[OSGeo Oceania] Board - sharing budget doc

[Greg Lauer]

I suspect that Bruce's comment's re PCO is more towards the idea of OSGEO
OCEANIA running a global FOSS4G conference as opposed to the regional
conference. I do agree with Daniels comment in respect to the regional
conferences and experience to date has shown that it can be volunteer led,
but at some time in the future as the conferences grow, outside assistance
may be needed, but will probably be more of a hybrid model.

In terms of budgets I am of the opinion that only key financial items such
as income (total tickets/sponsors) and expenses (totals/summary) should be
made publicly available. I do not agree that the complete budget should be
public. The concept of IP is one consideration (and I say that with some
trepidation in an Open Source/Data community). There can be a multitude of
reasons why we may not want to make specifics available. One example could
be a catering company that sees last years budget and offers the same
pricing for next conference, as opposed to the most competitive pricing. It
may be that a sponsor does not want others to know the amount they have
sponsored. There are plenty of other examples.

My concern is more broadly around competition for funding. Funding is
scarce and we will find ourselves in competitive funding situations at some
point in the future and we need to be mindful of how our competition (i.e.
other organisations) may use public information for there benefit.

All though we are (and always will be) a community led organisation, and
accountable to our membership, we also need to mindful of the commercial
imperatives, to ensure the long term availability of the organisation.

Greg

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 7:16 PM Daniel Silk <dwsilk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Bruce
>
> Surely not a certainty that a PCO reduces the event risk - engaging a
> company would create a lot of new risks:
>  - will they meet the standard we've set?
>  - will they know how to engage with the community to ensure that it still
> feels like a community run event and not a copy+paste corporate conference?
>  - will we have to raise prices and cut back on things like our Good Mojo
> program in order to mitigate the extra expense?
>  - we would absolutely need to meet sponsorship and registration targets,
> rather than enjoying some elasticity because of our lean expenses
>
> There has certainly been a lot of volunteer effort going into these events
> but that's an absolutely fantastic aspect to them. It's a time consuming
> experience but a rewarding one. I hope that all of the organisations that
> have been so willing to support this effort will also (continue) to provide
> in-kind employee time so that it's less dependent on volunteer time.
>
> Regardless, I don't understand why we would struggle to obtain a
> competitive quote from a PCO if we released this information.
>
> Cheers
> Daniel
> Conference Chair - FOSS4G SotM Oceania 2019
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 8:47 PM Bruce Bannerman <
> bruce.bannerman.osgeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi John,
>>
>> For FOSS4G-2009 we used a Professional Conference Organising (PCO)
>> company to help us put the event together.
>>
>> This proved to be very helpful to the LOC in getting the event organised
>> and run smoothly.
>>
>> I would recommend this approach in future events as it reduces the event
>> risk and the LOC volunteer load considerably.
>>
>> There are of course costs involved...
>>
>> I don’t know if this factor is included in the information that you have
>> below.
>>
>> I do know that PCO treat their budgets as intellectual property that must
>> be protected. Therefore, this is a situation where we need to be careful
>> with what is made public.
>>
>> In addition, if PCO costs are not included in the budget info below,
>> making the budget public may also be detrimental to us obtaining a suitable
>> competitive quote should we decide to use a PCO later.
>>
>> Therefore, I recommend not making this specific information publicly
>> available.
>>
>> By all means use a process that makes the budget info available to
>> registered potential bidders via other means.
>>
>> My 2c.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Bruce
>>
>>
>> On 20 Aug 2019, at 17:18, John Bryant <johnwbryant at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi OO board,
>>
>> I think it would be helpful for those considering a proposal for 2020 to
>> have access to the 2018 budget. I've prepared a redacted version that
>> removes transaction data, and any specific references to people or
>> companies, in the interest of privacy. But I still think it contains a
>> wealth of useful information to future event organisers.
>>
>> You can see this version here (login required):
>> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vBpexZ4wTbpmQMENEePEj6SYWjqPbfNxOE_5EBAK9HY
>>
>> Rather than provide it privately to those who ask, I'd rather open it up
>> to the public... I see this as 1) more fair & transparent, and 2)
>> significantly easier to manage. Do you see any issues with sharing this
>> document with the public?
>>
>> Cheers
>> John
>>
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