1. Meeting overview and key information
Present
- Joel Addison (President)
- Russell Stuart (Treasurer)
- Neill Cox (Secretary)
- Elena Williams (Council)
- Jonathan Woithe (Council)
- Lilly Ho (Council)
Apologies
- Jennifer Cox (Vice-President)
Meeting opened at 19:35 AEDT by Joel. Quorum was achieved.
Minutes taken by Neill and 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.
- Today’s Meeting [Drupal Con Japan] – Russell has responded
- PyCon AU 2025 Proposal – Russell has informed PyCon Au that they have been approved as a subcommittee
- Congratulations [from Sae Ra re new constitution] – Joel has responded
- Adoption of new Constitution by Linux Australia Y2998126 [Russell notifying NSW Fair Trading of adoption of the new constitution
- ANZ Direct Online Enquiry – Linux Australia – ATTN Diesel – Russell has responded
- Kiwi PyCon 2025 subcommittee financial access – Russell has responded
- pycon steering committee updates – Joel has responded
- Grant Application – Makerspace Adelaide have withdrawn their application. Jonathan to acknowledge receipt and thank them for the information..
- Re: Notice of Special General Meeting for Linux Australia – proxy registration for the SGM from Karl Goetz – Neill has responded
- [LACTTE] BAS Time – discussion about Xero access for WC Brisbane – Joel and Russell have responded
- [LACTTE] DrupalCon Nara 2025 – Drupal Association Agreement – On list motion – discussion of Drupal Association agreement
- Everything Open 2025 Wrap up post – for approval before going live – discussion of EO2026 Wrap up post which has now been published
- Fwd: LINUX AUSTRALIA INCORPORATED – Y2998126 – A6 Conf – JL – NSW Fair Trading have accepted the new constitution
- Lodge Linux Australia Activity Statement January..March 2025 – Russell has asked the accountant to lodge our BAS
- Sharing our standard sponsor agreement for PyCon AU 2025 – Discussion about standard sponsorship agreements – Joel has responded
- Remittance Advice – from RedBubble
- You’re missing out on personalized insights & tips – Google Analytics [[do we care?]]
- auDA strategy 2026-2030 consultation paper is out – Kathy Reid notifying council. Joel to respond: time constraints prevent council responding.
- Inquiry: Running Purplecon again in 2025 – Russell has responded. Some analysis work done by Elena. More work is needed on the budget. Aim to do this over the next two weeks and send questions to the organisers as they come up.
- Maintainer Month in May – from OSI
- Question with notice: Is the LA tax still 6%, or should it increase? – Question from Miles Goodhew – Joel has responded
3. Items for discussion
- Subcommittee: Kiwi Pycon 2025
- Venue is booked, first payment due
- Treasurer is not yet authorised with ANZ.
- Some sponsors have signed – one bronze and in kind
- No high level sponsors yet
- Still a month of early bird sales to go
- Discussing trans-tasman sponsorship with Jack Skinner
- Want to get sponsorship to a good level – there is an early bird discount for sponsors up until 6 months before the conference
- Q: Should Kiwi PyCon look for a sponsorship sales person who would work on a 20% commission? Commission paid for one year only for new sponsors. This would only start after the early bird expires.
A: Council needs to think about this before giving an answer. - Russell: PyCon NZ will need a second person to authorise payments. At the moment Chelsea is yet to be added which means that only two authorised people are on the list. Would be better to have some redundancy.
- Seed money has been placed in the ANZ account.
- Subcommittee: Admin team
- Not a lot to report in the last month
- Fastmail are pinging back and forth on support tickets re pricing.
- Steve Will be catching up with Mike Beattie in about two weeks.
- Things are getting busy for people, which may push the face to face out to August and perhaps be only one meeting.
- Debian project sysadmins have reported an issue with some hosts (three) on the ANU are failing with connection resets. Steve is chasing this with ANU. May be related to dual addresses. These are the Debian security archive hosts. Elena has physical access if needed.
