[Board] Fwd: [Foss4g2010] subscriptions

[Arnulf Christl (OSGeo)]

Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> 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,

I see no reason to lower the rates either (((at least as long as we make 
this a big commercial event with a large budget as we did in the past 
years. I still believe that we could do much more moderate, but that is 
another discussion altogether) and might lead to the formation of a co 
located real-geek sub-conference when FOSS4g grows too large) but time 
will show, lets have a few more iterations).

I would not call it slush money or slack in the conference budget but 
funds that could be used to drop conference fees for officers of OSGeo 
who might otherwise not make it. Can you hear me chime into the f2f 
suggestion again? FOSS4G is the meeting of the tribes and there are 
folks beyond the board who lead committees and chair software projects. 
We might want to get together once a year, else chances are high we 
loose track. So if we can expect any extra money I suggest to use it to 
get people to FOSS4G who are active in the community.

But I want to stress again that it is the Local Chapter that will decide 
on these things, we are only throwing out ideas in the hope that they 
help make a great conference.


Lorenzo,
from all my experience I suggest to take what you can get all the time. 
Spending extra money is easy and if it ends up on the OSGeo or OSGeo ES 
account it will be put to good use. Alguien dijo Libro SIG...?

Best regards,

-- 
Arnulf Christl
President OSGeo
http://www.osgeo.org