[Board] Financial limit on advances and guarantees to FOSS4Gs

[Massimiliano Cannata]

Dear all,
I want to share my personal view  just to make discussion starting.

I see two very different cases.

1) organizers decide to make a foss4g conference to earn money. Remember
not only making profits but also get paid for organizing...

2) organizars decide to make a foss4g conference for other reasons as
vilunteers.

In case 1 the financial losts shall almost completely be on the organizer
side: it is their business risk.

In case 2 the financial risk may be on osgeo since he get the full revenue.
Only reimbursement for members and all shall be public and fully
transparent...

I would love to see a table with for each foss4g a row expressing:
- year and location
- n. of participants
- conference fee
- osgeo seed money amount
- conference costs
- conference revenue
- organizer revenue
- osgeo revenue

That will explain a lot to me.

Best
Maxi
Il 21/Ago/2015 16:37, "Jeff McKenna" <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com> ha
scritto:

> Hi Steven,
>
> Thanks for bringing this to the attention of the Board.  I think it is
> excellent that the OSGeo Conference Committee is committed to establishing
> a process for FOSS4G financial support.
>
> In terms of tackling this at the next Board meeting, I've added this to
> the agenda[1].  Note though that the next meeting is not until October
> 15th, as we'll be going through Board elections (5 new members), through
> September.
>
> So I don't think this should wait until October.  I encourage all Board
> members now to jump in and help Steven.
>
> I believe we need an accurate look at our yearly expenses, to get an idea
> of how much we can set aside, in advance.  I've taken a look at our yearly
> budgets[2], and we can seem to expect costs of around 70k, not including
> this FOSS4G advance/seed money.
>
> In terms of estimating revenue, that is more difficult because most of our
> revenue is tied to the FOSS4G profits, so this can change drastically each
> year.
>
> I'm not sure how to tackle this, but I'm sure our Treasurer and others can
> jump in and help.
>
> [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_2015-10-15#Current_items
> [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category:Budget
>
> -jeff
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2015-08-21 7:03 AM, Steven Feldman wrote:
>
>> Board
>>
>> You are aware that Till has requested an advance and a guarantee for
>> FOSS4G 2016 to protect the LOC and the German Chapter from liabilities
>> (apologies if my very short summary is inaccurate).
>>
>> The Conference Committee are trying to draft a standard process for
>> financial support to FOSS4G events, a straw man will be available on the
>> wiki shortly. Regardless of the detail of that process there will be a need
>> for the OSGeo Board, presumably via the Treasurer, to set a financial limit
>> on the reserves available to support advances and guarantees. Could the
>> Board schedule a discussion at their next meeting to consider what % of
>> their funds they are willing to set aside to fund FOSS4G events. Given that
>> we will be making commitments to the 2016 event before we know the
>> financial outcome of the 2015 event (etc etc) prudence would suggest
>> reserves might need to cover 2 years advances and guarantees. If events are
>> successful and remit a significant proportion of their surplus back to
>> OSGeo, the proportion of reserves needed for advances and guarantees should
>> decline over time.
>>
>>
>> Cheers
>> ______
>> Steven
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
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