<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">It has been the "norm” but not a requirement that LOCs publish their accounts following a FOSS4G. In the case of a global event where OSGeo has a funding agreement or guarantee with the LOC in return for a share of the surplus (if any) then an "open book" approach is implicit in that agreement. <div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I would not expect preparing a schedule of income and expenditure for a conference to be a lot of effort. The organising team or their PCO must maintain some schedules to record income and expenditure. </div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I just had a quick look at the RfP doc and it does not explicitly state that full accounts (at a similar level of detail to the budget submitted with the RfP) should be published within x months of the event finishing. I suggest we add that requirement to the RfP doc for 2020.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Here are the accounts for FOSS4G 2013 which we published in December 2013 <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YdFNuBNaJK2XeA-bs1vU24VA1Qv9HpN8rLs30D9_0zg/edit#gid=1040179171" class="">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YdFNuBNaJK2XeA-bs1vU24VA1Qv9HpN8rLs30D9_0zg/edit#gid=1040179171</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal; border-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none;">______<br class="">Steven<br class=""><br class=""></span>
</div>
<div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 14 Jun 2018, at 04:44, Cameron Shorter <<a href="mailto:cameron.shorter@gmail.com" class="">cameron.shorter@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" class="">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class=""><p class="">Sara,</p><p class="">I'd suggest it might be helpful to explain why you are requesting
people open the books. Providing a worthy motivation will likely
help inspire a volunteer to help you.<br class="">
</p><p class="">There is typically quite a bit of volunteer effort required to
pull together past data into a usable format. Quite often it
requires data to be de-personalised for public consumption. Maybe
you can say something along the lines of "if you release the
metrics, then I will be able to add value to the osgeo community
to help ..."<br class="">
</p>
<br class="">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 14/6/18 8:20 am, michael terner
wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CAFk2e0KFQnQ=Q9_3hEWfL43fJ1xSoW=PdL4BCiADJAB9NAK5Ew@mail.gmail.com" class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Sara:</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">I
fully support the notion of "open books" and the Boston Team
has endeavored to do that. Indeed, when asking volunteers to
do so much in this ecosystem it is important to have openness
around the finances.</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">This
tweet from Matthew Hanson had a picture of the "raw" (and
rounded) Boston numbers that I presented in a talk at FOSS4GNA
in STL:</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">
<div class="gmail_default" style="text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><span style="color:rgb(20,23,26);font-family:"Segoe
UI",Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;background-color:rgb(230,236,240);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline" class=""><a href="https://twitter.com/GeoSkeptic/status/996147340854652928" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">https://twitter.com/GeoSkeptic/status/996147340854652928</a></span><span class=""> </span><br clear="all" class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br class="">
</div>
There's one other slide in that deck that showed the net
results (i.e., surplus) and I would be happy to share the
entire deck with this list if useful. Just ask. (And, we have
lots of other more granular data if there are other, specific
questions [e.g., speaker fees; # of people who were early
bird; etc.]).</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br class="">
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">That
said, the numbers by themselves don't tell the entire story as
there is a whole lot of context that matters greatly. Stuff
like:</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="">
<ul style="" class="">
<li style="" class=""><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" class="">Organizers do
not know how the numbers will fully add up until a good
bit after the conference. Indeed, there are both
trailing expenses to pay, and revenue to collect (some
of which are dependent on the actual attendance you
achieve). And, some accounting/spreadsheet work to do by
already tired volunteers.</font></li>
<li style="" class=""><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" class="">Conference
registrations are slow to pour in. So while Boston
ultimately harvested a sizable surplus, we did not know
until <i class="">2 weeks </i>before the conference that we had
achieved our break-even number. If we knew what our
final attendance would be in advance we would have
surely lowered our prices and/or better funded the
travel grant program. But we, nor any other organizer,
has that luxury. We are pleased that some of our surplus
is going to support the Dar es Salaam conference through
OSGeo <i class="">paying</i> for sponsorship for that event.</font></li>
<li style="" class=""><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" class="">Decisions that
organizers make greatly impact the finances. Things
ranging from providing day care, to giving all speakers
a free pass, to the location of the host city, greatly