- Subcommittee: Drupal South Melbourne 2025
Russell will arrange for Drupal South to keep the same bank account year to year.If Drupal South wants to run a merch store we will need to discuss how LA can manage the strip account.Invoices can be paid into the old account and LA can then transfer the funds internally. Unfortunately that perhaps does not help at this point.The LA council will look for solution to the problems of multiple back accounts
- Subcommittee: PyCon AU 2025
- Amended venue contract has been received. Pete expects to review and sign tomorrow.
- Have signed the first sponsor – Google Australia
- Steering Co question on notice: Has LA got all the process documents required?
A: We think we have everything, but LA council will check. - Treasurer Update: Ariba invoice has been rejected once due to address problems. It has been re-submitted.
- DrupalCon Japan
- Conference has been announced at DrupalCon Atlanta – much excitement at the announcement
- Mike has visited Nara done a hotel inspection which went well.
- Had a meeting with the Mayor
- The city is interested in sponsoring and wants to send some students.
- Mike spoke at the local Drupal meetup.
- Call for volunteers went out today.
- Need the signed contract for the Drupal Association
- Subcommittee: Wordcamp Brisbane 2025
- Tickets on sale (25 sold)
- Sponsorships (12) under review of WordCamp Central
- Sponsorship agreements are ready to be sent out
- Speakers submitting presentations (23 presentations) closing date 24/4/2025 with possibility to extend
- Another venue walk through on 29/04
- Presentation to students
- The ticketing system (Humanitix) may not be an approved system. Some discussion with WordCamp Central about whether the ticketing system needs to be changed
- Subcommittee: Joomla
- No current events planned
- Need to sort out a bank account and Stripe access for Joomla.
- Subcommittee: Flounder
- Last meeting was on on 19 April and about LLM models
- Have a new server
- Has been difficult to recruit new members
- Subcommittee: EO2026
- Had a meeting last night to discuss budget
- In the spreadsheet the projections are based on Forecast as the pessimistic option
- Expected – optimal based on last years conference
- Sponsorship assumptions for the pessimistic option are very pessimistic.
- Because of SI sponsorship the Venue is free but must use the venue’s catering
- Catering assumptions for the pessimistic option is just morning and afternoon tea, but the expected option is that lunch will need to be provided because of the lack of nearby food options.
- Transport for attendees from hotels is being budgeted for.
- Miscellaneous costs are difficult to quantify at the moment, in particular need some guidance about AV costs. Childcare is included in the optimistic version but is unlikely to be provided. Joel will arrange a meeting to discuss the budget with Miles.
- Good to see progress, the council is keen to see a launch soon.
- Carlos: Do we have a timeframe?
Answer: As soon as we can finish reviewing the budget then we can sign off, hopefully before the end of the month.
- SGM
- Constitution passed, submitted to NSW Fair Trading. Accepted by NSW Fair Trading. Now in effect. Is now on the website.
- Bank accounts
- The increased number of active subcommittees and events of late has resulted in a need for additional bank accounts and Stripe accounts to service them. Some subcommittees (Joomla, Drupal) are also commencing activities which require permanent accounts.
- Russell will follow up with the bank to create new accounts.
- Russell will follow up with Stripe for new accounts (one for Joomla, one for Drupal).
- There is a Stripe account fee discount applicable for non-profit entities. In practice this means being a registered charity. Russell will follow up with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission (ACNC) to determine what needs to happen to get LA registered as a charity. This will make it much easier to get the discount for the new Stripe accounts.
- Bank accounts and sponsorship payments
- Suggest that LA establish a dedicated bank account to receive sponsorship for all events. LA then assigns the incoming payments to the Xero areas of the respective events.
4. Items for noting
- None.
5. Other business
- None.
6. In camera
- None
7. Action items:
- Bank accounts for Drupal South
- Drupal meeting
- Bank Account for Joomla
- Access to Stripe for Joomla
- Meet with Miles to discuss EO2026 budget
Meeting closed at 21:07 AEST (UT+1000).
Next meeting is scheduled for 2025-05-07 19:30 AEST (UT+1000)
