2026-03-25 Council Meeting Minutes

1. Meeting overview and key information

Present

• Joel Addison (President)
• Jennifer Cox (Vice-President)
• Neill Cox (Secretary)
• Russell Stuart (Treasurer)
• Elena Williams (Council)
• Jonathan Woithe (Council)
• Harrison Oates (Council)

Apologies 

Not Present

• None.

Meeting opened at 20:05 AEDT by Jenny  and quorum was achieved.

Minutes taken by Neill

2. Log of correspondence

• Thank you for your payment – receipt from AWS
• Live Steaming Invoice – further discussion about streaming invoice – no action required
• Important – AWS Invoice e-mail address changes – notification from AWS
• Upcoming Domain Renewal Notice – Please Do Not Reply – notification from DigitalPacific
• PyCon AU announce + committee mailing lists not sending. – ongoing discussion about PyConAU mailing lists. Admin team is handling
• [Linux-aus] Linux Australia 2026 Grants Program is open
• Re: Everything Open 2026 YouTube videos? – query about EO2026 videos. Miles has responded
• Open Education and the Shared Roots of Openness – OSI newsletter
• Fwd: Grant program – query about Grants program – Jonathan has responded.
• Involvement – offer assistance with comms. Forwarded to Kathy Reid
• Question about the Linux Australia grant – query from Research Software Asia Australia about grants. Jonathan has responded
• Invoice Payment Reminder – Please Do Not Reply – notification from Digital Pacific
• Domain Renewal Confirmation – Please Do Not Reply – notification from Digital Pacific
• Thank You for Your Payment – Please Do Not Reply – notification from Digital Pacific
• Seeking guidance from the Australian open-source community – query from Amit Pundir about assistance with a visa application.
• Expression of Interest – Internship Opportunity – enquiry from Srabanty Deb about possible internships – Neill to respond
• Open Technology Research – invitation from OSI
• Re: Videos for 2026 edition? – enquiry from Rob Norris about EO2026 videos
• Re: Mandate Amendment -Linux Australia ATTN Louisa Billings – update from Russell about the ANZ mandate
• Re: DrupalSouth NZ bank a/c number – discussion about ANZ ticket sales and stripe. Julia has responded
• Request for insurance cover for a Perth Linux User Group event – enquiry from Harry McNally – Jonathan has responded
• ALTA 2026 -Sponsorship –  enquiry about sponsorship for the Australasian Language Technology Association (ALTA 2026) conference. Jonathan has responded
• Grant Application from Jonah Sullivan for Canberra Python User Group – sent to Linux Aus
• Request for formal event sponsorship for RSAA26 – request for sponsorship Jonathan has responded
• Grant Application from Jonah Sullivan for Canberra Python User Group – discussion on Linux Aus
• PyCon AU 2026 update for 23 March 2026 – from Jack Skinner – discussed below
• Changes for charities and fundraisers are starting soon  – notification from NSW Fair Trading
• Joomla Subcommittee Update – see below
• Update on Drupal Asia – see below
• Request for consideration for DrupalSouth Wellington 2026 student engagement – see below

 

3. Items for discussion

• Drupal Subcommittee 8:10pm

• Drupal Asia

Hello team, 

I apologise it’s been quite some time since I’ve been in touch. I’m not able to make the meeting tonight, but wanted to share an update with you.

1. We’re waiting for one more invoice to be paid by a sponsor in Japan. We’re chasing that up still. 
2. We’ve received word that we’ve had an approval for ~4k in funds from Nara City, which was part of a grant program we applied for. I will need to raise an invoice for them to pay against. 

I’m hoping to get both of those issues resolved by the end of April, at which point we can make the payment to the Drupal Association for their licence fee. 

Cheers,

Mike

• Joomla Subcommittee 8:15pm.

The budget comments below are slightly pessimistic. There is an updated budget which has a better position for 40 attendees.

Subcommittee Name: Joomla Australia

Budget status (if applicable): 

Budget has had some work done since the last meeting and now includes venue costs for the new preferred venue, the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre; General pricing for marketing materials including t-shirts, tote bags and stickers has been included and we’re currently get specific quotes for those items.

As it stands, if we only have 40 people attend we’re going to need some sponsorship to break even so that will be the focus of the next 2-3 weeks together with lining up speakers.

With zero sponsorship and 40 attendees we’ll make a loss of $2500, but we’re confident of being able to get some sponsors on board.

While we’re favouring the QVWC as the venue we’re also still enquiring with the Council of Adult Education in Melbourne to see if that might be a cheaper option and should have those details in the next week.

Key achievements:

• Main achievement for the month has been sending the new website design live which now includes a “Save the Date” banner for JoomlaDay on the home page and a registration of interest form will be added in the next couple of days
• We still have a number of pages/sections to build out but at least now have the base from which to do that.

Any concerns?

Not at this stage

How can LA assist?

