1. Meeting overview and key information
Present
- Joel Addison (President)
- Neill Cox (Secretary)
- Russell Stuart (Treasurer)
- Andrew Pam (Council)
- Jennifer Cox (Council)
- Jonathan Woithe (Council)
Apologies
- Sae Ra Germaine (Vice-President)
Not Present
- None
Meeting opened at 19:35 AEST by Joel and quorum was achieved.
Minutes taken by Neill and Jonathon.
2. Log of correspondence
- Re: Incoming Funds – discussion about dealing with funds in SGD – Russell has responded
- Reminder: Evidence is due soon for a dispute on Drupal Singapore 2024 – a dispute has been raised for a Drupal Asia invoice. Russell has responded
- Fwd: Re: Merri-bek Tech course – grant application decision – Query about payment of grant
- Upcoming Domain Renewal Notice – Please Do Not Reply – reminder about linux.org.au – admin team are dealing with this
- Amazon Web Services Billing Statement Available
- Action required – Your AWS account is past due
- WordCamp Brisbane 2025 subcommittee – application to form a subcommittee for WordCamp Brisbane 2025 – Joel will respond to this request. We will ask Wil to assist in setting up the subcommittee.
- Scanned Post – Wil has collected a Westpac statement for LA
- A draft Open Source AI Definition, and welcoming Elastic home – OSI newsletter
- [Purplecon] Update on the status of Purplecon 2024 – update on the progress of Purplecon
- Re: Semi urgent: Access to PyCon AU Stripe Account – discussion about PyCon AU accounts – Russell has responded
- [LACTTE] DrupalSouth Melbourne Budget Proposal
- Re: RSEAA24 Accessibility Fellowship grant invoice – Russell has responded
3. Items for discussion
- Drupal South Subcommittee
- Venue contract needs to be signed tomorrow (12 Sep)
- Not worried about attendee numbers for Melbourne. Minimum expected is 150.
- Sponsorship should be dependable. They have turned up every year and pricing details and need to make the budget work have been shared with sponsors. Response has been positive.
- Considering a new sponsorship level (Titanium, 20K, two nibbles so far)
- Both Melbourne and Singapore have been working with some non traditional sponsors.
- High level expectation is that attendees will come in at the medium level (200 attendees).
- DrupalCon Singapore Subcommittee
- Sponsorships are down from forecasted. Drupal Association has agreed to adjust the credits received by sponsors based on level of sponsorship, This has helped to bring some new sponsors in, and increase the level of others.
- There is other discussion going on about financial lifelines if needed, given this is a new event. Will wait and see how it goes.
- Many (29) responses to the assistance program
- Training courses are going alright, some sponsors are also interested in helping with this
- 136 attendees including committee members, volunteers, ticket purchases and sponsor’s tickets if they use all of them.
- Ticket sales are slowing down. Hard to know if this is just timing until the event or not, given it is new.
- Kiwi PyCon / Python NZ
- Conference ran well.
- Just under 220 attendees
- Videos are online
- Still working on finances. Expect to be close to the forecast loss.
- Will be looking for cost cutting measures to make the budget work. Need to drop costs by about half.
- Will be a week or so before Xero is properly reconciled.
- Council will need to discuss the IRD loan as it wasn’t in the initial agreement. Python NZ are still attempting to dispute the loan. Two repayments have been made. Payments need to be made to avoid having the lender insist that payment must be made immediately and in full. Legal advice was to pay the instalments until the legal issues are resolved.
- Joomla
- No update (Nathan emailed council@ during the meeting to say they hadn’t received any email communication since July and didn’t know when the next meeting was. Jonathan responded and indicated that Neill will follow up.)
- PyCon AU
- Sponsorship: $19,000 committed which is $7,000 lower than the target.
- 63 talks confirmed.
- Tickets launched on Monday 32 sold so far.
- No childcare due to budget constraints. There will be free tickets for under 12 instead.
- Financial aid is open – and some will be provided as a sponsor has specifically provided money for financial assistance.
- 100 applications for volunteers. WIll have to say no to some.
