1. Meeting overview and key information
Present
- Joel Addison (President)
- Sae Ra Germaine (Vice-President)
- Neill Cox (Secretary)
- Russell Stuart (Treasurer)
- Andrew Pam (Council)
- Jonathan Woithe (Council)
Apologies
- Jennifer Cox (Council)
Not Present
Meeting opened at 19:44 AEDT by Joel Addison and quorum was achieved.
Minutes taken by Neill Cox and Jonathan Woithe
2. Log of correspondence
- Joomla sub-committee – some confusion over meeting invite. Now resolved.
- ACTION: Council to look over the proposed agreement for us to sign off on. Bring any amendments for the next meeting.
- DrupalSouth Melbourne Budget Proposal – budget has been approved and the subcommittee notified
- Fwd: Kiwi Pycon – Would you authorise this overlimit payment please – This has been done
- NFP Self Assessment – discussed below
- PyCon AU Money that went to the wrong account – Russell has resolved
- LA ANZ bank statement line: Baker Inv 504454 – Russell has resolved
- Accounting Period, TFN, and NFP self assessment – Discussed below
- Request for approval on $5k+ invoice – Joel has responded
- Everything Open 2025 Call for Sessions is now open – has been extended
- Fwd: Debit initiated from your bank account – Russell has resolved
- Announcing conference speakers, talks and the full schedule – update from WriteTheDocs conference
3. Items for discussion
- Not for Profit Self Assessment & Standard Accounting Period Adjustment
Question 2 – what category is the only contentious issue. Our best fit seems to be “scientific organisation”
We will need to change our constitution to retain our not for profit status. This needs to be done by June 30 2025. We need to address what happens to our assets if we are wound up.
We also need to sort out our accounting period. Currently we use a non standard accounting period (1 Oct to 30 Sep) this requires approval by the ATO, which we do not currently have.
Our accountant can not submit the NFP assessment for us, but can nominate our treasurer as a principal authority for Linux Australia so that they can submit the paperwork.
https://www.acnc.gov.au/tools/templates/charitable-purpose-examples contains clauses a charitable organisation might use to signal it is eligible to become a charity.
Here is a clause on that page that seems to fit us:
Example clause 2
The [organisation] is established to be a charity with the purpose of
advancing the [___industry___] in Australia, particularly in
[___location___] by:
– conducting and publishing research into improvements to the
processes used in the industry
– working with government at all levels to ensure that the
interests of the [___industry___]
– industry are represented in regard to the public decision-making
process, and
– providing a forum for all people engaged in the [___industry___]
to discuss best practice and enhancing the future of the
industry.
Motion: That we agree to fill out the NFP form in line with the scientific organisation category and submit the change in financial year form to meet the requirements of the NfP self-assessment.
Moved: Joel
Seconded: Sae Ra
Passed: Unanimously
- Open Source Tooling
We have had a number of emails from the community regarding open source tooling. Tonight we are testing Jitsi.
Sae Ra is also working on a paper to present at the AGM around the consideration of the tooling of Linux Australia.
The NZ open source society has shown the tooling that they are using and this is being investigated. Video Conferencing – NZOSS is running their own BBB instance and NextCloud with Only Office layer for collaborative documentation. Often scaling hasn’t been tested for video conferencing. This is why we are testing out Jitsi tonight. Whether it will work with large numbers of features including waiting rooms, registration of members for meetings etc. https://nzoss.nz/online-services
Joel to work with Steve to get the collaborative document environment in time for the Session Selection Committee meeting.
We need to make sure that we come up with standard operating procedures for privacy, backups, permissions etc.
Proposal to use Zoom for the next meeting for the subcommittees, November subcommittee meeting for jitsi. Try BBB for the meeting with just us. We can try things out for data points.
4. Items for noting
- EO2025
Team is slowly moving along., Chair is away for the next few weeks. Two keynotes are locked in. Open SI have signed as a sponsor as have CodeConstruct. Red Hat likely to come onboard.
Core team members are short of time for work outside of meetings. Dinner venue quote has been received, we will likely pay a deposit soon.
5. Other business
6. In camera
- No items were discussed in camera
7. Action items
7.1 Completed Items
7.2 Carried Forward
Meeting closed at 20:32
Next meeting is scheduled for 2024-10-09
