<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=iso-8859-1"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">David<div><br></div><div>Rebates are difficult to manage at a late stage. Some thoughts from me on additional value (but also not cleared with the rest of the 2013 LOC) are extra goodies/gifts, more entertainment, a communal charity donation and (perhaps the easiest to organise) beer vouchers.<br><div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; ">______<br>Steven<br><br></span>
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<br><div><div>On 8 Jul 2013, at 18:32, David Percy <<a href="mailto:percyd@pdx.edu">percyd@pdx.edu</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">Steve,<br><br>I like your idea of " giving FOSS4G delegates additional value at the<br>conference"! I have been thinking of something along the same lines,<br>but it hasn't gotten fully formulated yet...<br><br>I was toying with the idea [1] of proposing that if profits in excess<br>of some amount, say $120K, rebates would go back to attendees. The<br>hard part is figuring out how much to rebate, I think.<br><br>What mechanism were you thinking of for " giving FOSS4G delegates<br>additional value at the conference"?<br>Cheers,<br>Percy<br><br>[1] I haven't talked to the rest of our Portland LOC about this, just<br>throwing it out for discussion<br><br>On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 9:38 AM, Steven Feldman <<a href="mailto:shfeldman@gmail.com">shfeldman@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote type="cite">I don't want to comment on what "should" happen with regard to the current<br>bids but I thought it might help to provide some transparency about what<br>"will" happen with this year's FOSS4G conference<br><br>We published our budget in our proposal and in that we committed to a<br>minimum $23-63k contribution to OSGeo based upon a cautious forecast of<br>attendance levels. I have re-uploaded our proposal to<br><a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2wShPAd7pU4R2tYNWlqWS1hUFk/edit?usp=sharing">https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2wShPAd7pU4R2tYNWlqWS1hUFk/edit?usp=sharing</a><br>because the old site is no longer live.<br><br>We are paying our event organising partner, the Association for Geographic<br>Information, a very low 5% fee. Given fees quoted elsewhere I think we may<br>be under rewarding them.<br><br>We asked in our proposal for a share of the profit from the event to be<br>allocated to the local FOSS4G chapter but did not stipulate an amount<br><br>"Subject to exchange rates, total sponsorship income, and additional clarity<br>on some costs closer to the event, we hope to achieve a contribution to<br>OSGeo of approximately $30,000. However should we find during the run up to<br>conference that a larger surplus is likely, we will aim to share these<br>additional financial benefits with OSGeo, the OSGeo UK Chapter, and/or by<br>giving FOSS4G delegates additional value at the conference."<br><br>Today, thanks to fantastic sponsorship from all of these guys<br>http://2013.foss4g.org/sponsors/ and very encouraging bookings we should be<br>expecting a much larger surplus (I am not going to speculate in public as to<br>the level). Our costs in general are likely to be a little lower than<br>forecast.<br><br>We will be offering sponsor exhibition booths to OSGeo and to AGI<br><br>We thought we would need seed funding from OSGeo but in practice our first<br>sponsors paid us before we had any outgoings so we have been completely self<br>funded (although in theory OSGeo are on the hook if we made a loss - not<br>going to happen). We have insured against all the usual risks (except<br>delegates not booking) for ca. $3000<br><br>I hope that helps<br>______<br>Steven<br><br><br>On 6 Jul 2013, at 23:13, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter@gmail.com> wrote:<br><br>On 07/07/13 04:55, Paul Ramsey wrote:<br><br>On Sat, Jul 6, 2013 at 6:15 AM, Andrew Ross <andrew.ross@eclipse.org> wrote:<br><br>I've always wondered how this worked for past events as it seemed quite<br>secretive. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in the community in this regard.<br><br>With the exception of South Africa, in which a joint agreement was<br>arranged ahead to time to share with GISSA, all the other "OSGeo era"<br>(2007+) FOSS4G events have returned all profits to OSGeo. The profit<br>"targets" in the RFP are to make explicit that we don't necessarily<br>want to-the-bone break-even budgets, we want budgets that will, under<br>reasonable assumptions, return revenue to the organization. They are<br>not the maximum or average profit we want, they are the minimum<br>planning threshold. The organization still expects to receive the full<br>profits of the event, RFP numbers notwithstanding.<br><br>Though a familiar industry group (GITA) helped organize FOSS4G 2011,<br>they did so as a standard conference organizing organization: their<br>fee structure was known ahead of time and was in the budget from the<br>start. That they also knew our industry as well as event organizing<br>was a handy bonus, but not germane to the financial arrangements.<br><br>I would expect that if the Eclipse foundation is looking for a profit<br>sharing arrangement like GISSA, it should be included in the proposal<br>with some precision (X%), and if they are going to act, like GITA, as<br>an organizer, their fee schedule should be in the budget.<br><br>P.<br>_______________________________________________<br>Conference_dev mailing list<br>Conference_dev@lists.osgeo.org<br>http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev<br><br><br>Thanks Paul, that is great background. So bridging between Paul's background<br>and Eclipse's involvement in the Washington proposal.<br><br>1. Eclipse is acting as a PCO, and have factored staff costs into the budget<br>(as GITA). Fee for service. All good, but no justification for profit<br>sharing.<br><br>2. Eclipse is offering a depth of experience with Open Source conferences,<br>including attracting sponsors. Profit sharing could be a form of payment in<br>this regard, but I would expect an offset reduction in fixed price labour<br>costs.<br><br>3. Of note, FOSS4G will offer significant marketing value to the Eclipse<br>Foundation. I assume the Eclipse Foundation intending to include logos in<br>the program, have a presentation, have signage at the event? What would that<br>equate to as a sponsor of the event?<br><br>4. The Eclipse Foundation is offering OSGeo insurance against loss at the<br>FOSS4G event, where key risk items are loss of key personnel, poor<br>management, low attendance, and low sponsorship.<br>* Loss of key personnel, and risk of poor management has been mitigated in<br>both proposals through the identification of strong teams.<br>* Risk of low attendance under normal circumstances is relatively low, as we<br>already know the US region can attract ~ 900 delegates.<br>* Risk of low attendance due to unforeseen events (such as the GFC, or 9/11)<br>is unlikely but can have a large impact. Is insurance being taken out for<br>these sort of eventualities?<br>* Risk of low sponsorship is a definite possibility, mitigated by Eclipse's<br>experience attracting such sponsorship in the past.<br><br>What is the risk mitigation worth? I'd love to see metrics for the items<br>above applied to justify a percentage.<br>My gut feeling is it is worth 10% of the profit. I'd entertain 20% of the<br>profit. I feel that 50% of the profit is ripping OSGeo off.<br><br>--<br>Cameron Shorter<br>Geospatial Solutions Manager<br>Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050<br>Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254<br><br>Think Globally, Fix Locally<br>Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source<br>http://www.lisasoft.com<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Conference_dev mailing list<br>Conference_dev@lists.osgeo.org<br>http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev<br><br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Conference_dev mailing list<br>Conference_dev@lists.osgeo.org<br>http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev<br><br></blockquote><br><br><br>-- <br>David Percy ("Percy")<br>-Geospatial Data Manager<br>-Web Map Wrangler<br>-GIS Instructor<br>Portland State University<br>-<a href="http://gisgeek.pdx.edu">gisgeek.pdx.edu</a><br>-<a href="http://geology.pdx.edu">geology.pdx.edu</a><br>-<a href="http://portlandpulse.org">portlandpulse.org</a><br></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>