[Board] FOSS4G 2018 Draft Request for Proposals document for comment

[Steven Feldman]

Hi

I haven’t received many comments on the draft RfP. I hope that indicates broad agreement rather than that you haven’t had time to read it (it is a good bit shorter than previous years)

I have received comments from Daniel and Till which I summarise below

Change dates to ISO format yyyy-mm-dd (DM, done)

The following are from Till:
Extend period for submitting full proposals by 2-3 weeks (I am minded to extend by 2 weeks which pushes announcement back to 2016-12-19)
Should we require the gala event to be included in the conference ticket price as has been the practice in recent years or do we wish to make it optional to reduce delegate fees? Or do we leave to the LOC as currently in the RfP? (my view leave to LOC to decide)
Should the student awards be run by the Academic Track team or the Geo4All team? (my view is this should be Geo4All)
Include a requirement to appoint an OSGeo financial representative to the LOC if OSGeo is providing seed funding and a guarantee (I agree with this recommendation)
Should we have a template for the full proposal? It would save LOC’s from spending too much money on drafting a fancy proposal. And it would imporove comparability of the bids. Alternatively we could make the key elements list of the RfP a mandatory structure? (I think this is a great idea but I am not sure that we have time to do a proper job this year)
Budget template - should we make it mandatory to use our template? (I’m not sure, people have their own way of budgeting, once they add in lines and columns comparability becomes difficult)
Add a requirement for a risk assessment. What costs arise, how many months before the event, if you have to cancel. What if your estimated income on sponsorship is unrealistic? (Excellent suggestion)
Require timing to be September rather than August which is easier for the European community (not sure I agree, no time will be perfect for everyone)
The full delegate fee target of $650 should be for conference only (early bird?) with extra charge for workshops (I agree re NA and EU but I hope that a RoW event could show us how to run for less)
If an event is proposing to offer a lower cost option we should point out that we expect a professional well organised conference (I agree but wonder if that needs to be said or should be in the evaluation criteria)

My responses are included in the brackets following each point. Unless others disagree strongly I will implement these changes on Thursday. I have also corrected a few typos and minor phrasings pointed out by Till.

If anyone has more comments or suggestions that they wish to make please get them to me by 18.00 GMT on 21st September. Please state whether your proposed change is a publication blocker if not incorporated, I will do my best to incorporate changes.


______
Steven


> On 15 Sep 2016, at 11:47, Steven Feldman <shfeldman at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> All
> 
> After several early drafts and wise advice from Cameron and Eli, here is the final draft of the RfP document for FOSS4G 2018.
> 
> A little background to the changes:
> 
> 1) The old RfP ran out at 58 pages with some long appendices. I have reduced the document to 12 pages by pushing the appendix of past reports to a page on the wiki and by cross referencing as much stuff as possible to the wiki (which also ensures that it is more likely to remain current)
> 
> 2) The document is designed to be as generic as possible. It should need little change for 2019 etc unless we change major policy or processes.
> 
> 3) The document is structured with all key information and dates in 2 tables at the beginning which are cross referenced throughout the doc
> 
> 4) References to delegate prices and concessions have been left sufficiently open to allow/encourage bidders to suggest innovative models
> 
> 5) There is specific reference to the availability of seed finance and the expectations of return to OSGeo if we provide funding.
> 
> 6) In the past we had a complex voting system which required committee members to rank all proposals. We did not actually use that voting system and each member voted for one proposal. I have proposed a 1st and 2nd choice system (2nd choices are only used if there is a tie at the 1st vote stage)
> 
> Please comment on the RfP by 18.00 GMT on Wednesday 21st, I need to integrate any changes before publishing the RfP on 23rd.
> 
> Board members if you have any comments could you please post into this thread on Conference list rather than the board list.
> 
> Potential FOSS4G bidders should be aware that this draft is subject to community comment and possible revision
> 
> May the FOSS be with you
> ______
> Steven
> 
> <FOSS4G2018-request-for-proposal-Final.pdf>

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