Just a review of the budget at this stage.

• Admin Team 8:20pm
• PyConAu 8:25pm

Recently:

• CFP has been our big focus. We’ve added academic proceedings, run several new workshops (Girls Programming Network, Sydney Uni SYNCS association). Submission rates are slowly starting to tick upwards ahead of this weekends deadline. As of tonights email we’re slightly less than half of what we were last year – but its extremely normal for ‘line go up a lot’ in the 72 hours before deadline.
• Sponsorship hustle has kicked off properly. Up to 100k in the pipeline, and thats including reduced budget proposals from sponsors who remain interested in a lower package. It also only includes sponsors with whom we’ve had an initial conversation or enquiry – so while not all of it will convert, it is all active leads with some level of cautious estimation on $ value. Certainly no chickens counted yet, but its feeling less up-hill than previous years.
• Blind bird tickets sold out. We’re up to full RRP, earlier than we’ve ever even had tickets on sale before. Whilst good and promising, it also means we’re in uncharted territory as far as projections and comparisons go. Predicting a slow down in ticket sales until mid-May when our program gets published.
• Kathy (presumably?) has been stellar at amplifying our social media. Thank you!

While we do not currently anticipate needing to extend CFP, we have sufficient room in our review schedule that it will survive a weeks squeeze.

Next on our radar is:

• Program review process kicking off from roughly next week. Invitations & comms to reviewers will kick off throughout this current week.
• We’re in the process of refreshing our guidelines to reviewers. In this refresh we’re addressing historical review biases (e.g. AI, community talks about commercial platforms etc.) as well as ensuring that the review committee members we invite in 2026 are representative of our target audience: people who use Python in Australia (and NZ).
• We have several “projects” in the wings that will get some love in April while our reviewers review talks. Regional Educators Grants, Financial Assistance, Education Pricing, “Destination Brisbane” and “Bring the team” campaigns. We’re also evaluating a “Wear it Purple Day” fundraising T-shirt.

The next ~3 weeks will likely convert a lot of our budget estimates into meaningful contractual commitments with AV, hire and video production suppliers. We’re expecting to refresh the budget (additively 🙂 ) over the Easter weekend with these projections. We don’t currently expect significant shifts but we recognise the need to keep our eye on that ball at this specific time.

Discussion items proposed for Wednesdays council meeting:

• Continued emphasis on amplifying our call for proposals, with specific ask to council (and LAC meeting participants) for shoulder taps, personal outreach and direct nudges beyond ‘breadth’ social reposts.
• Discussion w/ Council & Russell regarding ‘charity’ donations (i.e. how to appropriately run out t-shirt idea).
• Questions from council.

The organising is discussing ethical ways to allow opt in collection of contact details for sponsors.

The organising committee is also looking at alternatives to mailman, primarily due to technical issues with mailman, but also the difficulty in managing the list and in sending anything other than plain text emails.

If a different commercial tool is chosen it will be paid for by moving funds around in the budget.

T-Shirt:

Discussions have been had about a fund raising t-shirt. Jack will send details to Russell in email once CFP is closed.

• WordPress 8:30pm

No report

• Everything Open 8:35pm
  • No changes since last month. 
  • Approximately $35k profit.
  • Miles will start working on a final report on the event.
  • Miles will be adding some photos to the website. As there are about 500MB of photos they should perhaps go onto the mirror server rather than directly on the website.
  • Videos have been delayed due to illness, but work will start on them soon. Not many left to process. 
  • Miles will be stepping away from answering any future emails.
  • EO2026 received a receipt from ChainGuard for a PyConAu sponsorship. PyConAu are aware of the payment.
• Flounder 8:35pm

No report

• LUV 8:35pm

No report

4. Items for noting

• Grants program
  • The program has been opened.
  • First application has been submitted
  • More responses have been received to date from members than for all of 2024’s grant program. This is likely due  to greater visibility on linux-aus compared to the separate la-grants list used in the past.
• Insurance renewal is due – Joel is working through the details.
• Reminder for council members to look at the possible dates of the face to face.

5. Other business

• Sponsorship requests
  • ALTA
    • An email was sent on 22 Mar 2026  asking about their connection to FOSS and its community. No response has been received to date.
  • RSAA26 Accessibility Partner
    • For discussion at the next meeting.
• Request for consideration for DrupalSouth Wellington 2026 student engagement

We do not normally account for P/L by conferences in this way.

Overall this seems like a worthwhile activity, but needs a better explanation of the costs involved and consideration of possible sponsorship options.

Who is providing the mentorship?

We need a better breakdown of the administration costs for the event.

Joel will respond asking for more details.

 

6. In camera

• Two items were discussed in camera

7. Action items

7.1 Completed Items

7.2 Carried Forward

Meeting closed at 21:24 AEDT

Next meeting is scheduled for 2026-04-08 @ 1930 AEST.