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

[Michael P. Gerlek]

I think I'm going to back down as well and say video conferences are preferred to in-person meetings.

If a majority of the board were to be attending an event anyway then a board meeting could be done in person just as a matter of convenience, perhaps, as long as they conferenced in the others who couldn't be there.

Having a sponsor for the meeting would of course be great, but I'd not want to spend any foundation-level resources chasing that.

-mpg


On Mar 1, 2013, at 9:38 AM, Jáchym Čepický <jachym.cepicky at gmail.com> wrote:

> Cameron, 
> 
> Thank you for this summary. I agree, that funding e.g. code sprint is much more worth and in the line with general OSGeo scope, than making it to our travel agency. The hangout worked reasonable well and I could live with it. 
> 
> Still I would leave the possibility open for the future, but with a note,  that the general principal is, we are not going to found f2f meetings, and will spend the monay for something more valuable.  There is also still rather theoretical possibility, we could find a sponsors for the f2f meeting? 
> 
> Jáchym 
> 
> 
> Send from cellphone
> 
> Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>napsal/a:
> 
>> 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
>> 
>> Think Globally, Fix Locally
>> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
>> http://www.lisasoft.com
>> 
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