[OSGeo Finance] New Treasurer

[Frank Warmerdam]

Folks,

I was made OSGeo treasurer today by the board.

Dave - I am very pleased that you have agreed to stay on the finance committee!
I appreciate your efforts as Treasurer, and your continued input.

This makes our current membership:

     * Frank Warmerdam (Treasurer)
     * Dave McIlhagga
     * Jo Walsh
     * Paul Ramsey
     * Ken Tamura
     * Tyler Mitchell

The board accepted the current financial report pending a final formal
acceptance of it by the finance committee (with no substantial changes from
what is currently posted).

Dave - perhaps you could make a motion to adopt the current report, or
work with Tyler to incorporate any last changes and then make a motion?

For upcoming work there are a few things I'd like to address:

1) Working out what our tax submission situation is.  My understanding is
    that we have some time when launching a new corporation before we have
    to start making tax filings, but I'm assuming we must soon be due to
    start filing.  Have we made any previous tax filings?  Can anyone comment
    on when we need to file by?  Are we planning to prepare filings all
    by ourselves or would we retain some help to prepare filings?

    Depending on what resources we have internally, I'd be inclined to get
    some outside support for our first filings, and *hopefully* we could then
    file ourselves using the first filing as a template.

2) I would like to prepare some income projections, and "fixed expenses"
    before FOSS4G so that the board has some idea of our financial parameters.
    I'm assuming they will give some broad stroke direction for a 2009 budget,
    and then we will prepare a more detailed budget for final approval by the
    board before the end of the year.

3) I think there is room for some iterative improvement in how we do our
    bookkeeping and produce quarterly and annual reports for the board.

4) I'd like to document our financial procedures.  How things get approved.
    What sort of review happens for spending items.  Who has access to what.

I'm interested in feedback from the rest of you on other things you think we
need to address in the coming months and/or items anyone here might like to
take a lead on.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent