2024-02-28 Council Meeting Minutes

2024-02-28 Council Meeting Minutes

2024-02-29T22:32:36+11:00February 29th, 2024|Categories: Council Meetings, Linux Australia|Tags: , , |

1. Meeting overview and key information

Present

  • Sae Ra Germaine (Vice-President)
  • Neill Cox (Secretary)
  • Andrew Pam (Council)
  • Russell Stuart (Treasurer)
  • Jennifer Cox (Council)
  • Jonathan Woithe (Council)

Apologies 

  • Joel Addison (President)

Not Present

Meeting opened at 20:00 AEDT by Sae Ra  and quorum was achieved.

Minutes taken by Neill

2. Log of correspondence

  • Add Authoriser to ANZ Direct Online – 417289 Linux Australia (Incorporated)

Ideally all council members would be authorised. To be authroised they will need copies/scans of a passport and a utility bill with an address. Take them to a JP to certify. Then scan and email to ANZ NZ. Russell will email instructions to the council members.

  • Possible donation to Linux Australia from disincorporation of Melbourne Functional Programming Association Incorporated

The money has been deposited. Linux Australia will consider an appropriate recognition.

  • Inquiry: running an information security conference (Purplecon)

The organisers are invited to submit a proposal and budget. Russell will email them.

  • OSI at FOSDEM, Open Source AI draft 0.5
  • URGENT Re: pyconau 2024 sub-committee request

The urgent PyConAU matter has been dealt with (it was about signing the venue contract).

  • New MoU with WordCamp Central

Sae Ra will sign the new MoU. It is functionally identical to the existing contract and makes no new commitments.

  • Please authorise my request for ANZ mobile app
  • WordCamp Sydney 2024 – Request to form a LA subcommittee

Proposal is still being discussed. One surprise is that the expected number of attendees is higher than the previous pre-covid conference.

  • Trialling Wise
  • DrupalAsia / DrupalCon Asia
  • Issue with contact form on LA website – investigations and possible way forward
  • Seeking Kiwi PyCon and NZ PUG information for the Linux Aus website
  • The current process needed for ANZ
  • Payment requests for DrupalSouth

3. Items for discussion

  • OSI board nomination

Miles Goodhew has agreed to be nominated. A draft candidacy statement was provided to the council.

Motion: That Linux Australia accept and recommend Miles Goodhew as our nominee for the OSI board elections
Moved: Sae Ra Germaine
Seconded: Russell Stuart
Result: Passed unanimously

  • WordCamp Subcommittee

Motion: That Linux Australia approves the formation of a WordCamp Subcommittee to run WordCamp 2024 with the following members:

  • Wil Brown – Lead Organiser (Chair)
  • Jordan Gillman – Organiser/Treasurer ( Treasurer)
  • Dee Teal – Organiser/Program Manager
  • Jo Minney – Organiser/Speaker Lead
  • Eva Devos – Organiser/Swag & Merch/WPSyd Community Rep
  • Sam Toohey  – Organiser/After Party/WPSyd Community Rep

Moved: Sae Ra Germaine
Seconded: Andrew Pam
Result: Passed unanimously

4. Items for noting

5. Other business

  • Drupal sub committee update

Drupal South in three weeks! Good keynotes lined up. Second keynote is a Girls In Tech panel. Ticket sales are still coming in. Currently at 190 attendees. The expectation is  to end up somewhere over 200. Have hit revenue targets for tickets, but sponsorship is down. It’s particularly difficult for NZ companies this year, and there are headwinds for tech in general. Currently looks like a 25k loss for the conference. Twice as many entries for the awards show. Many first time attendees, more clients than developers which has been a goal.

One proposal for future conferences is to consider  ways to promote Drupal outside of the existing community by having a Drupal booth at other conferences e.g. FST Government Summits, Everything Open, Tech in Gov, EduTECH

Drupal Asia – Mike has been working with the Drupal Association to use the DrupalCon brand for the Asian Drupal conference. The Drupalm Association does not want to be the financial sponsor. Their preference would be to work with Linux Australia and licence the brand to Linux Australia. Licensing the brand would increase the chances of a successful conference. Mike would like to start a conversation with him, Linux Australia and the Drupal Association. From Linux Australia’s perspective this should basically fit into the template that we currently use for running conferences. We would need a budget that would account for the licensing fees, and some way of dealing with payments in whatever country/currency the conference is run in. Linux Australia will also need to make sure we can comply with any legal or taxation requirements. The first conference will most likely be in Singapore.

  • Admin team update

Working on the new list server. Seeing weird stuff with Fastmail, but it can’t be definitively blamed on Fastmail. Something seems to be happening before the mail gets to Fastmail. The new listserver will go live this weekend. The new server will have a much cleaner config and will be easier to troubleshoot the problems.

The admin team have also been working on the web server upgrade.

Next in the queue is looking at the VM servers.

Also need to make sure we have correct contact details for any subcommittee servers running on Linux Australia infrastructure.

  • Joomla sub committee update

THe conference is going well. Should make the minimum attendance budget, but may not get much more than that. Currently there are 14 confirmed attendees out of 20. There is an unexpected bonus sponsor. Several panel talks are planned as well as straight presentations.

The conference is now about two and a half weeks away.

  • PyCon AU sub committee update

Contract with MCEC has been signed by Joel, and payment has been made. The financial induction still needs to be done. Clinton will chase people up for that. There is some wriggle room in the contract for catering. A decision on that will be held until the number of attendees is known.

  • Flounder sub committee update

Has been meeting monthly. Low turnout, but different people and topics. People from both Australia and New Zealand, and even China. Mostly focussed on phones and mobile devices.

  • LUV  sub committee update

Going quite well.  Two online meetings and one physical meeting each month. One social meeting, the regular LUV meetings and an in person technical support meeting. Generally around six people at each meeting.

LUV still doesn’t have a definite plan for holding an election, but is aware that it should happen soon. Andrew will poke Alexar about this.

  • WordPress sub committee update

An invitation was not sent to the WordCamp organisers because of an oversight by the Secretary

6. In camera

  • One item was discussed in camera

7. Action items

  • Setup WordCamp Subcommittee Invite – Neill Cox

7.1 Completed Items

  • Calendar invites for subcommittee meetings – Neill Cox

7.2 Carried Forward

 

Meeting closed at 21:37

Next meeting is scheduled for 2024-03-13

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