[FOSS4G-Oceania] Motion: Increased discount for workshop presenters
Cameron Shorter
cameron.shorter at gmail.com
Sun Sep 2 18:27:52 PDT 2018
I'm in favour of supporting our workshop presenters, who will need to
put in a significant amount of effort to put together their workshops -
much greater than the value of a registration fee.
If budget allows it, I'd be inclined to suggest workshop presenters be
offered either:
1. To be able to sign up to the conference for free.
2. Decide to dedicate their fee toward the good mojo fund. (The slight
rewording to potentially help presenters sell the concept to their
employer, and also to have the presenter/employer recognised in
conference credits).
I'll leave it up to John to decide whether he wants to adjust the
motion, or feels it should be left as is.
Cheers, Cameron
On 3/09/2018 9:39 AM, John Bryant wrote:
> Thanks Trisha, I'm splitting this out into a separate thread as a motion.
>
> Just having a look at the workshop presenters, I think there are at
> most 6 people to whom this would apply - others have already
> registered as sponsors, committee members, or already qualify for the
> CC discount. So, in theory, the actual maximum impact on the budget is
> quite small, probably on the order of $500-750.
>
> We should also consider offering the $300 presenter rate to some
> workshop helpers, within limits (max one per workshop?). This might
> incur a few hundred extra dollars in budget adjustment.
>
> Some of the presenters may have their registration paid for by their
> employer, and may not care about the extra discount, especially if it
> means redoing paperwork.
>
> I'm pretty comfortable projecting that we'll surpass our target of 90
> workshop registrations, so some of the projected budget surplus is
> directly related to the success of the workshop program. Re-investing
> some of this surplus back into the people providing invaluable content
> seems positive to me.
>
> It would take extra effort to communicate this with the presenters and
> make sure they're clear on what's on offer. Trisha, sounds like you're
> willing to take this on?
>
> So, to be clear, I'll phrase this as a motion:
>
> *Motion: to offer workshop presenters the option of registering for
> the conference at the Community Contributor rate ($150), and to offer
> workshop helpers the option of registering at the current Workshop
> Presenter rate ($300). The expected total cost of this adjustment is
> estimated to be in the range of $1000.*
>
> I'm comfortable supporting this proposal. +1 from me.
>
> John
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: *Trisha Moriarty* <moriar1y at gmail.com <mailto:moriar1y at gmail.com>>
> Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2018 at 17:30
> Subject: Re: [FOSS4G-Oceania] * Important - budget update *
> To: foss4g-oceania <foss4g-oceania at lists.osgeo.org
> <mailto:foss4g-oceania at lists.osgeo.org>>
>
>
> Its good to see the budget summary info, thanks John.
>
> I agree with Cameron principles and the seed fund is important, but I
> would like to see this year's events benefit as much as possible as well.
>
> So as an idea, in light of the surplus, could we increase the
> discount on the conference ticket rate for presenters. Currently the
> presenter ticket is $300. Could we lower it to the community ticket
> rate $150.
>
> A number of the presenters already have access to sponsor or
> community ticket rates, so the impact on budget would be for approx.
> 10 tickets $1500
>
> Only 2 have actually purchased their presenter rate tickets, so I was
> about to send out reminders to the others to register.
>
> I feel the presenters are making a very valuable contribution to the
> conference, and this could be one way to demonstrate the community's
> appreciation.
>
> But I realise this is going backwards on a decision and it will be a
> bit messy offering refunds for the presenters who have registered, but
> I thought it still worthwhile putting the question out there.
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 2, 2018 at 8:04 AM Cameron Shorter
> <cameron.shorter at gmail.com <mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Thanks John for the summary. It will be helpful for making
> decisions later.
>
> Talking to the principles of how we manage the surplus, I think:
>
> * Honour our agreement with SSSI, and ensure we continue to make
> our maximum budgeted surplus and SSSI is paid the agreed 50% of
> this for the risk they took in backing us.
>
> * The rest of the surplus should be put toward community value,
> whatever we decide that to be.
>
> * We should invite SSSI to contribute to the discussion about how
> the surplus is spent, which might include reserving some of the
> surplus for next year.