impact costs/revenues while serving other important
objectives. </font></li>
</ul>
<div class=""><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" class="">Indeed, it is an
imperfect science and the Boston team was petrified by our
finances up until that "break even" moment 2 weeks before
the conference started. But it is also the imperfectness
of this science that makes "opening the books" so
important as all future conferences can learn from both
past triumphs and mistakes. I would never look askance at
a set of numbers that told a sadder story than Boston's
(unless there was abject corruption, or something like
that). Running a conference is hard and in all of the
FOSS4G and FOSS4GNA conferences I've volunteered on (which
now numbers 5, and includes STL) I have never doubted than
anyone acted in a way other than to deliver the best
possible conference at the lowest possible cost. I also
don't expect that everyone would make the same choices
that we did in Boston. Indeed, the Chair and his/her LOC
make the choices they feel will lead to the best/most
successful conference. Second guessing is a natural
impulse, but it easier to do than running the conference.
And, from my vantage, open books are important as they
serve to help explain the choices that were made, and the
financial impact of those choices.</font></div>
<div class=""><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" class=""><br class="">
</font></div>
<div class=""><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" class="">Sincerely,</font></div>
<div class=""><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" class=""><br class="">
</font></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif" class="">MT</span><br class="">
</div>
<br class="">
</div>
</div>
<br class="">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="">On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 1:18 PM Sara <<a href="mailto:sara@sarasafavi.com" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">sara@sarasafavi.com</a>>
wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div class="">Hi folks,</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Some of you may be aware that for the past ~5 weeks, I
have periodically renewed a public request [0] for
FOSS4G-NA 2018's financial records. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Yesterday, Marc Vloemans, speaking on behalf of
LocationTech, said that I was "misrepresenting" this issue
[1]. That's certainly not my intent, so I'd like to
clarify the basis for my ongoing request in longform, and
renew said request in this forum.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">- On May 4, 2018, a LocationTech representative stated
publicly that FOSS4G-NA's "financials are open, have
always been" [2]</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">- Later the same day, the same representative said that
they were "working on posting all our materials to the
wiki (...) Expect those late this week" [3]</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">- Those statements now appear to be contradicted by the
recent comment [1] that "there is no obligation" of
LocationTech to share FOSS4G-NA financials</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">My ongoing requests have thus far been an attempt to
continue the conversation that originally took place on
twitter on May 4th. As Marc said last night that he does
not "communicate with people via twitter" [1], I'm more
than happy to continue the public conversation with him or
any relevant representative(s) here. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">[0a] <a href="https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1006304174332661760" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1006304174332661760</a></div>
<div class="">[0b] <a href="https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1001543441053114368" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1001543441053114368</a></div>
<div class="">[0c] <a href="https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/994930635096641536" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/994930635096641536</a></div>
<div class="">
<div class="">[1] <a href="https://i.imgur.com/NlbXb4t.png" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">https://i.imgur.com/NlbXb4t.png</a></div>
<div class="">[2] <a href="https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/992394814749577217" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/992394814749577217</a></div>
<div class="">[3] <a href="https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/993584128279957504" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/993584128279957504</a></div>
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Regards,</div>
<div class="">Sara Safavi</div>
</div>
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<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
-- <br class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div class=""><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" class="">Michael Terner</font></div>
<div class=""><a href="mailto:ternergeo@gmail.com" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class=""><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" class="">ternergeo@gmail.com</font></a></div>
<div class=""><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" class="">(M) 978-631-6602</font></div>
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</blockquote>
<br class="">
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Cameron Shorter
Technology Demystifier
Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
M +61 (0) 419 142 254</pre>
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