- COVID policy included livestreams, but this is too expensive (due to venue costs) and will have to be walked back. Some refunds may be required.
- Flounder
- No update
- LUV
- There was a meeting at the beginning of the month.
- Trying to motivate people join some sprints to do some admin work (e.g. website updates)
- WordPress
- T-8 weeks 07 on Saturday
- Moved to weekly meetings
- Comms on slack as
- 67 tickets at $70 = $4,690
- 11 mini sponsors at $175 = $1,925
- Total = $6,615 from projected $19,670 or 33% – should get more sales once speakers are announced.
- Sponsorship at $58,665 of projected $46,600 or 125%
- Overall income at $64,930 of projected 66,280 or 97.96%.
- Speaker acceptance emails went out on Monday.
- Draft schedule.
- Start announcing confirmed speakers next Monday.
- Release schedule as soon as all speakers have confirmed.
- Gathering merch/swag quotes.
- Catering looking to source a quote for a barista coffee machine and operator.
- Have had to turn down some Platinum sponsors due to space constraints!
- Wil is aware of the WordCamp Brisbane organisers. They would like to make an announcement in November.
- Everything Open 2025
- Lots of interest in sponsorship, so far have 1 signed on and another has a contract in hand totalling 23K. so it’s a good start.
- Neill Cox has kindly agreed to be the treasurer
- There’s lots of help required regarding comms/marketing.
- Sae Ra has reached out to the University of SA Open Source club and they are interested in submitting something and also volunteering, will also help with spreading of the word for us in Adelaide amongst the Uni students.
- Session Selection Committee has been formed. Currently sitting at 15 talks which is not bad given we have another 11 days before it closes.
- Sae Ra will be running a “write your proposal” session in the next week or so just to see if we can get some interest. Need some help passing that message along too.
- Keynotes will be contracted on Friday.
- Things are ok. Sae Ra just needs the team to do stuff rather than her.
- Purplecon
- Sold 74 of 340 tickets whch means about $8,000 revenue so far. Revenue is currently projected at $34,000.
- Expenses are expected to be between $38,000 and 40,000.
- This would mean a loss of a few thousand dollars.
- Looking for another sponsor to try and close that gap.
- Selected 9 talks and notified the speakers.
- Ticket sales via eventbrite not using stripe for payments.
- Admin Team
- Ready to cut over the mailing lists. Delayed by personal issues.
- Almost ready to submit next year’s budget.
- Julian Demarchi would like to rejoin the admin team
- Would like to do a face to face this year, but adding an extra team member will increase the cost
- Replacement drives have been sourced. Bill will be sent soon (approx $5,500)
- Need to confirm that backups are working. Will need assistance from Joel for that.
- Would like advance notice of the election notice being sent out, so that the prep work can be done.
- Motion that we adopt the Drupal South 20-25 as a subcommittee of Linux Australia and accept their proposed budget.
Moved: Russell Stuart
Seconded: Joel
Passed unanimously
- Self assessment as a non-profit
We will need to make changes to the constitution to be able to qualify as a non-profit.
Council will look into this before the next meeting.
- Python NZ IRD Loan
Python NZ has an outstanding loan from the NZ IRD for a COVID-19 grant. This was taken out without the knowledge of the Python NZ Committee, which is against their constitution. They are disputing the loan on this basis, but this is still in progress.
The first repayment of the loan is now due for payment. The loan amount was not part of the original money approved by Linux Australia to assist Python NZ due to the dispute being in progress. They would now like us to approve paying the loan instalments to avoid further issue, while they continue discussions with the IRD.
Motion: That Linux Australia agrees to pay the outstanding IRD loan, subject to an agreement that if it is refunded that the money returns to Linux Australia.
Moved: Joel
Seconded: Neill
Result: Motion passed unanimously.
4. Items for noting
- No items tabled.
5. Other business
- No items tabled.
6. In camera
- Three items were discussed in camera
7. Action items
7.1 Completed Items
7.2 Carried Forward
Meeting closed at 20:58
Next meeting is scheduled for 2024-09-25 at 19:30 EST (UT+1000)
