1. Meeting overview and key information
Present
- Joel Addison (President)
- Jennifer Cox (Vice-President)
- Russell Stuart (Treasurer)
- Neill Cox (Secretary)
- Elena Williams (Council)
- Jonathan Woithe (Council)
Apologies
- Harrison Oates (Council)
Not Present
Meeting opened at 19:36 AEDT by Joel and quorum was achieved.
Minutes taken by Neill
2. Log of correspondence
- Request for formal event sponsorship for RSAA26 – discussion about possible sponsorship. Jonathan has asked for a prospectus which has been supplied
- Grant decision – Canberra Python User Group – Jonathan has notified the CPUG that their application was successful
- Seeking guidance from the Australian open-source community – gracious response from Amit to the Council saying we could not help with his visa application
- Zoom Plans Cancellation Confirmation – confirmation that we have cancelled our Zoom account
- BAS Time – notification from Russell to subcommittee treasures of Xero transactions that need attention
- Involvement – Kathy Reid has responded to Wyatt’s offer of help
- Progress/update on Brisbane/Meanjin bid for EO2027 – update from Arjen on the EO2027 bid
- PyCon AU 2026 budget risks & mitigations – update from Jack Skinner about the current state of the PyCon AU 2026 budget.
- OSI’s Executive Director – notification of the appointment of a new executive director at OSI
- Welcoming the new Executive Director! – notification of the appointment of a new executive director at OSI
- [Linux-aus] Member thoughts on RSAA26 sponsorship invitation – request for input from the membership on possible sponsorship. Two positive responses received.
- Face2-face accommodation – council discusses possible accommodation for the face to face meeting.
- Re: BAS Time – reminder from Russell about Xero transactions
- LA Council – Drupal Subcommittee – Julia Topliss cannot attend this week’s meeting
- Fwd: URGENT: Your Email to Someone at the Ackama Group was NOT Delivered – Russell Coker is get notifications when sending mail to the linux-aus list
- SSL problem with IPv6 – report from Russell Coker. Jonathan has responded. Admin team have fixed the issue
- PyCon AU update for 20 April 2026 – see items for discussion
- Request for consideration for DrupalSouth Wellington 2026 student engagement – see items for discussion
3. Items for discussion
- Drupal Subcommittee 8:10pm
Hi there,
Unfortunately neither Marge or I can attend the meeting tonight. Here is our report for this month (see attached).
Vladimir and Chris will do their best to attend the meeting.
Outstanding item is our request for $3k from DSS retained funds to support the New Zealand’s community initiative to engage local students at the conference.
- Joomla Subcommittee 8:15pm.
Subcommittee Name: Joomla Australia
Budget status (if applicable):
Venue costs are proving to be a bit more expensive than hoped once staffing and equipment are included so we are looking at new venue, the Grand Chancellor Hotel which will include an accomodation[sic] deal for attending, but either way it looks like we will require sponsorship to break even unless we increase ticket prices which there’s not a great appetite for in the current economic climate.
Key achievements:
- JoomlaDay page set up on website including a registration of interest form – https://joomla.org.au/joomladay-australia-2026
- Unfortunately due to a combination of work overload and illness I haven’t been able to do much in the last 4 weeks so we are a bit behind now in terms of getting out something to potential sponsors/speakers, so that will need to happen in the next couple weeks or we will start running out of time.
Any concerns?
- Organisational resources – my work has exploded a bit so I’m concerned I personally won’t have the time required to make this work. We have a meeting of the loose subcommittee tomorrow afternoon where I will be putting it on folks to help out a bit more if they want it to happen so we’ll see how that goes.
How can LA assist?
- Nothing that I can think of at the moment.
Followed by:
Hi all,
Apologies, due to a family situation I have to make a trip to a local hospital and likely won’t make it back in time tonight.
If I make it back in time I will jump on but otherwise things probably aren’t as worrisome as my report below… we have some updated venue costs received today which are a bit reduced and a couple of people have got in touch with offers of help, so I think we’ll confirm the venue tomorrow and get to work on the sponsors and speakers side of things over the next week.
Following the event committee meeting tomorrow I’ll update the budget with the confirmed new costs and let you know via email so you can have a look.
Thanks
Nathan
- Admin Team 8:20pm
No report
- PyConAu 8:25pm
Recently:
- CFP closed with a record response rate. Whilst positive and exceeding expectations, it also exceeded the inflection point between “Enough proposals for a high quality program” and “too many proposals, its just setting up more declines”. I published a behind the scenes after CFP news post to for transparency into the closed-door process, communicate timelines and temper excitement and expectations.
