[Board] Polling charter members

[Jeff McKenna]

Steven your response was so good that I printed it out to read. Thank you.

On my paper I circled "If we want FOSS4G global to be a contributor to 
OSGeo's funding" and "the purpose of OSGeo, how much funding it needs 
and how it should be raised".  You hit the point I was trying to make, 
that I think once we as a Board agree on what we need/want FOSS4G to be, 
then we can take actions to make that happen.

Eg. if the Board decided revenue is super important, than we must 
obviously dedicate resources to it, or, as we've seen with 2012, there 
will be problems.

So, let's bring all this in the open and agree on what is FOSS4G to OSGeo.

-jeff



On 2014-09-19 11:47 AM, Steven Feldman wrote:
> I agree with Michael
>
> The economics of running a big event (certainly over 500 and probably
> over 2/300) mean that costs per delegate will be higher than the smaller
> events even if we offset some of those cost with sponsorship. For a
> larger event we need a proper conference venue rather than some free
> university spaces, we need more network for streaming and wifi for
> delegates, catering costs tend to go up when you use a larger venue etc.
>
> If we want FOSS4G global (and potentially other FOSS4G events) to be a
> contributor to OSGeo’s funding then that should be understood by the
> community when we consider the pricing. FOSS4G 2013 returned about $150k
> to OSGeo, that was a bit less than the amount that we raised from
> sponsorship i.e. delegates covered most of their costs from the fees and
> sponsorship was the contribution to OSGeo but another way to look at it
> was that each delegate contributed about $175 with part of their costs
> being contributed by sponsors (I have grossly simplified for this mail).
> This is a key policy decision that needs to be discussed before seeking
> proposals for FOSS4G 2016 and it connects with a bigger topic regarding
> the purpose of OSGeo, how much funding it needs and how it should be raised.
>
> Surely we want the big gala event for as many people as possible *_AND_*
> the cosy intimate gatherings of communities in a country or region?
> Surely we want outreach to new geographies outside of NA and EU *_AND_*
> a big event that attracts business and government in our two largest
> regions and grows the pot?
> Surely we want an event that generates funding for OSGeo _AND_ uses
> those funds to support code sprints, projects, outreach and education
>
> There is no reason why our FOSS4G program cannot embrace all of these
> aspirations and objectives.
> ______
> Steven
>
>