[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G-NA -- request for financial records

[michael terner]

Sara:
I fully support the notion of "open books" and the Boston Team has
endeavored to do that. Indeed, when asking volunteers to do so much in this
ecosystem it is important to have openness around the finances.

This tweet from Matthew Hanson had a picture of the "raw" (and rounded)
Boston numbers that I presented in a talk at FOSS4GNA in STL:
https://twitter.com/GeoSkeptic/status/996147340854652928

There's one other slide in that deck that showed the net results (i.e.,
surplus) and I would be happy to share the entire deck with this list if
useful. Just ask. (And, we have lots of other more granular data if there
are other, specific questions [e.g., speaker fees; # of people who were
early bird; etc.]).

That said, the numbers by themselves don't tell the entire story as there
is a whole lot of context that matters greatly. Stuff like:

   - Organizers do not know how the numbers will fully add up until a good
   bit after the conference. Indeed, there are both trailing expenses to pay,
   and revenue to collect (some of which are dependent on the actual
   attendance you achieve). And, some accounting/spreadsheet work to do by
   already tired volunteers.
   - Conference registrations are slow to pour in. So while Boston
   ultimately harvested a sizable surplus, we did not know until *2
weeks *before
   the conference that we had achieved our break-even number. If we knew what
   our final attendance would be in advance we would have surely lowered our
   prices and/or better funded the travel grant program. But we, nor any other
   organizer, has that luxury. We are pleased that some of our surplus is
   going to support the Dar es Salaam conference through OSGeo *paying* for
   sponsorship for that event.
   - Decisions that organizers make greatly impact the finances. Things
   ranging from providing day care, to giving all speakers a free pass, to the
   location of the host city, greatly impact costs/revenues while serving
   other important objectives.

Indeed, it is an imperfect science and the Boston team was petrified by our
finances up until that "break even" moment 2 weeks before the conference
started. But it is also the imperfectness of this science that makes
"opening the books" so important as all future conferences can learn from
both past triumphs and mistakes. I would never look askance at a set of
numbers that told a sadder story than Boston's (unless there was abject
corruption, or something like that). Running a conference is hard and in
all of the FOSS4G and FOSS4GNA conferences I've volunteered on (which now
numbers 5, and includes STL) I have never doubted than anyone acted in a
way other than to deliver the best possible conference at the lowest
possible cost. I also don't expect that everyone would make the same
choices that we did in Boston. Indeed, the Chair and his/her LOC make the
choices they feel will lead to the best/most successful conference. Second
guessing is a natural impulse, but it easier to do than running the
conference. And, from my vantage, open books are important as they serve to
help explain the choices that were made, and the financial impact of those
choices.

Sincerely,

MT


On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 1:18 PM Sara <sara at sarasafavi.com> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> Some of you may be aware that for the past ~5 weeks, I have periodically
> renewed a public request [0] for FOSS4G-NA 2018's financial records.
>
> Yesterday, Marc Vloemans, speaking on behalf of LocationTech, said that I
> was "misrepresenting" this issue [1]. That's certainly not my intent, so
> I'd like to clarify the basis for my ongoing request in longform, and renew
> said request in this forum.
>
> - On May 4, 2018, a LocationTech representative stated publicly that
> FOSS4G-NA's "financials are open, have always been" [2]
>
> - Later the same day, the same representative said that they were "working
> on posting all our materials to the wiki (...) Expect those late this week"
> [3]
>
> - Those statements now appear to be contradicted by the recent comment [1]
> that "there is no obligation" of LocationTech to share FOSS4G-NA financials
>
> My ongoing requests have thus far been an attempt to continue the
> conversation that originally took place on twitter on May 4th. As Marc said
> last night that he does not "communicate with people via twitter" [1], I'm
> more than happy to continue the public conversation with him or any
> relevant representative(s) here.
>
> [0a] https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1006304174332661760
> [0b] https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1001543441053114368
> [0c] https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/994930635096641536
> [1] https://i.imgur.com/NlbXb4t.png
> [2] https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/992394814749577217
> [3] https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/993584128279957504
>
> Regards,
> Sara Safavi
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-- 
Michael Terner
ternergeo at gmail.com
(M) 978-631-6602
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