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

[Peter Batty]

I also have no expertise on the tax questions.

But in terms of how contracts and logistics worked for the Denver
conference, more or less everything was delegated to our conference
organizer, GITA, basically the same as Paul described for Victoria.

They signed contracts with the venue and other suppliers. All the finances
ran through GITA - sponsorship and registration money was all paid to GITA,
and they paid all the bills. I believe OSGeo paid some seed money to GITA
up front. And then at the end GITA paid the proceeds back to OSGeo.

Cheers,
    Peter.


On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 10:24 AM, Daniel Morissette <
dmorissette at mapgears.com> wrote:

> 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<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<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
>
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