1. Meeting overview and key information
Present
- Joel Addison (President)
- Sae Ra Germaine (Vice-President)
- Russell Stuart (Treasurer)
- Neill Cox (Secretary)
- Andrew Pam (Council)
- Jennifer Cox (Council)
- Jonathan Woithe (Council)
Apologies
- None
Not Present
Meeting opened at 19:34 AEST by Joel and quorum was achieved.
Minutes taken by Neill.
2. Log of correspondence
- Re: DrupalCon Singapore Bill Payments – Wise verification done and payments sent
- Get ready for Write the Docs Australia 2024 – Update on Progress from Felicity Brand
- Missing info for NZ GST – questions about KiWi PyConand NZ GST – Russell has responded
- admin team reimbursements – Russell has responded
- Fwd: Catering at PyCon AU 2024 – see Other Business below
- Manufacturing Statement – 71183992 from RedBubble
- Fwd: An Osko Payment has been rejected – Russell has responded
- Re: Misc Issues with NZ Accounts
- Amazon Web Services Billing Statement Available
- Exec minutes for the previous financial year – request from Russell for minutes to be published. This has now been done.
- Activity statements are available online – ATO notification
- WordCamp Sydney Incident Report
- Incorrect GST on transactions
- Lodge Linux Australia Activity Statement July..September 2024
- Re: Following up on Linux Australia sponsorship
- Important: Upcoming changes on your existing product from 6th December 2024.
- Singapore Budget Update
- Unpaid sales invoices
- Joomla sub-committee – draft budget supplied
- Unpaid invoice dated 1/Apr/2024
3. Items for discussion
- Drupal South Subcommittee
- Canberra Community Day
Next week. Speaker line up looks good. Content looks good. Just over 100 attendees booked in. May vary slightly on the day. Budget is looking good. Tracking for a profit of around $4,000.
Shows the strength of running events in Canberra with the support of the government community.
- Elections
Elections for the committee concluded this week. One new Australiana and one new NZ member. Two members leaving – David and Michael did not seek re-election. This will be Dave’s last meeting with the LA Council.
There were a good number of nominations. The charter requires two Australian and to New Zealander members.
The community seems a little smaller, but the number of votes was similar.
Official announcement to be made soon, including declaration of who will be the Chair.
- Melbourne 2025
Looking forward to using the A/V support from the venue.
Some of the traditional sponsors have already returned. Yet to actually chase sponsorship.
Julia has started organising the volunteer committee.
In previous years they needed to cap numbers and turn people away. Hoping that this time if numbers look good then there is an option to expand the number of seats available.
The sprint has been moved to avoid running at the same time as the GP. New venue is attached to a TAFE close to the city. This provides an opportunity to market to students and attract new participants.
Need to add Julie to the future subcommittee meetings.
- DrupalCon Singapore Subcommittee
- Have been working very hard on trying to cut costs and raise more money.
- Have now removed shirts fom the budget.
- Now forecasting an $8,000 loss.
- Advocating for sponsorship from Japan and India to help ensure that the event can run in future years.
- Networking drinks have been renamed to “Drupal CMS Release Candidate Launch Party” this allows offering a new low cost sponsorship option to the participants in that work.
- Automattic have now confirmed sponsorship.
- A few other problems were discovered.
- Currently asking the Drupal Association if recording the second day of videos which would help reduce costs further.
- The operating budget is still showing an $60,000 loss, but more money is expected to come in soon.
- Ticket sales are at 148 currently with about another 20 coming in each week. Reasonably confident of getting to 250.
- Kiwi PyCon / Python NZ
- Xero has been fully reconciled now and shows a loss of a bit over $34,000
- Venue options for the next conference are limited. Shed 6 looks like it may be the best option. Venue and A/V costs looks like being $40,000. Looking to cut back on other fixed costs.
- Looking at November next year to give a longer on ramp and time to make new decisions
- Looking to form the next Kiwi PyCon committee in about two weeks after the new Python NZ committee meets.
- WIll also try and make sure there is no clash with PyCon AU. November has an advantage because of KawaiiCon running at the beginning of November which may make things easier for international visitors.
