[OSGeo-Conf] [Board] FOSS4G North America 2013

[Jeff McKenna]

Hi David,

I can understand your frustration.  We're in a hard spot where we are
trying to figure out the 2012 decisions and yet make changes for the
future.  There is always a concern for me also how regional events
affect the usual international event.

But we need regional events.  We need them all over the world.

You have my support.


-jeff



On 12-08-21 6:48 PM, David William Bitner wrote:
> 
> I just want to take a minute to make clear (from my perspective) how we
> got to where we are. From the attempted formation of the North American
> Chapter last year to support the NA event in DC, it was made clear that
> the Conference Committee did not have the bandwidth to deal with other
> conferences. The DC event was fortunate in that it was able to secure
> the event through the initial sponsors of the event OpenGeo and Radiant
> Blue. It is with the assumption that the Conference Committee did not
> want a hand in vetting these regional events that, as the only people
> who expressed an interest in hosting this conference on the North
> America mailing list that we took on the mantle from the DC crew where a
> preliminary announcement was made that MSP would host the next event.
> The event in the Twin Cities is being hosted by the Twin Cities Local
> Chapter of OSGeo which is not a legal entity and as such does not have
> any ability to underwrite this conference. This is why I first
> approached the Board rather than the Conference Committee to seek
> assistance for the financial backstop role. The Board then directed me
> to put the issue to the Conference Committee first.
> 
> I do not think that losing this commitment from OSGeo will scuttle our
> event completely. I do think it will cause OSGeo to miss out on an
> opportunity to take on an activity that 1) strongly supports the mission
> and 2) has a strong likelihood of creating a profit for our chapter's
> "parent organization". If OSGeo cannot fulfill this role, it will be a
> *major *setback for us and we will likely need to create a relationship
> with someone else where we would lose all that revenue from our community.
> 
> David