2024-10-09 Council Meeting Minutes

1. Meeting overview and key information

Present

• Joel Addison (President)
• Sae Ra Germaine (Vice-President)
• Neill Cox (Secretary)
• Andrew Pam (Council)
• Jennifer Cox (Council)
• Jonathan Woithe (Council)

Apologies 

• None

Not Present

• Russell Stuart (Treasurer)

Meeting opened at 19:35 AEST by Joel  and quorum was achieved.

Minutes taken by Neill .

2. Log of correspondence

• Announcing conference speakers, talks and the full schedule – WriteTheDocs grant update
• Re: RSEAA24 Accessibility Fellowship grant invoice – Russell has paid the RSEAA24 sponsorship
• Written notes from tonight’s Council Update – PurpleCon Update
• Re: Insufficient funds – Python NZ – Russell has responded
• Re: PyCon AU Money that went to the wrong account – all sorted now
• Fwd: Kiwi Pycon – Would you authorize this overlimit payment please ? – Details of IRD loan payments in Kiwi PyCon budget
• KangarooLLM – I think it’s a case of open washing LA should keep an eye on … – From Kathy Reid. Jonathan has responded
• Spam through to the grants list – We are monitoring the situation
• Amazon Web Services Billing Statement Available [Account: 103334912252]
• WordCamp Brisbane – WC Brisbane have brought Wil Brown on as a mentor. They would like to form an LA Subcommittee. Joel has responded.
• Re: Following up on Linux Australia sponsorship – LA is entitled to two attendee tickets
• Release Candidate 1 of the Open Source AI Definition is Here – OSI announcement
• Upcoming Domain Renewal Notice – Please Do Not Reply – linux.org.au will be automatically renewed on 2 Nov
• ATO SAP Form has been submitted – Russell has submitted our Substituted Accounting Period form to the ATO
• ATO NFP Self Review Has been submitted – by Russell
• FYI the Carlos Cordero scandal has been published in NZ press – Kathy Reid informs us. Sae Ra has responded.
• Joomla sub-committee – Nathan Morrow enquired when the next subcommittee meeting was. Joel has responded
• [Purplecon] Update on the status of Purplecon 2024 – update on the state of the PurpleCon conference.
• WordCamp Brisbane 2025 subcommittee – Joel has responded to the request to form a subcommittee

3. Items for discussion

• Drupal South Subcommittee
  • Canberra Community day in November coming together nicely. Venue booked, 67 tickets sold so far. The conference usually sells more tickets in the second half than the first. Will almost certainly hit the minimum budget number. Confident of getting to the medium target and may actually hit the maximum target. Sponsorship is going well. On track for a 4K profit.
    Slightly different mix of sponsors this year.
    Talks/content are looking good. THe community days should be back as a regular item.
  • Committee Elections: All 5 places are up for election, response to call for nominations has been a little unenthusiastic. The nomination period has been extended. Prodded some people who the current committee would like to see stand.
    At the moment there are not enough nominations to make an election worthwhile.
    May use some money from the community day to promote the elections. This should not significantly affect the financial position of the conference.
    Perhaps consider expanding the position descriptions to indicate the number of hours per week expected?
  • Melbourne:
    Core committee is in place
    Some initial sponsors have returned.
    Expecting some challenges in filling the remaining sponsorship slots.
    Some of the local committee have just returned from DrupalCon Barcelona.
    Keen to get the call for papers out soon and be more active about curating content.
    Have had conversations with people who are keen to use the venue to promote Drupal careers.
    One of the biggest current challenges is nailing down the keynotes.

• DrupalCon Singapore Subcommittee
  • Call for scholarships last month – 29 applicants mostly from Asia, slime from Africa one from Canada. A great opportunity for people to attend a DrupalCon for the first time.
  • The various regional community leaders have been coordinating and will be having a booth to
  • Acquia (the largest Drupal company by value) has just gone through a major layoff. Many roles have been replaced by people from cheaper sources of labour. Acquia has decided not to sponsor the conference.
  • There are 92 confirmed attendees, plus 14 scholarships, 10 community leaders and 20 speakers. Need to push sales to get to 250 people which is the minimum the venue will charge for. As a result discounts are being offered to meetups and groups. This has driven an increase in traffic.
  • Would like to use SGD5000 from the budget for a LinkedIn advertising campaign to target Drupal people in Singapore.
  • The conference is looking at a SGD100,000 (!AUD115,000) loss at the moment. The only way to make this back will be to run more events.
  • The organisers feel that the conference in Japan is better placed to return a profit.
  • The LA council is prepared to approve a SGD500 advertising budget, but we will need to look at how costs can be cut because a SGD100,000 loss is not acceptable.
  • The LA council cannot approve another event without much more detail.
  • The organisers have already cut about SGD50,000 from the budget and don’t feel that much more can be cut. They are happy to schedule a meeting to discuss what has been done and look for further cuts.
  • There is  a meeting with the Drupal Association tomorrow morning. Mike will pass our concerns on to the DA.
  • A number of other conferences are facing similar difficulties so LA needs to manage finances carefully.

• Kiwi PyCon / Python NZ
  • This year’s conference had a $35,000 loss.
  • Looking at cutting costs for next year.
  • Python NZ has elections soon.
  • Full report at the next subcommittee meeting.
  • Previous treasurer will be sentenced tomorrow.
  • chelsea.finnie@python.nz

• Joomla
  • Charter – have added details around dissolution and returning assets to Linux Australia.
  • The LA Council needs to vote on the charter.
  • Planning another event for next year (March or April – check for clashes with Drupal).  Smaller event, low key, community focused. Free venue!
  • Have set up a discord server. Open to everyone.
  • Monthly meetings are steady at about 20 participants.
  • The LA Council has requested a budget for next year.

• PyCon AU
  • Sponsorship: Now at $31 100 in sponsorship from 5 sponsors, up $12 000 from last month. Current efforts are focused on selling the opportunity to run workshops during sprints.
  • Program: Our keynotes have been announced: Linda McIver and Kendra Vant
  • Ticket Sales: We have sold tickets to 209 attendees: 188 general admission, 18 specialist track only, and 3 sprints only. Projected total ticket sales is ~450.
  • Financial Aid: We have approved up to $4070 total in financial aid to 5 people. Due to the tight budget this year we prioritised asks from speakers, organisers, and attendees local to Melbourne. Applicants have all been notified of application outcomes.
  • Volunteers: We have accepted 32 volunteers from 118 applications. 17 general volunteers and 15 AV. Applicants have been notified of application outcomes.
  • Sprints: We have booked 3 rooms for sprints at Hotel Grand Chancellor. This will either be 2 sprint rooms and a workshop room, or 3 sprint rooms. Significantly cheaper than MCEC, not super close to the main venue, but within Melbourne’s free tram zone so easy to access by public transport.
  • Current Challenge: Our volunteer coordinator is stepping down for health reasons, their role is being handed over to other members of the core team

• Flounder
  • BTRFS raid 5 / 6 testing event. Testing both performance and reliability. Results were not very impressive.

• LUV
  • LUV venue has closed. Need to find another one. Online meetings will continue.
  • Committee election will be held in December. Formal announcement will go out on the mailing list, but the members have been notified.

• WordPress
  • The Automattic story is causing some drama.
  • The conference is over budget.
  • Have sold 105 tickets, need to sell as many more. $10k in ticket sales.
  • 125% sponsorship.
  • $60,640 – well over budget.
  • Swag is a bit more expensive than expected.
  • Catering – $5k for a coffee cart – which is twice what a coffee van cost in 2019. May make people go across the road to buy coffee. Perhaps get vouchers?
  • Call for volunteers open. Call for speakers closed.
  • Ticket sales are slower than the organisers would like.
  • The budget is looking good, but there are some decisions still to be made.

• Everything Open 2025
  • Not a lot of progress, but what needs to have been done has happened.
  • Call for sessions has closed.
  • Session selection committee will meet in two weeks.
  • There are a lot of awesome talks.Will be a struggle to say no to some of them. Good range of topics.
  • Two keynotes are locked in, working through other possibilities.
  • Sponsorship is going OK, but like every other conference has been quieter this year.
  • Need to start looking at 2026.

• Purplecon
  • We have confirmed and paid the deposit for audio-visual setup.
  • We are in the process of arranging catering (bubble tea).
  • We have confirmed and received money from 2 additional sponsors for $1000 and $5000, for a total of $8500 sponsorship.
  • Sponsors are now published on the website.
  • So far, we have sold 133 out of 324 tickets. Gross income so far is $12,778.88. If this pattern continues, that projects to $31,130 in gross ticket income.
  • We do not have to pay Eventbrite fees on that money (the attendees paid the fees) but we will have to pay GST, so subtract 9%.
  • We are advertising to sell more tickets.
  • Our current projected expenditure is approximately $36,300. With $8500 in sponsorship, leaves us ~$1500 short. We’re hoping to find another sponsor to close the gap.

• Admin Team
  • Working on a collaborative document space for the EO session selection committee.
  • Will hold off on mailing list migration until after EO session selections are done.

4. Items for noting

5. Other business

6. In camera

• One item was discussed in camera.

7. Action items

7.1 Completed Items

7.2 Carried Forward

Meeting closed at 21:16

Next meeting is scheduled for 2024-10-23 at 20:00 AEDT (UT+1000)