[Board] Next meeting: 15th August, 3 UTC

[Daniel Morissette]

Thank you for raising those very valid points Darrell.

I'd like to point out that making decisions on fiscal scenarios is 
clearly out of my skills range, and outside of my area of interest.

As treasurer, I can take care of the usual budgetting and finances 
tracking, and coordinate the work with the IRS to get our non-profit 
status sorted out as I have been doing in the last 1-2 years, but I 
don't think I am the right person to setup and evaluate fiscal scenarios 
for FOSS4G.

I repeat my call for charter members knowledgeable and interested with 
non-profit stuff of that kind to step up and join the board... it's 
election time, the perfect time to speak up and I'll be happy to write a 
nomination for you.

In the meantime, if someone wants to document a couple of scenarios I 
can run them by our attorney to get his input/comments, but I am not 
going to come up with those scenarios myself.

My understanding of the process is that the LOC comes up with a budget 
for board approval, and then OSGeo would provide seed money to the LOC 
to help kick start things based on this budget (in the order of up to 
20-40k$). Then a rep of the board is assinged on the LOC and keeps an 
eye on things and reports to the board for the rest of the conference 
planning. With respect to signatures, I would think that using a PCO or 
separate org to manage the money should take care of that, once OSGeo 
has signed a contract with that PCO or other entity.

Perhaps those who ran past US-based FOSS4G's can step in and comment on 
the way things were done in the past and the best way forward?

Thanks all for your help

Daniel

P.S. Not dropping the ball, just pointing out that we are hitting the 
limits of what a volunteer board can do.


On 13-08-14 11:46 AM, Darrell Fuhriman wrote:
> On Aug 14, 2013, at 08:38, Daniel Morissette <dmorissette at mapgears.com> wrote:
>
>
>> I have created the agenda at http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_2013-08-15
>>
>> Please all board members note that we need to discuss and make a decision on the way forward with respect to our non-profit application and give a response to the IRS on our plan by August 31. So please take time to review the relevant threads on the board list before the meeting.
>
>
> Hi, Board.
>
> I sent the following to the conference list, but think it may be appropriate for the board to discuss and has direct bearing on the non-profit status (plus a couple of other questions).
>
> Unfortunately, I can't attend the board meeting tonight, but I'm sure I can round up a Portland LOC representative if we need one.
>
> Darrell
>
> ===
> Since we need to be signing contracts and will also need to be spending money soon to get the conference going, we need to answer a few big questions:
>
> 1) With the current mess with the IRS as described on the Board list, should we be planning to use another entity to handle fiscal sponsorship, as described by Steve Swazee. (
> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2013-July/002285.html
> )
>
> If we use a fiscal sponsor, then
>
> 2) how quickly can we get seed funds transferred to said entity, and how much money can we transfer?
>
> If we keep the conference under the OSGeo organizational umbrella, then:
>
> 3) Who can sign contracts?
> 3a) Is it possible and desirable to delegate that authority to the LOC.
> 4) How do we spend money?
>
> Not to put too much pressure, but we need to answer these questions ASAP, as the time to sign hotel and convention center contracts is rapidly approaching.
>
> We're already initiating talks with organizations about doing fiscal sponsorship, but it would be nice to know how aggressively we should be pursuing that option.
>
> Darrell
>
> ====
>
>


-- 
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/
Provider of Professional MapServer Support since 2000