[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G selection process (interface with Board)

[Steven Feldman]

Why can’t the conference committee include rigorous scrutiny of the financials and risk within their assessment of proposals rather than offloading to the board?

We are meant to be the group with the expertise in running past conferences, we should do the financial assessment. Perhaps we should do this before we even start to read the rest of the bid to ‘weed out’ any financially unsound proposals.
______
Steven


> On 15 Jul 2015, at 00:09, Eli Adam <eadam at co.lincoln.or.us> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I tried addressing this previously but it didn't go anywhere [0].
> 
> The conference committee recommends a LOC bid based on many criteria
> to the OSGeo Board. Financial risk or success is not the primary
> focus.
> 
> The OSGeo Board has to approve (or not) our recommendation, but their
> primary focus is financial risk and success.
> 
> Right now the FOSS4G selection process could put the OSGeo Board in an
> untenable position. Imagine this scenario: Bid A is an okay bid all
> around and looks great financially.  Bid B is a great bid all around
> except looks risky financially.  The conference committee recommends
> bid B to the Board.  Now the Board is put in a very bad position where
> they have to either start overturning the conference committee (and
> delaying the process) or accept our recommendation which was made on
> different criteria.
> 
> Now, let's look at another potential method that keeps the Board out
> of that position.  Just like the previous scenario, Bid A is an okay
> bid all around and looks great financially.  Bid B is a great bid all
> around except looks risky financially.  Before the conference
> committee makes a recommendation, the Board votes a "financial
> preference" or "financial exclusion" like, "The Board has a financial
> preference for Bid A" or more forcefully, "The Board financially
> excludes Bid B" (most years this will be "The Board has no financial
> preference since all these bids appear financially viable").  Then the
> conference committee continues with making a recommendation.
> 
> Right now the way our process works seems rigged to prevent the Board
> from really exercising their financial oversight.
> 
> Do you like this proposed process?  Should we use it this year?
> 
> 
> Cheers, Eli
> 
> 
> [0] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2014-February/002457.html
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