OSGeo-BE-general-assembly-20252112

OSGeoBE General Assembly 2025

General Information

• Location: Le Cercle des Voyageurs - Rue des Grands Carmes 18, 1000 Bruxelles
• Date: Nov 21, 2025 18:30 - Started at 19:00; Ended at 22:10
• Meeting Secretary: Jonathan

Participants

Board Members

• Gaël (Chairman)
• Roel (Treasurer)
• Céline
• Marc
• Michel
• Jordan

Charter/Voting Members

• Maëlle
• Jonathan

Non-Voting Members

• Killian
• Olmo
• Xavier
• Charlotte
• Nicholus

Agenda

1. Opening
2. Call to charter/voting members
3. Activity report 2025
4. Financial report 2025
5. Discharge of the board
6. Debriefing FOSS4G BE 2025
7. Events planning for 2026
8. Provisional budget for 2026
9. Approval of status updates
10. Call for board members
11. Miscellaneous

Minutes

1. Opening

• Jonathan proposes himself and is appointed as meeting secretary.
• Gaël suggests moving the point "Call to charter/voting members" as the first point of the meeting to include the new members present.
• There is no proxy for the votes.
• Quorum is reached: Maëlle and Jonathan are present.

2. Call to charter/voting members

The following people are proposing themselves as charter/voting members:

• Charlotte
• Killian
• Olmo
• Xavier

Those 4 new members are endorsed by at least 2 charter/voting/board members and are approved as new charter/voting members.

3. Activity report 2025

• Gaël summarizes the events/meetings that have happened since 2022.
• Gaël emphasizes the workload of organizing events such as FOSS4G and suggests spreading this load among members so it's not always the same "core people" doing all the work.
• Gaël also emphasizes the need for more communication around OSGeoBE in our respective networks to attract more members; without new members, the organization will not survive.

4. Financial report 2025

• Roel presents the financial final report for 2024 and the temporary report for 2025.
• Maëlle asks for changes: adapt the title to clarify the report.
• Roel will make the requested changes and publish the financial report.
• The financial report for 2024 is approved unanimously (after changes).

5. Discharge of the board

• The board is discharged (unanimous vote).

6. Debriefing FOSS4G BE 2025

• A separate meeting to debrief FOSS4G BE 2025 will be organized on Dec 3, 2025, at 18:30.
• Marc will communicate about the debriefing meeting via the mailing list.

Feedback:

• (Mostly) Negative:
  • Ticket price too high
  • Not enough food/drinks
  • More involvement needed
  • Start preparation earlier
  • Make clear/defined tasks
  • Difficult for newcomers to know what to do to help
  • Split the work
  • Need to send a feedback form after the event
  • Debriefing needed
  • More communication on social media needed
  • Location too expensive

• (Mostly) Positive:
  • Happy with the talks and the event
  • Clear tasks were assigned
  • Nice location
  • Important event; we must keep organizing it

7. Events planning for 2026

• New Year celebration: Jan 2026; Gaël will organize it.
• FOSDEM 2026: Jan 31 or Feb 1, 2026; Michel and Jordan will support the GeoSpatial Dev Room if needed.
• PostgreSQL/PostGIS Meetup: OSGeoBE proposes to co-organize a meetup with the PostgreSQL BE community (PostgreSQL BE Meetup) in the first quarter of 2026, focusing on PostGIS. Maëlle and Gaël are responsible for contacting Stefan to coordinate this event.
• FOSS4G BE: Sep 2026; Jonathan will take care of the OSMBE track.
• We will organize an OSGeo BE members meeting per quarter in Brussels on the last (or first) Wednesday of the month; Gaël will organize it.

Note on PostgreSQL events in Belgium (thanks to Stefan for precision):

• The annual pgconf.be is organized independently by a UCL professor (website) and does not accept external collaboration, including from the PostgreSQL community.
• For 2027, if the FOSDEM PGDay formula does not evolve, a new BeNeLux PostgreSQL event might be launched in March 2027.

8. Provisional budget for 2026

• There is no real need to search for extra income; FOSS4G BE is enough to cover our yearly costs.
• Roel will publish the provisional budget.
• The provisional budget for 2026 is approved unanimously.

9. Approval of status updates

• Gaël presents the status updates, which were already presented and discussed during the General Assembly of 2024 but never finalized.
• Maëlle requests changes to clarify the statuses:
  • Art. 6:' Add that members have responsibilities to stay a member (take part in meetings, vote for the board, etc.).
  • Art. 8 and 8 bis:' Remove any mention of a physical person as a sponsor member.
• Gaël will make the requested changes and publish the updates to the monitor (including the list of updated board members).
• Status updates are approved unanimously (after changes).

10. Call for board members

• Board members should take defined responsibilities.
  • Secretary:' No candidate.
  • Web/Archives:' Marc and Gaël; Jonathan will help (even though he's not a board member).
  • Sponsors/Partnership:' No candidate.
  • Events:' No candidate.

11. Miscellaneous

• Marc suggests moving away from Google Drive (proposal supported by several members) and proposes moving to nubo.coop.
• Olmo suggests improving internal communication by setting up something similar to Slack.
• We already have a channel on Element/Matrix; a few people suggest using Element/Matrix.
• Jonathan will set up an Element/Matrix Space for OSGeoBE to regroup our different channels (public channel, FOSS4GBE organization, members, etc.).
• The quarterly members meeting should also help improve internal communication.