1. Meeting overview and key information
Present
- Joel Addison (President)
- Wil Brown (Vice-President)
- Sae Ra Germaine (Council)
- Russell Stuart (Treasurer)
- Jonathan Woithe (Council)
- Neill Cox (Secretary)
Apologies
- None received
Not present
- Marcus Herstik (Council)
Meeting opened at 20:03 AEST by Joel and quorum was achieved.
Minutes taken by Jonathan and Neil.
2. Log of correspondence
- 26 Oct 2023 Christopher Neugebauer re Intent to establish Independent Subcommittee for PyCon AU – Joel has responded
- 28 Oct 2023 Russell Curry re Canberra Linux kernel conference – Joel has responded
- 31 Oct 2023 Andrew Ruthven re NZ GST – Sae Ra has responded
- 31 Oct 2023 Dave Sparks re Physical address in Australia for Visa
- 01 Nov 2023 Kathy Reid re Change to auDA domain name rules – request to make submission under LA banner – Joel has responded
- 01 Nov 2023 Les Kitchen – Possible donation to Linux Australia from disincorporation of Melbourne Functional Programming Association Incorporated
- 6 Nov 2023 Membership enquiry from Julia Topliss via the Linux Australia Website Contact Form – Jonathan has responded
3. Items for discussion
- PyCon AU Steering Committee
Motion: That Linux Australia establish PyCon AU as a Steering Committee subcommittee.
Seconded: Neill Cox
Motion passed unanimously
- Drupal South request for a physical address in Australia for use with visa applications
- Canberra Linux kernel conference
Need to ensure timing fits with other conferences, particularly Everything Open.
- Melbourne Functional Programming Association Incorporated
Jonathan will speak to Les Kitchen to discuss the process. Perhaps we can use the funds for a functional programming award, or some other activity that relates to the work of the association.
4. Items for noting
- Open Source Australia business name renewal
Motion: That the Open Source Australia business name be renewed for 3 years.
Seconded: Russell Stuart
Vote was held on the mailing list. For: 6, No: 0. Motion passed.
Russell will now renew the business name.
- Feedback was provided to auDA on their proposed changes to the .au Domain Administration Rules: Licensing (.au Licensing Rules). Thanks to Kathy Reid for providing feedback to LA and assisting with this process.
- Russell plans to not produce the same glossy annual report as in previous years. Will produce the same reports, but in a simpler format. Sae Ra will apply LA’s corporate branding to the text. Neill will request submissions from the subcommittees.
5. Other business
- Drupal subcommittee update
Canberra Community day in two weeks. Has come together well. 100 delegates attending and 10 on a wait list. Follows on/attached to the GovCMS meetup. Attendance for government employees is free, but 40% of attendees gave purchased tickets and 7 of 6(!) sponsorship slots were taken up and the budget is healthy.
CFP not as strong as they would normally expect, but there are good presenters.
Sydney in March next year. Tickets are on sale and have sold 11 early birds already without much promotion. A track chair is in place. CFP has gone out. Hoping to get the schedule up before Christmas, but people aren’t very focussed on next year.
Sydney sponsorships are selling well, but still early. Hoping to get as much finalised before Christmas as time pressure will be ramping up after the end of the year.
There is a Drupal Asia conference coming up that Drupal South would like to participate in. There are scattered Drupal communities across Asia. It would be good to have an event that they could all participate in. Dates and venue are being considered and discussions with the Drupal Association for support. If the Drupal Association is not available then they will look for help from some other group (probably not LA) How interested would LA be in supporting the conference? Can Drupal South be a sponsor?
LA response: Interested in helping, but we only have insurance in Australia, so would have to look at feasibility and cost. LA has Australian and New Zealand bank accounts, and a Wise account. We would need more information before we could commit anything.
Visa address: Who for? What liability for LA if they overstay their visa? Needs to be a physical address not a PO box. COuld possibly use the LA Secretary’s address or perhaps the conference chair.
- Admin team update
The archives of old PyCon AU websites have been extracted and sent through to the team, so this is now complete.
Planning an update for the LA website, want to have the email migration done before then.
Some thought about policy controls for managing mail under Fastmail for things like Everything Open.
Existing mail will be moved to an archive namespace as part of the migration.
Shipping of banners and other LA gear to Rob Thomas for Everything Open? Steve can ship a palette to Gladstone if needed.
Steve will submit reimbursement and a budget for next year soon.
Some old servers to sell, but probably won’t get much for them, but Steve will make best effort to get a reasonable return.
Current servers are due for disk replacement. That will be part of next year’s budget, but Steve will provide an estimate so it can be provided as part of the reporting for the upcoming AGM.
- Joomla subcommittee update
No response received.
- PyCon AU subcommittee update
The PyCon AU team are unable to attend in person. Richard Jones has supplied this update:
We’ve met with council, and unanimously decided to form a Steering Committee (rather than Independent), waiting on next steps.
We’ve heard back from MCEC, pending exact quote, and sending a budget to council, for our 2024 event.
We are actively looking for someone to step in to chair the event.
- Flounder subcommittee update
Russell did respond on the night, but we could not get him online in time.
- LUV subcommittee update
No response received to invitation.
- WordPress subcommittee update
The conference will be called WordCamp Sydney
UTS looks like the best venue.
Trying to form an organising committee. There are 26 volunteers to help with the organising. Roles need to be defined.
- Everything Open 2024
First meeting of the organising committee has happened.
