[OSGeo-UK] Report from OSGeo Board meeting

[Jo Cook]

Dear All,

A very quick report from the OSGeo Board Meeting in Seattle last weekend.
The minutes are beginning to be put together at
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Face_to_Face_Meeting_Seattle_2012, this is still
ongoing as Michael Gerlek, the secretary, has also been running a Code
Sprint for the last few days.

In terms of what really matters to OSGeo:UK (everything matters, of course,
but some things more than others!)- the main foundation is now on a
reasonably sound financial footing after a very dicey year. It is, of
course, a massive shame that this comes at the cost of removing the
Executive Directors role, but declining sponsorship at the highest level
meant that something quite drastic had to be done to survive. Some of the
money that has now been freed up is being channelled into some areas that
may impact on the local chapter, such as potentially some money for
marketing and for "OSGeo ambassadors" who may find themselves in the role
that we would normally have expected Tyler to play. Not much more has been
decided about this yet, so I can't tell you anything more definite, but
expect a push for better marketing materials and case studies etc from the
wider organisation soon.

You might have seen some announcements about a FOSS4G-NA event this year,
as well as FOSS4G 2012 in Beijing. While this does seem like a cause for
concern with our plans to bid for FOSS4G 2013 in the UK, we did thrash out
a compromise which I hope will work for everyone. The decision to hold
FOSS4G-NA in April was not a simple one- partially an opportunity came up
to host a geo-event of some kind, and the organisers wished to tie in with
the open source community. Since the event is happening anyway, it is to
the benefit of OSGeo to endorse the event, and prevent too much dilution of
the FOSS4G brand. I do still have some concerns about what an annual event
will mean long term for sponsorship and attendance of the international
event, but currently we can't really tell what will happen. Metrics from
previous events show that there's actually only a small core of people that
attend every event, with the majority of attendees being local to the
hosting country/region. So to a certain extent we won't really know what
will happen about that.

What we decided to do additionally is support the founding of regional
events in other regions- so we could do a FOSS4G-EU if we wanted. We're
still working on the details, but the main event will still be the big
global FOSS4G in the Autumn of each year- this will be where the OSGeo AGM
will be held, the Sol Katz award will be presented, and the Board of
Directors will have their normal Face to Face meeting (this one in Seattle
was additional). That way we ensure that the core of committed FOSS4G'ers
will continue to attend. We ran out of time working through all the details
around this, unfortunately.

There have been some changes to the conference organising committee (go see
the emails on the main OSGeo Discuss list if you want more details on
this), but basically there will be a Request for Proposals for the 2013
event soon, at which point we will know slightly better where we stand.
Some back gossip about this- there is an assumption that there will be a
bid from Rome, but probably not one from Prague as they are hosting their
own FOSS4G-CEE this year. I did my bit for promoting a UK bid!

I think that's probably about it- if you read the minutes and have any
questions, then don't hesitate to ask.

All the best

Jo

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