[Board] Fwd: [Foss4g2010] subscriptions

[Frank Warmerdam]

Geoff Zeiss wrote:
> Paul has identified an important issue, at least in my mind.
> 
> A strawman
> 
> Just to get the conversation going, could I suggest that to continue to be
> financially secure OSGEO needs at least two repeatable sources of
> significant revenue.  At this point I believe these are the annual FOSS4G
> conference and sponsorship.  If we are going to eliminate or significantly
> reduce the revenue from one of them, for whatever reason, could I suggest
> that we need to identify a replacement.  If we can't then I don't think we
> can responsibly reduce the potential revenue of FOSS4G, and actually should
> be considering increasing it, because hard times tend to reduce sponsorship.

Folks,

I would like to note that Lorenzo and the Barcelona team signed up for the
conference under particular assumptions about the level of profit they are
expected to produce for OSGeo (I wish I had the details of this at my
fingers - can anyone point to them)?

I think it would be unfair to retroactively expect a substantially larger
planned profit from FOSS4G 2010 if that goes against the LOC's goals.

That said as a board we have a responsibility to review and approve a budget
for 2010 which I don't *think* we have done yet (have we?).  It seems like this
is the right time to review the budget, possibly request adjustments and
then approve it.

 > From: Paul Ramsey <pramsey at cleverelephant.ca>
 >
 > OK, nevermind the budget: on what basis are we reducing our pricing by
 > 25%? Because we like a challenge?

Possibly because the LOC feel it can meet it's profit goal while garnering
a larger involvement through offering a lower price.

All the above said, Paul is definitely the voice of experience, and tuning
of the pricing might well be in order.

One thing that has been contemplated in the past, but was generally not
considered financially viable, was to have some slush money in the
conference budget to pay for travel costs or at least "comped" conference
fees for some worthy attendies who wouldn't normally make it.  This
might include students, or valuable presenters who wouldn't otherwise be
able to make it.  If we have slack in the conference budget, we might
consider trying to do something like that this year with the hope of making
it a better event by doing so.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
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