[Board] next board meeting & project sponsorship

[Tyler Mitchell]

Hi guys, I just realised that I'm not able to meet tomorrow.  I had a couple items on the agenda, but will have to follow up on them via email, below.  

Tomorrow I'm meeting with various folks from FOSS4G LOC in Denver, including GITA face-to-face for clarifying changes at their end and will be going over a bunch of stuff with Peter, touring the conference venue and more.  I have several interviews lined up to video record for a promo video for FOSS4G while I'm here too.

Sorry for the last minute notice, can someone else take the minutes and coordinate the skype calls please?  June came a lot faster than I had anticipated, but I have lots to fill you in on after I get through this week!

Here are the other items I would like to discuss.  
1. Paid membership levels - if we could set a suggested level, I'll get the apps in place to make it possible.  I'm thinking $50 minimum, and a second level at $100.  I can work out some kind of thank you gift for both those levels, unless you have some ideas.  It would just be good to get the boards thumbs-up on the levels before I go any further.  Also, we need a name for these special people.  OSGeo Patron or Backer?  I'm sure we can come up with something cool sounding.

2. Media Sponsorship - similar to how FOSS4G does it.  I've had one media outlet come asking for an opportunity to become a sponsor for in-kind support.  I explained that I would look into a possibly, but that currently we do not take in-kind support - well, everyone gives in-kind :)  but we don't make them sponsors without cash.  This could be some really great opportunities though - we'd set a rate for a media sponsor, maybe a "Premium" media sponsor too, and they'd give us a certain amount of real advertising.  This could really be useful and with limited perks to them, there isn't much risk/cost from our end (except dilution of sponsor pool, but I'm not sure that's a concern as long as we don't put them up against paying/cash sponsors).  I think we could probably get a couple others to join up as well.  Any thoughts on it?

If you come to a consensus on the above two items, then I can get moving on them pretty quickly.

And a few updates for you...

On the sponsorship side, in the past two weeks we've had 3 more associate sponsors renew.  And I'm also following up with several other leads for new sponsors invitations for OSGeo that I've sent out. More to come on that front!

I've also met with an accountant specialising in US nonprofits.  He's fitting us in to go over our books and help do up a federal tax filing in July.  I am also in touch with an attorney from http://softwarefreedom.org/ to get some real help on the 501c3 side of things and to just get dialogue going on other potential legal issues.

Hope that's all useful information.  If there's anything you need, holler and I'll try to look at it tomorrow night.  I'm back in my office Friday night, but will be working on emails while traveling as usual.

Best wishes and have a good meeting tomorrow.
Tyler


----- Original Message -----
From: "Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)" <tmitchell at osgeo.org>
Date: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 6:49 pm
Subject: Re: [Board] next board meeting & project sponsorship
To: Tim Schaub <tschaub at opengeo.org>
Cc: board at lists.osgeo.org

> On 2011-05-24, at 5:32 PM, Tim Schaub wrote:
> 
> > Also, I notice that minutes for the previous meeting are not up.
> > http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_2011-05-05
> 
> Oops, they are there now Tim - thanks.
> _______________________________________________
> Board mailing list
> Board at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
> 
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