Board Meeting 2007 12 07

This board meeting has been scheduled for the 7th of December at 16:00 UTC (fixedtime), by phone and IRC (#osgeo) at the same time.

Communication will use the new Conference Call facilities.

Agenda

• Appoint meeting secretary
• Review and approve Thirtieth Board Meeting, and Board Meeting FOSS4G2007 minutes.
• Review SPD Prioritization proposal for highlighting sponsors and contributors (FrankW/ArnulfC to prepare).
• Approve the Twin Cities group as an OSGeo local chapter.
• Approve the British Columbia Chapter as an OSGeo local chapter. [1]
• Review who needs to be an officer of the foundation (bylaws - see ARTICLE V Officers)
• Provide direction to the conference committee on FOSS4G 2009 profit targets to be expected from RFP responders.
• Finance Committee Report - Review and Approve OSGeo 2008 Budget
• Finance Committee - Info on Budget, Contracting for FOSS4G 2008
• Discuss producing an annual report of some sort for the membership, including 2007 financials.

Minutes

• See IRC log at: http://logs.qgis.org/osgeo/%23osgeo.2007-12-07.log

1. Meeting started 16:08 UTC, all attendees were present on the conference call
   1. Appoint meeting secretary: Frank chaired the meeting, Tyler scribed
   2. Roll call: Attending: Frank, Tyler, Dave, Paul, Markus, Bob, Arnulf
   3. Absent: Jeroen, Jo, Chris
2. Review and approve Thirtieth Board Meeting, and Board Meeting FOSS4G2007 minutes.
   1. MOTION: Reviewed last meeting minutes: Bob move to accept minutes, Dave seconded, all in favour, accepted
   2. MOTION: Reviewed meeting minutes from FOSS4G board meeting, leaving some room for further notes at the end: Markus moved to adopt minutes, Frank seconded, all in favour, accepted
3. Review Service Provider Directory SPD Prioritization proposal for highlighting sponsors and contributors (FrankW/ArnulfC to prepare).
   1. Frank giving background, mentioned some discussion on IRC channel a few days ago. He will take the discussion of the concepts to discuss list.
4. Approve the Twin Cities group as an OSGeo local chapter.
   1. Discussed some general thoughts about local chapters, how other groups handle them, etc. with the assumption they are going to continue to expand.
   2. MOTION: Paul moved to accept local chapter, Dave seconded, all in favour, motion carried
   3. Dave Bitner agreed to contact the chapter to deliver the news
5. Approve the British Columbia Chapter as an OSGeo local chapter. [1]
   1. Paul gave background of the recently started effort of this chapter. Strong groups of people in southern part of province, Vancouver/Victoria regions.
   2. MOTION: Arnulf moved to accept the chapter, Frank seconded, all were in favour, motion carried
6. Review who needs to be an officer of the foundation (bylaws - see ARTICLE V Officers)
   1. Reference to board_and_officers.html and 501c3 requirements for reporting.
   2. Discussed benefits and issues with having many officers.. what their roles are, etc. These are chairs of committees, chapters, projects that are automatically called "vice presidents" of OSGeo.
   3. Frank proposed to not maintain local chapter reps as formal osgeo officers, to help keep it manageable and focused. Arnulf explained the benefit of having an officer "on the ground" in local chapters who are managing events, or representing OSGeo on its behalf.
   4. More discussion needed, all agreed to get more information about the role of the positions. Tyler will follow up with Ken and Dave R. to see if they can provide thoughts on how the roles affect us in the long term.
7. Provide direction to the conference committee on FOSS4G 2009 profit targets to be expected from RFP responders.
   1. In the past the board has discussed how to help committees determine the margin to aim for. Discussed setting a percentage of revenue as a target to aim for as profit.
   2. MOTION: Paul moved to set 5% as the target for 2009 event, Frank seconded, all were in favour.
8. Finance Committee Report - Review and Approve OSGeo 2008 Budget
   1. Dave presented budget item by item. 2007 is first full year with finances and staff. This budget was basically put together during the Board meeting at FOSS4G.
   2. Marketing and Web committees will be asked to provide a plan for using the budget to the finance committee, for spending funds allocated to them.
   3. Continually fluctuating USD->CAD$ Exchange rate affecting ED costs. Conference is largest item in budget.
   4. Revenues are based on this current/past year revenue, with one more additional sponsor added (read: conservative)
   5. MOTION: Frank moved to approve budget, Dave seconded, all were in favour, budget accepted for 2008
   6. Mild agreement (+0) was expressed by Arnulf, due to conference costs that he felt were higher than they need to be.
9. Finance Committee - Info on Budget, Contracting for FOSS4G 2008
   1. Paul provided some background on FOSS4G 2008 budget process. There is a challenging balance between how much sponsorship can be generated in next few months, vs. having to tighten up budget further to ensure positive returns.
   2. Question of how tightly contracting has to be tied to OSGeo to ensure the revenue is allocated toward our non-profit revenue. Ken commented before that the delivery agents are acting on our behalf and that as long as we track the results (expenses/revenue) in our financial statements, then it would be good.
   3. Tyler to follow up with Ken and Dave R. for more thoughts on this.
   4. Paul will present a rough budget at next meeting and discuss at next finance meeting. Finance committee will present the final budget required for approval for the event.
10. Discuss producing an annual report of some sort for the membership, including 2007 financial.
    1. Tyler described some of his thoughts on what can be produced. Journal can be used as an outlet for the report, including sections such as: 2007 financial review, Reports from all committees, projects, Local Chapters, Report from the Board, Key highlights from 2007, Membership numbers and more.
    2. All agreed to plan for the report to be complete by end of March 2008.
    3. Bob will make a template for projects/committees to use for submitting reports for the annual report.
    4. Tyler will start writing up plan, contacts and issues for next steps in the report.

• Other business
  • Dave met rep from Eclipse Foundation (in Ottawa) and will follow up to see if there are some things we have in common
• Frank moved to adjourn meeting, Bob seconded, all were in favour, meeting adjourned at 16:55UTC.