[Board] Board task: finalize liability agreement with FOSS4G 2016 committee

[Jeff McKenna]

Hi Board,

Here we are at Thursday now, and as suggested earlier, the plan is to 
start the vote today regarding financially supporting the FOSS4G 2016 
Bonn event, specifically to approve the signing the proposed agreement 
with the Bonn local committee[1].  As I mentioned, since we are already 
meeting as a Board next Thursday, today I am willing to meet with anyone 
who has concerns with the agreement.  Please note that this vote is 
about the 2016 agreement only, and that any further details of the Board 
developing "rules" is not affecting or delaying this vote today.

If you do have questions of the proposed 2016 agreement, please send 
them here to the Board or you can also meet today at the suggested 
timeslot[2].  We can meet in IRC, and if someone wants to talk we can 
then move to a hangout.

Thanks everyone,

[1] 
https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/foss4g/2016/financial_stuff/agreement_with_osgeo/Agreement-between-OSGeo-and-FOSSGISeV-2016.pdf
[2] 
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2015&month=10&day=8&hour=18&min=0&sec=0%2015.00UTC


-jeff



On 2015-10-05 2:24 PM, Jeff McKenna wrote:
> Hello Board members,
>
> This will be the first public task of the new Board, and may be the most
> important one we deal with all year.  And yes, it is extremely time
> sensitive.
>
> Some background (instead of pointing to 5 different threads spanning as
> many different mailing lists):
>
> The FOSS4G Bonn local committee needs OSGeo to financially guarantee the
> event.  The OSGeo Conference Committee worked very hard on producing an
> agreement, that passed many keen experienced eyes, both on the OSGeo
> side as well as on the Bonn committee side. This agreement was approved
> by the entire OSGeo Conference Committee and the Bonn local committee,
> and 8 of the 9 OSGeo Board members.  One OSGeo Board member voted -1.
> The original agreement exists at:
> https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/foss4g/2016/financial_stuff/agreement_with_osgeo/Agreement-between-OSGeo-and-FOSSGISeV-2016.pdf
>
>
> As for past FOSS4G agreements, Seoul was the first time that the OSGeo
> Board had a direct signed agreement with the local committee, between
> Sanghee and myself, agreeing on such details as profit sharing; for all
> of the other FOSS4G events, those details were handled in the agreement
> between the professional conference organizing company (PCO).  Steven
> Feldman compiled some details from some of the recent FOSS4G events, in
> a Google spreadsheet (I just sent each board member an invite to that
> document).
>
> At the time that this 2016 agreement was being initially proposed, it
> was before FOSS4G Seoul, and it was honestly a little tricky to be
> signing such a commitment before we knew the outcome of the FOSS4G Seoul
> event (like any event, we could have lost money).  But now, I feel
> everything is more clear for the Board: FOSS4G Seoul was successful, the
> break-even point was 400 attendees, and we went over that to roughly 560
> attendees.  So OSGeo doesn't have to worry about that, and now we can
> financially guarantee the 2016 Bonn event, for 100,000 euros, as was
> originally proposed.
>
> I want to make sure that each Board member supports this, and I will
> personally do my best to meet privately with whoever has questions.
>
> Maxi, now that we are through FOSS4G Seoul, do you yourself have any
> concerns not handled now?  If you do (or any Board member) I suggest
> that we meet through Google Hangout on this Thursday. Possible time:
> http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?year=2015&month=10&day=8&hour=18&min=0&sec=0%2015.00UTC
>   (sorry Venka/Sanghee that time is not do-able for you, but you can
> voice your opinions here or to me privately, sorry about this one
> meeting time)
>
> I'm getting many direct emails on how this is important for the 2016
> committee.  We OSGeo must get this agreement passed.  It is on next
> week's Board agenda, but I hope we can solve this this week.  It will be
> a team effort.
>
> Thanks all,
>
> -jeff
>
>
>