal
> into two parts:
>

> *Part A*
> *Arnob shall be reimbursed $100 for the purchase of the initial $100 worth
> of candy that was agreed by him, David Lang, and Landon.*

>
> I believe I definitely deserve to be reimbursed the initial $100 because I
> said I would be purchasing $100 worth of candy and the other Board Members
> agreed that this was a good amount.
>

> *Part B*
> *Arnob shall be reimbursed $69.70 for the purchase of the extra ~$70 worth
> of candy that he independently bought.*

[sherman...@yahoo.com]

Arnob, while I wasn't part of the event I always appreciate all you do. I will slip $20 in an envelope with your name on it and put it in the kitchen. I'll probably do that this weekend.

S

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[Arnob Kabir]

Lang did give me $20. I'd like to give that $20 back if I get fully reimbursed. Apologies for not mentioning that, I forgot.

[Arnob Kabir]

Let's see if I get reimbursed by the lab first. If I get fully reimbursed and you still feel compelled to give me money, I'll just donate it to the lab.

[David S Flores]

We have never approved that type of experience. 

We don't have money to throw away like that.

This type of experience needs to be pre-approved.

People donate money to the Lab to help keep the lab open and free. Wasting money is a slap in the face!

[Luis Montes]

At least 100 of it was pre-approved

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[Eric Ose]

I'm going to be supporting full reimbursement. I will personally be focused on hosting more events. Eventually this meager amount of money doesn't matter when their is a much lager gap. A gap so large that we cannot save our way to solving it. Instead we have to focus on doing cool things to drive engagement like trying to spread the word about our space during big events downtown.

For context on the candy requirement: The Downtown Mesa Association has a minimum requirement of hand outs for businesses to participate in their Halloween event. They wanted business to be prepared for 2000 participants. 

We signed up then came up short of their requirement due to the high number they expect of businesses, plus the higher prices of candy. Arnob did his best so the lab wasn't coming up too short. Based on the initial figure that was misleading he overshot. Next time we can just avoid signing up and hand out whatever amount we want. The only advantage to being signed up is being listed on the event and some social media posts from the DMA.

Eric Ose

Robot Ambassador

It's just an idea until there's a date and time included.

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[David S Flores]

We were NOT listed as a participating business.

It's very easy to just spend money. Anyone can do it. You don't need any judgement. Any money we foolishly spend well not return.

We have participated in many of these events and have not had to spend HeatSync's money. We can ask for candy donations, we can provide laser cut giveaways. We have done it many times before.

We should not treat HeatSync Labs as our cash cow. We need responsible spending.

There were several large bags of candy left over, they are not in the lab...

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[Sheldon McGee]

Hello Arnob,

Thanks for the detailed breakdown and your transparency on this.

My main concern is using the general Heatsync fund for this expense. My understanding is that in the past, this has been covered by direct member donations, not the general lab account. We already have $40 from Lang and $20 from Sherman for this specific event, which seems to support that precedent.

Because this has historically been a member-funded activity, I would also vote 'no' on using the general fund for reimbursement.

This does highlight that we should probably have a clearer board policy on spending and reimbursements for community outreach events like this in the future.

Sheldon

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[Luis Montes]

Responsible spending requires financial reporting, otherwise it just sounds like extremely subjective opinions.  We haven't seen a financial report for Heatsync in a very long time.

I'm going to vote yes on this to make up whatever gap is left after donations to this expense.

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[Sheldon McGee]

4 hours later and donations are at about $155 by my count. Not sure why we need Heatsync and a proposal to cover this. 

$75+$40+$20+$20 = $155

Sheldon

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[Arnob Kabir]

Well, the proposal was made without the expectation that people would donate. If someone donated another $14.70 then that would cover everything and I guess this proposal would be redundant and unnecessary.

[Arnob Kabir]

I do agree with Sheldon that the policy on funding community events needs to be clearer. Clarifying our policies in general is one of our current board's goals.

[Luis Montes]

Agree with both of you on that.  What's nice is that we now have a pretty clear and open path to changing things that we feel should be codified in the bylaws.

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[Brett Neese]

I'd also like to point out here that I personally spent about $75 of my own money (which I never expected and still do not expect to be reimbursed), hoping the community would follow my lead (and many did, eventually! Thank you to everyone who threw a bag of candy or other treats on the pile.) 

However, on the morning of, before more contributions came in, my contribution was deemed insufficient which is why Arnob was asked by the board to make this purchase and authorized up to $100. I don't think he should be financially penalized for acting in his role. Mistakes do happen. I think the ideal thing here, from an org perspective, would be to slip the promised donations in the snack fund and reimburse Arnob from that fund (it's better that way for tax and compliance purposes.)

We were not listed as a participating business due to a clerical error at the city of Mesa, not because we didn't indicate our participation. (In fact the form was filled out twice!)

Brett

On Wed, Nov 5, 2025 at 1:03 PM Arnob Kabir <arnobka...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Heather Jackson]

I support full reimbursement. It’s important to take the best care we can of each other as we do our best to support the interests of the lab in good faith. Many thanks to each of you for your service, and to those donating money to reimburse Arnob. 

Heather Jackson 

On Nov 5, 2025, at 3:14 PM, Brett Neese <br...@neese.rocks> wrote:



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[Brett Neese]

Thank you, Heather, for your grace and kind words. That’s the kind of energy I’d like to see more of from the lab. We don’t build up the lab by tearing each other down, we do it by earnestly supporting each other. We’re all just trying to do our best.

