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

[Paul Ramsey]

Some thoughts, experience below: 

> 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

In 2007 the "bank" was actually our organizing company, in that case Sea2Sky Meetings. Once OSGeo had signed a contract with them, they both received all the funds from both sponsors and delegates, and paid all the bills. So a simple first order of business is to have your organizing company selected and a contract from them that you are comfortable with ready to sign by OSGeo.

The second order of business is to get your budget approved by the Board, so the board can send you (actually, your organizer) seed funds for any early bookings and deposits needed (usually just the venue requires up-front money).
 
> 
> 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.
President and treasurer. Though, again, I think that only the organizer contract was signed by OSGeo in 2007, although possibly the venue contract also. Everything else was signed by the organizer, after getting approval from the Chair (moi). 
> 4) How do we spend money?

Judiciously :) but as above, via your "bank" which should be the organizing company, which will also conveniently then be able to keep a complete record of the accounts. And of course the company should only spend money at your direction/approval.
> 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.
P.

 
> 
> Darrell
> 
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