[Board] Sponsoring FOSS4G 2018

[Mark Iliffe]

Hi All,

To jump in...

My instinct as my LOC will tell you is to jump on a call to hammer this out and I’ve been sending way too many long emails to continue to follow through in the final throes of FOSS4G this year.

Would a call between the board and myself as Chair be amenable? I’ll be available, any timezone to nail this down. 

I’m sorry to hear that votes to support he Conference are being blocked - if there are concerns about FOSS4G in Dar, I want to hear them - especially from our Board!! I would like to personally assure the board that we are doing our very best to deliver the best FOSS4G ever. I am personally aware of the weight that delivering a FOSS4G can be, being on the Nottingham LOC of 2013, especially with the spectre of Beijing’s failed effort.

Otherwise, I’d like to impress the efforts that we’ve made to widen participation and access to FOSS4G, through writing off the cost of attendance for TGP awardees, building partnerships with local and international organisations (Crowd2Map, HOT, CGIAR/SILL) alongside the traditional stable of OSGeo’s community. This will be broadest church of users alongside our core constituency than ever before. 

I would query how valuable and used archiving has been for the community - potentially better documentation and guides will better serve us. On reviewing the previous stats for videos, even when we archive, it seems we do not hit our intended audience after the events. I’d be happy for a separate discussion on this.

Best,

Mark

> On 19 Jun 2018, at 18:26, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> The motion has two "disagree" -0 votes, but nobody did a "block" -1 vote near as I can see?
> Reading the comments Jeff intended to mark down a -1..
> 
> So the discussion is not so much a bout sponsorship, but about strategy, how to best support the event, and outreach in the region.
> 
> Options:
> 
> a) gold++
> - gold sponsorship (enough for a booth)
> - adjusting our budget for the TGP
> - see if we can fund video recording
> 
> b) platinum sponsorship
> - provides a booth for osgeo activities
> - we have the understanding that the additional funding is funnelled into the TGP
> 
> c) Tanzanite sponsorship
> - ensure we headline our own conference in terms of support
> - encourage LOC to use some of the funding for video processing and sharing of talks
> 
> Previously we ran into social difficulty sponsoring foss4g 2017, understandable because we were also providing initial financial backing and collecting revenue from the event. This is confusing for two reasons. A mixed message of showing up as both a host and a sponsor. Also puts us competing for attention with event sponsors who are paying for the visibility of being seen. We primarily want to pay to support a great event, outreach (TGP), and archive (videos if they can be recorded).
> 
> I like the idea of having a gold sponsorship (look we are going to struggle to populate a booth with people during the event) and then explicitly focus on supporting the outreach (TGP) and archiving (video recording if possible). I think it does not put us in competitions with sponsors (we are already visible as host) and allows us to explore how we can take on additional responsibility each year (TGP, Videos) rather than watch expectations increase for each years local organizing committee.
> 
> Consider this a request to separate the concerns, get OSGeo a booth and then let OSGeo fund additional activities directly as our hearts (and budget) dictates.
> 
> If there is a desire to coordinate with the LOC specifically we could ask if we could support the video/video processing as host (rather than as part of sponsorship). I should note that such a sponsorship is usually very valuable from a marketing standpoint as the exposure goes far beyond the event (as an example look at this video wall for foss4gna).
> 
> 
> --
> Jody Garnett
> 
> 
>> On Tue, 19 Jun 2018 at 14:15, María Arias de Reyna <delawen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> So, we had some discussion about this on previous IRC meetings. As this year we didn't give any seed money for the organization of the main FOSS4G, we were planning to give sponsorship money. Remember that not used money goes back to OSGeo anyway.
>> 
>> This year there is a special effort on Travel Grant, so most of the sponsorship money will be used for it. We want to support and push OSGeo in Africa.
>> 
>> Here is the latest loomio poll: https://www.loomio.org/d/TaRPqFbs/platinum-sponsorship-for-foss4g-2018
>> 
>> The motion didn't pass with a -1.
>> 
>> Let the discussion start!
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