[Oceania-Board] 2024-2025 budget

Sun Apr 21 17:53:10 PDT 2024

Hi John

For this FY, here's some comments:

   - I requested travel grant funding from OSGeo a week ago for $3,500 USD.
   That should be received this FY, I expect.
   - The other hard to forecast difference is sponsorship and ticket sales
   for the conference, which should start happening this FY. I'm hoping to
   start reaching out to potential sponsors, and some organisations like
   spending money in the current FY. I expect to have some money flowing in
   soon.
   - I want to note that since our term deposits matured in December, and
   we received ~$1,800, we haven't now got any cash earning interest. I think
   it would be a good idea to put money away in a 12 month term deposit, as we
   can now achieve 4.75% interest, so on $50 k, that's over $2,000 of free
   money!
   - We perhaps need a budget line for conference 2024, since we have paid
   the deposit for the venue at $14 k.

For the 2025 budget:

   - The $25 k surplus is quite conservative. I think we'll do better than
   that for the conference, but it's nice to be conservative in budgeting!
   - We have earmarked $20 k for the TGP for the Hobart conference. With $5
   k coming from OSGeo, that leaves a worst case of $15 k from OO. (This will
   be topped up by the conference with a portion of sponsorship going to TGP.)

And just a note that we should be doing budgeting with the balance sheet in
mind too. We currently have $60 k in the bank, which is unusually low,
mostly because we have started paying expenses for the 2024 conference, but
haven't got any income yet.

Now it's a fairly minor thing, but I would prefer to have a separate line
for conference income and conference expenses. We sometimes have smaller
regional events, and it's good to see the difference in expense/income per
event.

And one of those boring reminders too that as Board Directors, we need to
remember that we are all individually accountable for the financial health
of the organisation, we can't delegate that responsibility to others, so
please engage with this important work and make sure you understand it!

Cheers,

Alex

[image: image.png]

Cheers,

On Sun, 21 Apr 2024 at 12:58, John Bryant via Oceania-Board <
oceania-board at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> Hi board,
>
> The 2024-2025 financial year (FY25) begins on 1 July.
>
> It would be good to move the FY25 budget forward, ideally we can approve
> it in May but I'm sure there will be some discussion required. Perhaps we
> can discuss in this thread over the next couple of weeks and put it on the
> agenda for further discussion at the May board meeting?
>
> My ambition with this is to:
>
>    - come up with a realistic set of numbers we can use to guide spending
>    decisions in the upcoming financial year
>    - set targets for income, community investment, and ultimately, a
>    surplus to help keep us solvent
>    - provide clear and visible financial targets and priorities to the
>    community
>
> Can you please review the attached PDF and/or the Google Sheet
> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gRWZXt1bZqTqNMf5sr7Ff5dH4Sp_Nabe4QoZHPPPpmw/edit#gid=61568483>?
> I've listed several questions that I hope will help us move it forward.
>
> Your comments and questions please!
>
> Thanks
> John
>
> On Fri, 29 Mar 2024 at 16:15, John Bryant <johnwbryant at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> We discussed at the February board meeting that we should get moving on a
>> budget for next year. I want to kick off a discussion towards hopefully
>> having a first draft within the next few weeks, and a final draft for
>> approval in May.
>>
>> I have a sheet here
>> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gRWZXt1bZqTqNMf5sr7Ff5dH4Sp_Nabe4QoZHPPPpmw/edit#gid=0> with
>> the current year projected and actual amounts for context.
>>
>> For now, do you have any specific items on your wish list for next year?
>>
>> I have a few suggestions and questions:
>>
>>    - *Distinct "Operational" & "Community Investment" expense categories*.
>>    By doing this, we make sure we allocate enough to keep the lights on, and
>>    then we have better sight of what we can afford to invest in community
>>    programs.
>>    - *Separate grants and sponsorship*. They're accounted for separately
>>    in Xero and I think it caused some confusion this year when we overspent on
>>    the combined item. We ultimately increased the budget amount but for a time
>>    the Grants committee was unsure if they should hit pause. By separating
>>    these, I think we add clarity.
>>    - *Remove "Special Interest Groups"?* We don't really have any SIGs
>>    (OSM SIG has never been active, QGIS SIG wound up in June 2022). I still
>>    think we should make these kinds of investments in OSM and QGIS community
>>    groups of course, but maybe we do it under sponsorship and grants line
>>    items?
>>    - *TGP:* At the last board meeting there was talk of ~10k for the
>>    Travel Grant Program, is this the right amount? It sounds like the Hobart
>>    conference may have about $5000 to add to this, depending on sponsorship
>>    (Alex correct me if I've got this wrong!).
>>
>> Also I think we'll need to make a projection on the conference surplus,
>> perhaps this is an item for discussion at the next board meeting on the 3rd.
>>
>> Your thoughts?
>>
>> Cheers
>> John
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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> Oceania-Board at lists.osgeo.org
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>

-- 
*Alex Leith*
m: +61 419 189 050
https://auspatious.com
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