[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G-NA -- request for financial records
Cameron Shorter
cameron.shorter at gmail.com
Wed Jun 13 20:44:09 PDT 2018
Sara,
I'd suggest it might be helpful to explain why you are requesting people
open the books. Providing a worthy motivation will likely help inspire a
volunteer to help you.
There is typically quite a bit of volunteer effort required to pull
together past data into a usable format. Quite often it requires data to
be de-personalised for public consumption. Maybe you can say something
along the lines of "if you release the metrics, then I will be able to
add value to the osgeo community to help ..."
On 14/6/18 8:20 am, michael terner wrote:
> 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
> <mailto: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 <mailto:ternergeo at gmail.com>
> (M) 978-631-6602
>
>
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--
Cameron Shorter
Technology Demystifier
Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
M +61 (0) 419 142 254
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