[OSGeo-Conf] Fwd: FOSS4G North America 2013

[David William Bitner]

Hey all, thanks for the support so far. Do you think there is a chance that
we could get closure on having a recommendation prior to the August 9th
Board Meeting?

Cheers!

David

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 6:41 AM, Daniel Morissette
<dmorissette at mapgears.com>wrote:

> Hi Paul, Cameron,
>
> I'll try to update the YTD info in the budget in the next couple of days,
> but short answer is that thanks to the big surplus from the Denver FOSS4G
> our current financial status is not bad, even taking into account zero
> revenues from FOSS4G 2013 which is what we were expecting anyway.
>
> That being said, I agree with Cameron that we need to be careful with our
> commitments towards regional events as we could not support losses on
> multiple events on the same year for instance. We need to play that role,
> but we have to measure and manage the risk properly. I don't think his
> questions are too alarmist at all. I'd have the same ones.
>
> Daniel
>
>
>
>
> On 12-08-01 7:57 AM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 1/08/2012 7:34 AM, David William Bitner wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 3:54 PM, Paul Ramsey <pramsey at opengeo.org
>>> <mailto:pramsey at opengeo.org>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     You're not on the board yet :) stop worrying about these quotidian
>>>     details...
>>>
>>>
>> Paul, I'm pretty sure you are saying this tongue in cheek, but it is a
>> valid comment, so I'll reply anyway.
>>
>> We, the OSGeo Conference committee, should be assessing the full impact
>> of these types of financial requests, and then recommending a course of
>> action to the board, along with our reasons for our decision. The board
>> should have enough information from our recommendation to vote without
>> needing to do further research.
>>
>> Hence we should be providing:
>> * Potential financial risk, including total exposure, also described as
>> a percentage of OSGeo working capital.
>> * Probability of risk
>>
>> We should also be taking into account that what we provide for one
>> regional event, we should be providing for other regional events too.
>> OSGeo might have enough capital to back one regional conference, but
>> does OSGeo have enough working capital to back 5regional conference at
>> one time?
>>
>> It is possible I might be seen to being alarmist, but I've just been
>> helping Beijing decide to cancel foss4g 2012, which someone would have
>> lost a lot of money on, and I was also chairing foss4g 2009 in the year
>> the Global Financial Crisis hit (and which only just made a mild profit,
>> after some nail biting time when we thought we were going to be running
>> at a loss).
>>
>>      I'm pretty sure the budget information is on the wiki
>>>     http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/**OSGeo_Budget_2012<http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Budget_2012>
>>>     However you'd have to get YTD info directly from the Treasurer
>>>     (DanMo).
>>>
>>>
>> Daniel, any chance you could provide an update on the OSGeo financial
>> position?
>>
>>
>>>     I'd guesstimate the largest potential loss for the conference in the
>>>     $20K-$30K range, depending on venue cost, the assumption being you
>>>     sign contracts and pony up deposits, then cancel the event, thereby
>>>     maximizing your expenses and zeroing out your revenue. It seems
>>>     unlikely that OSGeo will rise or fall on that.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> As is detailed in the original message, we have a maximum venue
>>> liability of $75,000 at one month out from the conference date (our
>>> food minimum), 3 months out = $56,250, 6 months out = $37,500, 9
>>> months out = $18,750. We have no room block liabilities.  There, of
>>> course, will be other expenditures along the way (see the budget
>>> attached in the original email), but the venue costs are by far the
>>> most significant costs here.
>>>
>>> David
>>>
>>
>> David, I suspect that worst case scenario would be a decision to cancel
>> the conference after looking at early bird registrations and making the
>> decision that the conference will not go ahead. I assume early bird will
>> be ~ 3 months before the conference? So maximum liability would be ~ $56K?
>>
>> That said, I think that FOSS4G-NA has excellent prospects, based upon
>> the experience of the team, and success of past events.
>>
>> --
>> Cameron Shorter
>> Geospatial Solutions Manager
>> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
>> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>>
>> Think Globally, Fix Locally
>> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
>> http://www.lisasoft.com
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
> --
> Daniel Morissette
> http://www.mapgears.com/
> Provider of Professional MapServer Support since 2000
>
>
>
>
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-- 
************************************
David William Bitner
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