Brett

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[Jay McGavren]

Thank you to everyone who participated and who is contributing their own funds to cover this.

My experience with giving out candy at Easter was that it produced a madhouse of activity, but ultimately little interest from people who might actually become members.

The demographic we're reaching here is kids. Not even parents. If we *were* reaching parents, well, we'd be reaching people who have kids. And therefore don't have a lot of time or money to contribute to HeatSync.

I think the leads these activities produce are of low quality (for our purposes).

-Jay

[Brett Neese]

I’d argue the reason you do things like this is the same reason you participate in neighborhood trick-or-treating. It’s not a membership drive. It’s to be a good neighbor and community member. I’d even argue it’s part of our 501(c)3 mission. This has its own benefits long term. 

It’s also fun. We should be fun and have fun.

What’s not fun is to be lectured at by the membership for acting in good faith at the direction of fellow board members. That’s why I support full reimbursement. Bickering about over a relatively tiny amount of money lowers engagement. It lowers fun. It makes it less pleasant for people who want to take risks and do things for the lab and for the community and for our charitable mission. It makes it less likely that people will want to contribute and take risks and in doing so make mistakes. 

Why would anyone bother trying to do something for the lab if they know they might be stepping on a landmine? This attitude needs to be squashed. My previous lab had a motto - if someone says “someone should,” you just volunteered to be that someone. Give it a try. If it doesn’t work, no big deal. At least you tried. 

That being said, this is also why I capped my own contribution and personally didn’t want to tap lab funds.

Brett

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[Nate Caine]

Perhaps, this would have been better handled by asking for member donations to support Halloween Candy in the weeks AHEAD of the event.
The Board could even start things off with a token $50 donation.
Let the amounts of the donations serve as a limit to our spending, and an indication of member support.

Summarizing:

• The first two board-members authorized $100,
• A third board-member expanded that by an additional $70,
• A fourth board-member expanded again by another $75.

So what started as a dubious $100, essentially grew to $245.

I don't believe that $245 is a trivial amount.  Simply stated it's 10 member's dues payments at the $25 level.
$245 is not a "meager amount", and for an organization with financial problems, we need to watch every penny.

I don't agree with the characterization that this discussion is "tearing each other down".
This is discussion about spending at a time of financial concerns, some mis-steps in this event spending, and suggestions to avoid a reoccurrence.

The after-action donations previously mentioned appear to be over $155.

• It seems fair to fully cover Brett's $75 from the donations.
• Also, fully cover Arnob's $70 from the donations.
• HeatSync should pay Arnob the $100 he was initially authorized.

With 20-20 hindsight this could have been better handled, but both made on-the-spot decisions with good intentions.
HeatSync is still on the hook for the $100, but any donations balance beyond the $145 (Brett: $75 + Arnob: $70), should be applied to reduce HeatSync's $100 initial commitment cost.

Let's think twice before doing this again.

[Brett Neese]

Admittedly, we could’ve planned this better. I didn’t know about it myself until a week or two before the event - after I got my board email and saw a flurry of emails from the city. That’s also why the clerical error was made - we did submit the form, and it was technically on time, but I suspect it was past when the fliers from the city were printed. 

So, I tried my best with limited time and resources. It’s always better when we work together though. And I did ask for candy donations, but we could’ve had some sooner. We also could’ve also asked for money to buy candy instead of candy. That would’ve opened participation up for all these fine folks who are happy to donate $20 but might not have wanted to take the time or energy to buy candy, and then go to the lab to physically drop it off. Thank you wonderful humans.

I don’t think we’re in a financial position to do this quite like this but another space I was involved in had a policy called “in for $10” - members would ask for donations to be earmarked towards a certain goal, say buying new 3D printers. If enough members committed funds to pay for half, the space would cover the other half. 

What Nate is suggesting here is a flavor of that, and I like his proposal (not only because I’m an interested party). Our financial situation is shaky but this is the kind of constructive approach to problem solving that I like and I think the lab could benefit from more of. 

In other words, rather than bringing problems and negativity try to think of solutions and positivity.  And, of course, we should reflect and learn from past mistakes and find a constructive path forward. Hindsight, as Nate says, is 20/20. There’s a lot of that going on in this thread too and it’s much appreciated.

Brett

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[David Lang]

Nate Caine wrote:

>
> - The first two board-members authorized $100,
> - A third board-member expanded that by an additional $70,
> - A fourth board-member expanded again by another $75.

>
> So what started as a dubious $100, essentially grew to $245.

to clarify the timeline

Brett purchased $75 of candy with no expectation or request for reinbursement

about an how before things started ATK noted that it wasn't that much and
suggested getting more and asked if he could get reimbursed if he went and got
$100 worth.

Landon, Brett and I said that the board could authorize $50, beyond that a
proposal would be needed (and I handed him $20)

He went and got $100 worth, then decided it still wasn't enough and got another
75 (recognizing that he had only asked about getting $100 and may need to eat
the other $75)

David Lang

[Sean Dengler]

Hi. Checking to see if you're coming for the vacuum class.Thank you

The Polytechnic School

Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering

Arizona State University

Scott.Ba...@asu.edu

[sherman...@yahoo.com]

Arnob there is an envelope for you below the clock in the kitchen (as promised).

Sherman

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