[Oceania-Board] 2024-2025 budget

Mon Apr 22 00:10:33 PDT 2024

Thanks everyone, great comments so far.

Alex, one question, you said "We have earmarked $20 k for the TGP for the
Hobart conference"... all I'm aware of is a discussion at the March
board meeting where the outcome was: "Intent to allocate 10k to TGP
(pending FY24/25 budget discussion and approval)"

Where does the $20k figure come from?

Cheers
John

On Mon, 22 Apr 2024 at 09:04, Jonah Sullivan <jonahsullivan79 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'm really glad to see Alex and John engaging on the very important topic
> of financial probity. I probably shouldn't have raised my hand as
> treasurer, considering my lack of experience and annoying work commitments,
> but I'm glad to be more involved in the process - I'm learning a lot
> already.
>
> On Mon, 22 Apr 2024, 08:53 Alex Leith via Oceania-Board, <
> oceania-board at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
>> 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
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Oceania-Board mailing list
>>> Oceania-Board at lists.osgeo.org
>>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/oceania-board
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> *Alex Leith*
>> m: +61 419 189 050
>> https://auspatious.com
>> _______________________________________________
>> Oceania-Board mailing list
>> Oceania-Board at lists.osgeo.org
>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/oceania-board
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania-board/attachments/20240422/844ede2b/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.png
Type: image/png
Size: 222688 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania-board/attachments/20240422/844ede2b/attachment-0001.png>