1. Meeting overview and key information
Present
- Joel Addison (President) (from approx 20:45 AEDT)
- Russell Stuart (Treasurer)
- Neill Cox (Secretary) (approx 20:30 to 21:00 AEDT)
- Elena Williams (Council)
- Jonathan Woithe (Council)
Apologies
- Jennifer Cox (Vice-President)
- Neill Cox (Secretary)
- Lilly Ho (Council)
Meeting opened at 20:30 AEDT by Russell. Quorum was achieved.
Minutes taken by Jonathan.
2. Log of correspondence
This is correspondence which was sent to Council. Any communication sent directly to the secretary or other executive addresses is not included.
- Vladimir Roudakov: Follow ups to Wordcamp Brisbane meeting with Joel and Russell.
- Clinton Roy: Updates about PyCon AU steering committee.
- Michael Richardson: Notification of DrupalCon Nara announcement. Apology for being unable to attend this subcommittee meeting.
- Peter Hall: PyCon AU 2025 proposal.
- Kathy Reid: Follow up about the Everything Open 2025 wrap-up document.
- Kathy Reid: Notification that that SGM notice has been published on LA socials.
- Redbubble: Sale and manufacturing notifications.
- Michael Richardson: Progress update on DrupalCon Nara.
- Kathy Reid: The Everything Open Bluesky handle had an issue due to an expired everythingopen.au SSL certificate.
- Sae Ra Germaine: Everything Open 2025 wrap-up document draft for review and approval
3. Items for discussion
- Subcommittee: Kiwi Pycon 2025
- A budget has been approved. Financial induction done. The budget spreadsheet has been reworked according to feedback received.
- Conference expenses will be optimised.
- Russell is very pleased with the improvements to the budget documentation..
- Venue is confirmed. Chelsea will sign the contract soon.
- Date and location is published on the website. An official announcement will follow.
- Sponsorship campaign has started. Prospectus has been sent to approximately 120 contacts.
- Co-chairs for the paper selection group have been put in place.
- Subcommittee: Admin team
- Business as usual.
- Steve had a discussion with Bron from Fastmail at IETF to discuss formalising the sponsorship arrangement. A follow up discussion will be held next week.
- Face-to-face is still being planned. It will be held in Brisbane. There will be 6 attendees: Steve, Mike, Julian, a possible new member, Joel, and possibly one other person. Only Steve and Mike will need to travel: everyone else is in Brisbane.
- Subcommittee: Drupal South Melbourne 2025
- A budget with a notional profit of $19k was presented (after deducting LA overheads).
- Good feedback was received about the event.
- Drupal South would like to discuss a number of things which have arisen during the conference and other discussions:
- How much of the profits can Drupal South use? Are there limits on what kinds of things the profits can be used for.
- The subcommittee want to run workshops or webinars for vendors to help drive adoption.
- Establishment of a merchandise shop
- Having a different bank account each year is awkward, especially for many of the sponsors in the government space. They would like a fixed bank account. They are also thinking of linking the shop to the bank account. From Russell: this would also require a dedicated Stripe account.
Joel and/or Neill will work with Julia to arrange a suitable time.
- Council found the event summary to be clear and concise.
- Subcommittee: PyCon AU steering committee
- Jack has joined the steering committee to help resolve capacity constraints. His particular focus is on sponsorship and multimedia.
- Jack is in the early stages of costing a PyCon AU 2026. The motivation is to provide organising teams with longer lead times.
- Subcommittee: PyCon AU 2025
- Council has received a proposed budget for PyCon AU 2025 along with a detailed proposal.
- Peter would like approval as soon as possible, but within two weeks would be good. There is pressure to commit to a venue to guarantee availability.
- PyCon AU would like to push PyCon AU as a formal professional development opportunity. This would encourage employers to send staff and sponsor the event. Having a program published by June is desired to facilitate this. This is another reason for wanting a rapid turnaround with the budget approval process.
- There is a deliberate decision to re-introduce an online component.
- The attendance figures in the budget: “Bare Bones” is 2024 attendance minus 5%, “Expected” is 2024 attendance plus 5%, “Best” is 2024 attendance plus 10%.
- The bare bones case currently shows a significant loss.
- Some python-related events are now showing a return to 2019 attendance levels.
- Council aims to address the budget approval by the end of the coming weekend. Russell will go through the documents provided and send feedback to Council.
- There is one sponsor for 2025 already committed.
- Russell noted that the budget has been well prepared.
- Subcommittee: EO2026.
- Final quote received from UC Events for the venue. This came in line with expectations.
- Treasurer is sorted (Arjen). A budget is being prepared. It is hoped to have a draft ready in about two weeks. Having it finalised by the end of April may be possible.
- Content discussions have kicked off. The plan is to keep the event similar to 2025.
- Joel and Miles will catch up during next week to go through some of the finer planning points.
- The aim is to try to run to an earlier time frame than for 2025’s conference.
- A wiki is planned for crowd-sourced organisation.
- Subcommittee: Wordcamp Brisbane 2025
- Joel and Russell met earlier this fortnight to discuss budget details. For 2026 the aim is to use the LA budget template.
- Wordcamp Central has given approval and global sponsorship.
- The goal is to ensure a break even financial position or better.
- Venue and AV sponsors have been identified.
- Wordcamp Central now require that all sponsors be vetted by them.
- The website is ready. Call for sponsors is ready. Call for papers is one day away.
- SGM
- There have been some questions about proxy votes. The current constitution allows them. They are being referred to Neill.
- Wordcamp Brisbane approval
- The budget concerns identified by Joel and Russell were resolved at the earlier email.
- Motion by Joel: that Linux Australia accepts Wordcamp Brisbane 2025 as an event subcommittee.
- Seconded: Jonathan
- Motion was passed.
- Russell will communicate the result to the subcommittee.
- DrupalCon Nara
- Joel has received the licence agreement from Drupal Association.
- This will be signed so long as the Drupal Association takes a profit share, not a revenue share.
- Joel will follow up.
- Next council meeting
- The SGM is at 20:00 UT+1000 (Melbourne time, no daylight saving)
- Council will meet at 19:30 UT+1000 on Jitsi.
4. Items for noting
- We need to consider seeking bids for Everything Open 2027 soon.
5. Other business
- None.
6. In camera
- None
Meeting closed at 21:32.
Next meeting is scheduled for 2025-04-09:
- Council at 19:30 UT+1000 (Tas, VIc, NSW, Qld), 19:00 UT+0930 (SA, NT)
- SGM at 20:00 UT+1000, 19:30 UT+0930.
