[VisCom] T-shirts

[Arnulf Christl]

Gary Lang wrote:
> Frank is correct with respect to board and FunCom functions.
> 
> I don't mind doing the duty for now or the foreseeable future. I will
> definitely be the first to flag when the workload is too high. That
> would be a nice signal to me of OSGeo success, I suppose.
> 
> Gary
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Frank Warmerdam [mailto:fwarmerdam at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Frank
> Warmerdam (External)
> Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 8:01 AM
> To: Arnulf Christl
> Cc: Gary Lang; Michael P. Gerlek
> Subject: Re: [VisCom] T-shirts
> 
> Arnulf Christl wrote:
>> So we worked out the consensus that - yes - we want to sponsor 
>> t-shirts for OSGeo. Phew, step 1 successful.
>>
>> Basically I just wanted someone to throw some money into OSGeo so that
>> we start to learn how this can work and build up a stock that we can 
>> spend - on whatever great important things people will come up with 
>> (fx my air fair to SFO... :-). My naive deliberation being that FunCom
>> might start to work out a strategy on how to handle this in future 
>> once there actually is money in the pot - not just lurking somewhere.
> 
> Arnulf,
> 
> Note that the FunCom's job is to raise money, not spend it. 

I was clear about that. And I am trying hard so that you don't actually 
get anything done - ahm, you don't have anything to do. As it stands the 
Open Source Park at the Intergeo will be completely financed without 
FunCom having to raise any money. We are starting to discuss the details 
on the German lang VisCom list. It would be great to have a few thousand 
to spend on brochures, presentation material and t-shirts.

 > Well,
> perhaps a bit of spending in pursuit of more money.  It is up to the
> board to budget spending, and perhaps committees such as VisCom will
> eventually have much freedom on how to spend their budgeted alotment.

Hey mpg - d'ya hear that? They want us to spend money. We should think 
up something big quick so that they can start to raise it (seems like we 
are to provide a good reason before they start working). Markus

>> The current development of the billing going directly to 
>> Geo-Consortium or Autodesk (if that is an option you are suggesting 
>> with "flip for it") somewhat thwarts my intention - but if some 
>> t-shirts come out of it - fine by me.
> 
> OSGeo does have a bank account.  I would like to see us "practice"
> putting money through it at some point.  Gary is the treasurer and holds
> the keys to the account.
> 
>> mpg's request is still open:
>>
>>  > Umm, what is OSGeo's billing address?  :-)

We still don't have it... :-)

> Since billing and related stuff would need to go through the Treasurer I
> guess that would be Gary's work address.

Ah, now I get it. Sorry, I am really slow to understand sometimes. So 
the billing address would be:
Autodesk

Hey this is amazing, none of Garys emails has a postal address on it. 
Wouldn't make any sense anyway as he is never at one location anyway.

>> Ideally I would have wanted to transfer the money to an OSGeo banking 
>> account and then OSGeo would have paid its first bill by itself.
> 
> Likewise, I prefer this approach.
> 
>> This is an all crappy strategy I know. Better ideas? I'd like to kick 
>> some asses to get going but dunno how to without kicking some asses 
>> that have definitely not deserved being kicked at (kicked in, kicked 
>> by - those prepositions do me in).
>>
>> :-)

Now, how did this end up in the board list?

>> President oh my president - don't you have a great solution?
> 
> I can't say that I have been following the t-shirt discussions closely
> since they seem to have been well handled.  Was there a specific
> question?

Nope, I was just trying to get your attention, now we have it from the 
whole board. :-) The T-shirt Sprint was managed exceptionally well by 
mpg. Speaking of doing things:

Michael - would you, if you were humbly requested, consider to formalize 
the process of how to get an OSGeo shirt after the Where 2.0? Probably 
just take the current Wiki page and let people order stuff by 
themselves? Probably it is nothing much that has to be done. We can 
calculate a price and maybe add a few percent that go into the OSGeo 
account (hint, hint: FunCom job).

Or we could have a second version to give away for free which is funded 
by sponsors who appear as small logos on the back - also with a few 
percent off to OSGeo (hint, hint: FunCom job).

> Getting collection and payment working smoothly will certainly be
> necessary.  I have no special experience in this department other than
> having watched how the SPI (Software in the Public Interest) handles
> funds.  SPI handles fund collection and dispersement for a variety of
> projects including Debian.   They make a substantial effort to keep
> things
> very transparent with detailed (to the penny) treasurer reports monthly
> and a clear authorization process.  Hopefully we can do the same.

Not hopefully but we must. "Have to" very simple thing. As directors of 
this Foundation we are personally liable in one way or another so we 
must request for a very straightforward accounting.

> One thing I have seen from SPI is that being Treasurer can be quite a
> substantial job and at some point we may want to consider a professional
> bookkeeper parttime (hopefully something like 10 hours a month or
> something) with Gary acting in an oversight role instead of having to
> write every
> cheque and so forth.   In SPI's case the treasurer frequently became
> overloaded, and reports would be late, or deposits not made before
> cheques become stale-dated.  Of course, given the keys to the kingdom,
> we would need to trust the bookkeeper.
> 
> PS. I think this discussion should be distributed on the board list.  I
> don't really have a special role in financial matters beyond as a board
> member.
> 
> Best regards,

Oh this is how it ended up in the board list.

Best regards,
Arnulf.

PS:
We have a holiday on monday in Germany.