[Board] [Non-DoD Source] Re: f2f meeting follow up

Mon Aug 21 12:06:45 PDT 2017

This is on my list to do this week. I was going to get a list of FOSS4G locations and the US State Dept per diem values as an index to costs at each location. I'll convert it all to 2017 dollars. Note that this will be an index, not exact costs.

Mike

Michael Smith
OSGeo Foundation Treasurer
treasurer at osgeo.org

From: Board <board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>> on behalf of Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com<mailto:jody.garnett at gmail.com>>
Date: Monday, August 21, 2017 at 2:23 PM
To: "board at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:board at lists.osgeo.org>" <board at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:board at lists.osgeo.org>>
Subject: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [Board] f2f meeting follow up
Resent-From: Michael Smith <michael.smith at usace.army.mil<mailto:michael.smith at usace.army.mil>>

I saw this thread get into the details of the RFP - for that we have volunteers on the conference committee. My goal as a board member is to work on strategy, as the conference committee knows best about the RFP wording and process.

Q: Based on the affordability report, and resulting discussion, did we as the board have any direction to ask the conference committee to steer in?

My own feedback:

1) I was pleasantly surprised that the ticket cost of foss4g has not changed significantly over the course of the events (indeed our most expensive event was Sydney and our cheapest Korea).

I do not see any guidance to provide here (this was surprising to me).

2) Attendance continues to increase limiting appropriate venues

I do not see any guidence to provide here, our community and event is growing. I think once we get around 3000 people we may be forced to settle down to consider a fixed location, but at 1000-2000 we can still move it around.

3) regional events are killing it

I do not see any guidence to provide here, our community and events is growing.
The hope is this takes some of the strain from the global event, allowing it to focus on outreach and advocacy more.

4) hard for students to attend (also journal, etc...)

There was a strong hope that travel grant program could help out a lot here, that would make me sad as this was intended to work towards diversity.

While there may be guidance here I am not close enough to the academic world to provide useful direction.

5) diversity

The original intention of the travel grant was to bring diversity awareness to our osgeo events (to apply regional events are asked to set a diversity target which travel grant can help towards). During foss4g I attended a diversity presentation that advocated creating a safe space.

Guidance: Trial the use of providing a safe space in the 2018 bid.

Similar recommendations online include:
- make female speakers a priority (not just in selection, but before hand in promotion, one-on-one mentoring etc...).
- providing child care (this helps families attend)

Since these haver not been advocated by members of our community I am only comfortable providing guidance on providing a safe space. Perhaps some of these ideas can be tried out at regional conferences first.

6) time of year

The events have moved from September/October to August placing it in the way of European holidays. With the bulk of our contributors in Europe this has affected how many of our contributors can attend.

Guidance: Request September / October event (to maximize contributors who can attend).

I understand next years event has plans to turn this into a holiday for families which is a cunning plan.

7) travel / accommodation

I would like to avoid prime tourist season to avoid asking attendees pay high airfair and accommodation costs. We did not have the number in the affordability report to back this up (but Michael Smith was going to look things up).

Guidance: Request September / October event (to avoid peak tourist season).

--
Jody Garnett

On 20 August 2017 at 20:20, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com<mailto:jody.garnett at gmail.com>> wrote:
If anyone is in position to post meeting mins please do so, I think we are all in transit so this will be tricky :)

We have a number of items to report back to the community in: osgeo-eu and analysis/feedback on foss4g affordability.

In the AGM we had very firm instruction by the conference committee that any direction would be needed (by Monday?) to inform the proposal process in 2019.
--
--
Jody Garnett

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