- One issue with the accounting was difficulties paying invoices in euros, via NZ dollars converted from AU dollars. This caused significant confusion which is not yet fully resolved.
- Joomla
- A draft budget has been shared with the LA Council
- The account has been closed and the money moved due to a limited number of bank accounts being available to LA. The money is still tracked separately in Xero and will be available to the Joomla subcommittee in the future.
- Memberships have been at $50/year. Expecting at least 20 members.
- There are few expenses as many operating costs are being donated (e.g. hosting).
- Have decided to use $400 from the last event to seed the next one in Brisbane next year.
- Will provide more detailed budgets in future years.
- LA is also able to provide web hosting if required.
- The 2025 event will probably be in either March or April. The date will be confirmed at the Joomla subcommittee next meeting.
- Hoping for a slightly larger event – perhaps 30-40 people as opposed to this years 20.
- PyCon AU
- Happening in just over two weeks.
- Sponsorship: Now at $73600 from 10 sponsors, up $42500 from last month. We have 6 sponsors with booths at the main conference (table + TV setup where their staff can chat with attendees) and 2 running workshops at the sprints.
- Ticket sales: We have 420 attendees now and are projecting 430-450 attendees.
- Current Challenge: We need to commit to catering (or not) by Friday. Minimal lunch + all day coffee catering will cost ~$77k. Based on the latest budget projections we must choose between making ~$66k profit (no catering) or ~$11k loss (minimal catering). There is a small chance of running catering with a neutral budget if we get some last minute sponsors or professional ticket bundle sales, though we can’t count on either. We would like some guidance from LA on if this level of loss would be acceptable so that we can run a conference that leaves attendees and sponsors happy to attend again next year.
- LA has voted on the catering option and approved the minimal catering option.
- Flounder
- No meeting this week. Postponed a week.
- LUV
- No meeting this week. Postponed a week.
- WordPress
- No update
- Everything Open 2025
- Session selection confirmation have been sent out
- 13 tickets sold already
- Two keynotes are locked in. Talking to a third.
- Schedule is almost complete.
- Have a kubernetes CTF session setup on Wednesday
- Talking to SUSE about sponsorship
- Donna Benjamin is also chasing sponsorship.
- Purplecon
- Completed all arrangements – catering, A/V, volunteers etc.
- Almost everything has been paid for except for the remaining A/V payment and a few other small items.
- Purplecon now has a new sponsor. So sponsorship stands at $10,010 (ex GST)
- 194 tickets. Less than hoped for but more than expected.
- Total expenditure has dropped by about $8,000
- Projected loss is now about $4,000
- These figures do not properly account for GST so the projected result is pessimistic.
- The conference is in two days.
- Admin Team
- Apologies for last month. Unavoidable scheduling conflict.
- Test version of an online docs system (Nextcloud) is running. Many lessons learned. Will discuss its suitability and setting up on an appropriate domain.
- Draft budget for next year has been prepared.
- Would like to have the admin face to face to happen twice this year. Partly because there is a new potential admin team member.
- The HDD component of the storage upgrade has been deferred to next year because of difficulty finding the most appropriate drives at a reasonable price.
- Everything Open email has been moved to Fastmail. Seems to be working.
- Looking at cutting the LA lists over this coming weekend.
- Stephen would like to schedule a meeting to discuss backups with Joel.
- Need a key for video uploads.
- Sae Ra will be organising an EO A/V meeting in November.
- LA Council would like to thank Steve for all his work sorting out email.
4. Items for noting
- Ongoing RSE sponsorship (email received 21 Jun 2024) – to be discussed by Sae Ra with Rowland in the first instance.
- Write the Docs tickets need to be used soon.
- We should close the Health Hacks bank account. Russell will notify Craig Askings
5. Other business
- MOTION: That LA approves PyCon AU 2024 following Option 1 from their proposal, to provide catering to their attendees.
Moved via email by Joel
Seconded by Sae Ra
Passed unanimously
6. In camera
- Three items were discussed in camera
7. Action items
7.1 Completed Items
7.2 Carried Forward
Meeting closed at 21:15
Next meeting is scheduled for 2024-11-20 at 08:00 AEDT (UT+1100) on jitsi
