Minutes for February 6, 2014
Sponsorship program, 2014 budget adopted, PSM financing arrangements, Plone Ambassadors
Paul called us to order at 20:05 UTC
Housekeeping
Attendance
Present: Paul Roeland, Alexander Loechel, Érico Andrei, Steve McMahon, Andy Leeb, Cris Ewing
Absent: Tom (Spanky) Kapanka
Guest: Elizabeth Leddy to discuss the sponsorship program
Special Topic: Sponsorship status & process
Liz reported that sponsorships are going much as last year. We’ve lost some, but gained ones that compensate.
Liz predicts that with normal efforts, we’ll raise what we did last year. She said biggest impact is $40 subscriberships. Handling paper bills is the only administrative hard part.
Main substantive problem is getting people aware of it. Getting plone.com will help with that. She suggested making sure that all sprint reports mention that funding comes from sponsorship program.
Érico is looking into adding a mention to the site setup page and the installer.
Paul noted that we’re probably raising the sprint and marketing budget, and it would be good to have more sponsorship income. Getting plone.com will help.
Liz said that it would be helpful if we need more to give her concrete details, like we need $### to cover XXX activity. Raising money for specific goals is easier.
Paul said he would take responsibility for keeping up detail on activities so that we can concretely show benefits of sponsorship to the project.
Liz projected that she’ll be at Bristol and will be able to do some pushing there.
“I donated” sticker for event name tags?
Cologne sprint starts Monday; Paul will talk to folks there.
Liz left the call.
Approval of the minutes of Jan 23, 2014
Érico moved approval, Andy seconded
Unanimously approved
+ check if action items were followed up
Érico has been working with Brasilia sponsors. Final accounting delayed by difficulties getting payments from government. Should have a report soon.
Incoming correspondence
SSL Certificate Expiring
Steve moved we allocate $498 for purchase of 3-year wildcard ssl certificate
Andy seconded
Unanimously approved
Steve will purchase and seek reimbursement
EuroPython
We’ll probably want to do a poster session; Paul and several others are attending.
New Business
Emerald sprint
We’ve received the official request for $1,500; Framework team has nominated this as a strategic sprint.
Cris, Andy, Steve are planning to attend; noted that this is not a substantive conflict of interest under our new interest policy.
Cris moved approval, Paul seconded
Unanimously approved
Old Business
Budget 2014
Discussion based on a set of spreadsheets in a shared confidential area in the cloud.
Érico discussed changes from last version. Marketing is lowered in light of the fact we spent much less than planned last year; sponsorship revenue adjusted from $50,000 to $30,000, which Liz thinks is more realistic.
Current budget projects losing $10,010. Actual loss will be lower if we don’t find good marketing opportunities. Loss is well within what we can afford, given bank balance.
Highlights: Income projected at $70,600; expenses $80,610.
Cris noted that this looks more realistic. Paul explained some differences from the books; travel is handled differently.
Cris moved we approve the budget, but not publish until cleaned up to look presentable. Andy seconded.
Unanimously approved.
Steve and Paul will work on getting this into publishable form.
PSM (Plone Symposium Midwest)
Should we act as financial agent for Plone Symposium Midwest
Kim Nguyen has obtained written assurance from UWO CFO that they will cover any shortfall. 6FU has volunteered to cover accounting time. Thanks to 6FU!
Steve moved that we agree to act as financial agent for PSM, with the note that we will need to watch the budget and expenditures to make sure they accord with our tax-exempt purpose.
Érico seconded
Unanimously approved
Plone.com deployment
Liz is putting together an invitation-only mini sprint later this month. Invitation-only due to limited space/time.
Idealware report
Big thanks to Nathan Van Gheem for his help with this. Idealware now has the required information for their report.
CMS Garden
Paul and Alex reported that we’re all set for the brochure and are now official members of the sponsoring organization. CeBIT is the second week of March. We will need to organize attendance; non-Germans particularly valuable to show international character of the project.
In-kind sponsorships
Once again, Steve wears a hat of shame for failing to move this along.
Advisory/ambassador board
Steve composed some prose describing the ambassador role; we have a spreadsheet with names. General agreement of the description.
Each contact person will ask for a mini bio / photo and send a copy of the prose description of the ambassador role. Aim toward press release around next meeting.
Review ongoing items
Doc sprint will work on licensing
Text for plone.com will be ready by that mini sprint. CC4 with protection for trademarks of sponsors.
Reminder to Paul to check on trademark questions.
Érico is checking on World Plone Day organizing. The date conflicts with PLOG.
Cris reported that the AWS account is set up. Cris will work on transferring Asko’s donated credits.
Cris said he’ll miss every other meeting for the next few minutes. Alex expects to miss 20 March.
Adjourned at 21:16 UTC