>
>
> On 1/09/2018 12:44 PM, John Bryant wrote:
>> *TL;DR: based on conservative assumptions, in a 200 attendee
>> projected budget, we are currently looking at a $30k+ surplus.*
>>
>> Hi team,
>>
>> As we push towards the event (80 days to go!), I want to provide
>> an update on our financial position, as I think it will be
>> important to have this in the front of our minds. There will be
>> some financial decisions to make in the upcoming weeks, and we
>> need to have this as context for this decision making.
>>
>> To date, we've operated with a fairly lean approach, budgeting
>> conservatively, and making only modest adjustments to our budget.
>> In our agreement with SSSI, we committed to aim for a surplus of
>> $3k-$10k, and in fact have consistently guided our budget to a
>> surplus more in the $15k-$20k range, to accommodate our uncertainty.
>>
>> Despite this constraint, we've done a great job of planning an
>> exciting & interesting event, and our success on this front can
>> be measured in part by our significant over achievement in the
>> sponsorship area, and the high probability that we'll
>> significantly exceed our target of 150 attendees. So, good job, us!
>>
>> But my point here, rather than to congratulate, is to raise
>> awareness that *we are currently sitting on a much larger than
>> expected surplus*. I wanted to understand this surplus better, so
>> I set up a new 200 attendee scenario in our budget worksheet
>> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14yHWdvEPxshBSBgxjc4vWgJlg0Svk8Qg0G-D3kF-siM/edit#gid=1274394515>.
>> If there are any doubts whether we can reach 200, keep in mind
>> we're already over 125 regos sold or committed, 11 weeks out,
>> without even announcing a program or going into a heavy promotion
>> phase.
>>
>> This scenario is based on what I consider to be realistic &
>> conservative assumptions (/listed in the worksheet, I'll repeat
>> them here/). I don't want to prejudice our future discussions by
>> including specifics like TGP & videorecording in these
>> assumptions, we need to discuss these in a separate thread, but I
>> include them as examples of significant expenditures we could add
>> to our budget, and still have a large surplus.
>>
>> *Assumptions for 200 scenario:*
>> 200 conf regos
>> 150 half day workshop regos
>> 120 dinner tickets
>> CC tickets won't be taken up as much as expected
>> increase student regos
>> no additional sponsorship
>> increase to TGP expense
>> increase to keynote travel expense
>> increase to paid staff expense
>> include $5000 for swag
>> include $4000 for video recording
>>
>> Even with all of these assumptions, which I consider to be
>> generally erring on the side of caution, *we are looking at a
>> $30k+ surplus*, which is large. See the budget worksheet
>> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14yHWdvEPxshBSBgxjc4vWgJlg0Svk8Qg0G-D3kF-siM/edit#gid=1274394515>
>> for the detailed scenario (/extra scrutiny would be very welcome/).
>>
>> Recall that part of our partnership agreement with SSSI is that
>> we share 50% of the surplus with them, so at present we don't
>> have the option of simply retaining the full surplus for future
>> years. However, I hope we can open a discussion with SSSI and see
>> if there is appetite for investing part of any unexpected
>> windfall into future events. But clearly, we need to honour the
>> agreement we have in place, and respect our partner's wishes on
>> how they wish to proceed on this front.
>>
>> So, as we go forward over the next 11 weeks and careen to the
>> finish line, I suggest we need to keep this budget surplus in
>> mind. We've had many discussions where we've opted out of doing
>> things because we haven't felt like we could justify the cost,
>> but I argue at this point that we need to adjust our thinking a
>> bit on this front. The money is coming from the community
>> (sponsors and attendees), and I feel we owe it to the community
>> to make wise decisions on how we spend this money, while ensuring
>> the best event possible. This doesn't mean we start spending like
>> sailors, of course (no offense to sailors!), but I suggest we
>> have latitude to spend some money on things that will benefit the
>> community and the event.
>>
>> I suggest we don't raise specific motions on expenditure in this
>> thread, rather if there are specific motions arising, they should
>> be raised in separate threads.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> jb
>>
>>
>>
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>
> --
> Cameron Shorter
> Technology Demystifier
> Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
>
> M +61 (0) 419 142 254
>
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--
Cameron Shorter
Technology Demystifier
Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
M +61 (0) 419 142 254
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