[Board] Update from Tyler - January

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

Hi all,
Here are some of the things I've had on the radar this past month.   
Many are ongoing as well.

Education: Worked with educational committee to tweak and start using  
a training material catalogue.  http://osgeo.org/educational_content

Conference:
  - General: Answered some general questions for those interested in  
holding future events and branding them as OSGeo.  Posting news  
releases.
  - FOSS4G: Upgrade conference system, lending a hand to '09 web site  
team for committing site changes.

Journal:  Loading back issues into online system, updating links on  
sites.  Trying to line up peer review process, but it has totally  
stalled.

Summer of Code:  Worked with Wolf to send thank you gifts to  
mentors.  I submitted some of my ideas for SoC 2009 and do a bit of  
research.  Last year Google gave us $10,000 for mentors, etc.

Local Chapters:
  - California: Alex and Landon working on formalising the chapter.   
Lost of questions about next steps.  They are increasingly interested  
in raising local sponsors to help fund OSGeo presence at events.   
Some questions about handling finances, etc.
  - Francophone: Dealing directly with our sponsor IGN to help answer  
questions and find solutions.  Discussed with Yves about how they  
might get their code back into OSGeo projects and what kind of  
language barriers exist.

Finance: Updated and reviewed 2008 financial records.  OSGeo  
officially registered in British Columbia now - at request of our  
local bank.  Sent a QGIS contractor payment and created a status  
report.  Stalled insurance application finally restarted due to staff  
turnover at insurance company.

Web: Some layout changes and also a bunch of testing of various  
website tools.  Helping compile comments and ideas re: future web  
site changes from a marketing perspective.  Prototyping a symbol  
management tool in CMS.

Marketing: Material development (brochures, etc) plan started.  Was  
recently interviewed for a Japanese software developer magazine - to  
be posted in a couple months.

That's all for now, drop me a note on anything in particular you  
might like to hear more about at our next meeting.

Best wishes,
Tyler