[FOSS4G-Oceania] * Important - budget update *

[Cameron Shorter]

Thanks John for the summary. It will be helpful for making decisions later.

Talking to the principles of how we manage the surplus, I think:

* Honour our agreement with SSSI, and ensure we continue to make our 
maximum budgeted surplus and SSSI is paid the agreed 50% of this for the 
risk they took in backing us.

* The rest of the surplus should be put toward community value, whatever 
we decide that to be.

* We should invite SSSI to contribute to the discussion about how the 
surplus is spent, which might include reserving some of the surplus for 
next year.


On 1/09/2018 12:44 PM, John Bryant wrote:
> *TL;DR: based on conservative assumptions, in a 200 attendee projected 
> budget, we are currently looking at a $30k+ surplus.*
>
> Hi team,
>
> As we push towards the event (80 days to go!), I want to provide an 
> update on our financial position, as I think it will be important to 
> have this in the front of our minds. There will be some financial 
> decisions to make in the upcoming weeks, and we need to have this as 
> context for this decision making.
>
> To date, we've operated with a fairly lean approach, budgeting 
> conservatively, and making only modest adjustments to our budget. In 
> our agreement with SSSI, we committed to aim for a surplus of 
> $3k-$10k, and in fact have consistently guided our budget to a surplus 
> more in the $15k-$20k range, to accommodate our uncertainty.
>
> Despite this constraint, we've done a great job of planning an 
> exciting & interesting event, and our success on this front can be 
> measured in part by our significant over achievement in the 
> sponsorship area, and the high probability that we'll significantly 
> exceed our target of 150 attendees. So, good job, us!
>
> But my point here, rather than to congratulate, is to raise awareness 
> that *we are currently sitting on a much larger than expected 
> surplus*. I wanted to understand this surplus better, so I set up a 
> new 200 attendee scenario in our budget worksheet 
> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14yHWdvEPxshBSBgxjc4vWgJlg0Svk8Qg0G-D3kF-siM/edit#gid=1274394515>. 
> If there are any doubts whether we can reach 200, keep in mind we're 
> already over 125 regos sold or committed, 11 weeks out, without even 
> announcing a program or going into a heavy promotion phase.
>
> This scenario is based on what I consider to be realistic & 
> conservative assumptions (/listed in the worksheet, I'll repeat them 
> here/). I don't want to prejudice our future discussions by including 
> specifics like TGP & videorecording in these assumptions, we need to 
> discuss these in a separate thread, but I include them as examples of 
> significant expenditures we could add to our budget, and still have a 
> large surplus.
>
> *Assumptions for 200 scenario:*
> 200 conf regos
> 150 half day workshop regos
> 120 dinner tickets
> CC tickets won't be taken up as much as expected
> increase student regos
> no additional sponsorship
> increase to TGP expense
> increase to keynote travel expense
> increase to paid staff expense
> include $5000 for swag
> include $4000 for video recording
>
> Even with all of these assumptions, which I consider to be generally 
> erring on the side of caution, *we are looking at a $30k+ surplus*, 
> which is large. See the budget worksheet 
> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14yHWdvEPxshBSBgxjc4vWgJlg0Svk8Qg0G-D3kF-siM/edit#gid=1274394515> 
> for the detailed scenario (/extra scrutiny would be very welcome/).
>
> Recall that part of our partnership agreement with SSSI is that we 
> share 50% of the surplus with them, so at present we don't have the 
> option of simply retaining the full surplus for future years. However, 
> I hope we can open a discussion with SSSI and see if there is appetite 
> for investing part of any unexpected windfall into future events. But 
> clearly, we need to honour the agreement we have in place, and respect 
> our partner's wishes on how they wish to proceed on this front.
>
> So, as we go forward over the next 11 weeks and careen to the finish 
> line, I suggest we need to keep this budget surplus in mind. We've had 
> many discussions where we've opted out of doing things because we 
> haven't felt like we could justify the cost, but I argue at this point 
> that we need to adjust our thinking a bit on this front. The money is 
> coming from the community (sponsors and attendees), and I feel we owe 
> it to the community to make wise decisions on how we spend this money, 
> while ensuring the best event possible. This doesn't mean we start 
> spending like sailors, of course (no offense to sailors!), but I 
> suggest we have latitude to spend some money on things that will 
> benefit the community and the event.
>
> I suggest we don't raise specific motions on expenditure in this 
> thread, rather if there are specific motions arising, they should be 
> raised in separate threads.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> jb
>
>
>
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-- 
Cameron Shorter
Technology Demystifier
Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant

M +61 (0) 419 142 254

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