- Financial Assistance has been open, but not actively promoted. We’ve exceeded $137k of applications (some duplicates), the vast majority of which is from international applicants. We’ve already pre-published that we are only accepting applications from AU and “nearby Oceania without a proximate Python conference” (this covers NZ). Following our published process we won’t close the form until grants are allocated (likely in next 2 weeks).
- An update on sponsorship pipeline with data from today 20/April:
- $38.5k contracted (both contracted and paid)
- $30k committed (an explicit ‘ok’ for the proposal, pending contracting & procurement)
- $98k in ‘discussion’ from 12 leads (some level of proposal sent and acknowledged receipt. Some % of this will not convert. This is most common when sponsors say “Thanks for that, we’ll go get final approvals from stakeholders”)
- 33 leads contacted in the last 7 days, with about 100 in our spreadsheet to progress through outreach in the days/weeks ahead.
- All this is to say: a hyperfocus on sponsorship is currently my #1 priority to adress[sic] the currently projected $41k gap (including 6% operating margin)
- We’ve received the contract from BEDA for $10k grant; it comes with several conditions wrt spending transparency/accountability & co-marketing approval – all of which are very fair and reasonable. I intend on signing this week.
Next on our radar is:
- Sponsorship, somewhat obviously. This will take at least 2-4 weeks to show signs of converting. Expecting this to be a month long marathon rather than a sprint.
- Vendor negotiations to de-scope proposals and reduce costs where possible. Primarily in AV quotes.
- Program review process is on-track to conclude next week, with program selection at our Thunderdome(s) scheduled for 1, 2, 3 May. The goal is to publish the program/schedule for approximately 12 March
- Noting several of the upcoming projects are shelved for now, if we can recover sponsorship pipeline we will resume work on Regional Educators Grants and Education Pricing. Additional Financial Assistance is also possible to resume for attendees until approx July. I’m considering these projects ‘on ice’ until such time we’re back “on track”.
- The project for “Wear it Purple Day” fundraising T-shirt is on pause until I have bandwidth other than sponsorship bizdev.
While I have flagged the budget as being ‘off track’, I have done so with the view that ‘red early’ is a better approach to focus effort than putting an optimistic spin on things. We still have inbound sponsorship leads reaching out to us for substantial dollar figures (which was not the case in previous years) and I’m very cautiously optimistic we’ll be yellow, then green again as we approach the conference dates.
To that end, I intend to keep Wednesdays update succinct and to time (with respect to other subcommittee’s) but I’m happy to return, or extend at the conclusion of other subcommittee’s of Council has futher questions for discussion. Wednesday’s intended agenda:
- Sumary of budget situation, what we’ve cut from our planned expenses, and what our immediate revenue projections are
- Share our outreach/bizdev campaign strategy & tactics (as well as our cautious approach to publicity)
- Questions from council
If council would like any other specific numbers or insights ahead of Wednesday please let me know ASAP as I have back to back workshops with clients between now and the sub-committee meeting. Where at all possible I’d prefer to attend prepared than take questions on notice.
Cheers,
Jack Skinner
Jack suggests more communication between subcommittees about sponsorship.
EO2026 displaying sponsor banners in corridors was popular with the sponsors.
It would also be good to maintain better records of what companies have sponsored through which subcommittees. This would help with navigating sponsors’ procurement systems.
- WordPress 8:30pm
No report
- Everything Open 8:35pm
No report
- Flounder 8:35pm
No report
- LUV 8:35pm
No report
Probably OK if members want to do this, but as long as it isn’t branded as Linux Australia. The conversation on the list seemed largely to consist of people thinking it would be a good idea, but that someone else should do it.
4. Items for noting
- [Linux-aus] Facebook – should we have a FaceBook presence?
5. Other business
- Drupal South Funds
We need to explain to Drupal South how the retained funds work.
They are now asking for $3,000 to add to the $5,000 sponsors are contributing.
The $3,000 seems reasonable, but we do need to clarify the question of retained funds.
Need to see good accounting of the expenditure.
Motion: That Linux Australia supports the DrupalSouth student engagement initiative with $3000 funding.
Moved by: Joel
Seconded: Jennifer
Result: Carried.
Joel will inform the Drupal South sub committee.
6. In camera
- Three items were discussed in camera
7. Action items
7.1 Completed Items
7.2 Carried Forward
Meeting closed at 20:31
Next meeting is scheduled for 2026-05-06
