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    <p>Sara,</p>
    <p>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.<br>
    </p>
    <p>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 ..."<br>
    </p>
    <br>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 14/6/18 8:20 am, michael terner
      wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAFk2e0KFQnQ=Q9_3hEWfL43fJ1xSoW=PdL4BCiADJAB9NAK5Ew@mail.gmail.com">
      <div dir="ltr">
        <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Sara:</div>
        <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">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.</div>
        <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br>
        </div>
        <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">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:</div>
        <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">
          <div class="gmail_default"
            style="text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><span
              style="color:rgb(20,23,26);font-family:"Segoe
UI",Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;background-color:rgb(230,236,240);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline"><a
href="https://twitter.com/GeoSkeptic/status/996147340854652928"
                moz-do-not-send="true">https://twitter.com/GeoSkeptic/status/996147340854652928</a></span><span> </span><br
              clear="all">
          </div>
          <div class="gmail_default"
            style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br>
          </div>
          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.]).</div>
        <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br>
        </div>
        <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">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:</div>
        <div class="gmail_default" style="">
          <ul style="">
            <li style=""><font face="tahoma, sans-serif">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.</font></li>
            <li style=""><font face="tahoma, sans-serif">Conference
                registrations are slow to pour in. So while Boston
                ultimately harvested a sizable surplus, we did not know
                until <i>2 weeks </i>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 <i>paying</i> for sponsorship for that event.</font></li>
            <li style=""><font face="tahoma, sans-serif">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.  </font></li>
          </ul>
          <div><font face="tahoma, sans-serif">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.</font></div>
          <div><font face="tahoma, sans-serif"><br>
            </font></div>
          <div><font face="tahoma, sans-serif">Sincerely,</font></div>
          <div><font face="tahoma, sans-serif"><br>
            </font></div>
          <div><span style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">MT</span><br>
          </div>
          <br>
        </div>
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      <br>
      <div class="gmail_quote">
        <div dir="ltr">On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 1:18 PM Sara <<a
            href="mailto:sara@sarasafavi.com" moz-do-not-send="true">sara@sarasafavi.com</a>>
          wrote:<br>
        </div>
        <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
          .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
          <div dir="ltr">
            <div>Hi folks,</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>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. </div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>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.</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>- On May 4, 2018, a LocationTech representative stated
              publicly that FOSS4G-NA's "financials are open, have
              always been" [2]</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>- 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]</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>- Those statements now appear to be contradicted by the
              recent comment [1] that "there is no obligation" of
              LocationTech to share FOSS4G-NA financials</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>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. </div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>[0a] <a
                href="https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1006304174332661760"
                target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1006304174332661760</a></div>
            <div>[0b] <a
                href="https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1001543441053114368"
                target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/1001543441053114368</a></div>
            <div>[0c] <a
                href="https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/994930635096641536"
                target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://twitter.com/sarasomewhere/status/994930635096641536</a></div>
            <div>
              <div>[1] <a href="https://i.imgur.com/NlbXb4t.png"
                  target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://i.imgur.com/NlbXb4t.png</a></div>
              <div>[2] <a
                  href="https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/992394814749577217"
                  target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/992394814749577217</a></div>
              <div>[3] <a
                  href="https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/993584128279957504"
                  target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://twitter.com/TheaClay/status/993584128279957504</a></div>
            </div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>Regards,</div>
            <div>Sara Safavi</div>
          </div>
          _______________________________________________<br>
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            target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">Conference_dev@lists.osgeo.org</a><br>
          <a
            href="https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev"
            rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev</a></blockquote>
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      -- <br>
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        data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
        <div dir="ltr">
          <div>
            <div dir="ltr">
              <div>
                <div dir="ltr">
                  <div><font face="tahoma, sans-serif">Michael Terner</font></div>
                  <div><a href="mailto:ternergeo@gmail.com"
                      target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"><font
                        face="tahoma, sans-serif">ternergeo@gmail.com</font></a></div>
                  <div><font face="tahoma, sans-serif">(M) 978-631-6602</font></div>
                </div>
              </div>
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      <pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
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    </blockquote>
    <br>
    <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 
Cameron Shorter
Technology Demystifier
Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant

M +61 (0) 419 142 254</pre>
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