[Board] Cost of OSGeo Face-to-Face meetings

[Cameron Shorter]

OSGeo board,
I suggest that we revisit the question of OSGeo paying for board members 
to have a Face-to-Face meeting.

As a refresher:
1. Face to face meetings are generally agreed to be a very valuable way 
to communicate.
2. The Google Hangout meeting we had for the first time worked 
reasonably well, although there were a few minor technical glitches 
(anne's voice faded in and out). Even still, it is not as good as a face 
to face.
3. Most (all?) felt that board members should not be out pocket for 
joining the board, noting that board members contribute time for free.
4. The flip side is that most (all?) question the appropriateness of 
board members getting "freebies" such as free passage to a foss4g event.
5. Most (all?) recognised that the cost of moving all the board to one 
location, such as foss4g is a substantial portion of the board's budget.

Back of envelope calculations: 9 board members x $3K = $27K. This is 
somewhere between 1/5 and 1/3 of OSGeo's annual budget. For the same 
price, we could fully fund 2 code sprints. Or fully fund conference 
consumables such as OSGeo-Live DVDs and tee-shirts for 10 to 20 spatial 
events.

Is the extra value we gain by having a face-to-face meeting instead of a 
Google Hangout meeting worth that?

I've been swayed by Frank's recommendation that OSGeo should embrace the 
"scrappy" concept. Which I interpret to mean being creative about 
achieving similar service on a shoe string budget.
As such I'd suggest OSGeo shouldn't fund the board to meet face-to-face, 
and also that the board are not expected to travel on their own dime.

-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

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