Hey Arnulf, I had no idea this was happening behind the scenes, so e-mails like this are good IMHO.
If I was OsGeo I would ask the current set of regular sponsors if they would be interested at all to sponsor in Beijing. Or has such a survey taken place already? If the outcome is negative, I personally would not take the financial risk, even with a great FOSS4G organizer as Jeff taking it on. Best regards, Bart -- Bart van den Eijnden OSGIS - http://osgis.nl On Nov 18, 2011, at 12:28 PM, Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) wrote: > Folks, > the OSGeo Board of Directors meets once a month in a public meeting on > IRC. We then discuss the agenda which has been prepared on the OSGeo > Wiki [1]. Thanks to Gary Sherman the meetings are logged [2]. We hold > the meetings openly and every now and then somebody outside of the board > has an interjection - which can be very helpful indeed. At the last > meeting Gary Sherman suggested that we should circulate the results from > our meetings because not that many people follow the board mailing list > [3] read the minutes [4] or even the logs [5]. > > Currently we meet every second Thursday of a month at 17:00 UTC on IRC. > We also aim at meeting in person at least once each year, usually during > the FOSS4G conference. > > One item I was explicitly asked to highlight to the broader community > relates to FOSS4G 2012 in Beijing [6]. There has been a lot of talk > about the challenges of this next edition of FOSS4G, these include > language and cultural differences, sheer physical distance of the venue > for many active OSGeo members, competing regional FOSS4G events, > including a new one very likely in North America and that we are already > very late in planning (we never had this little time to prepare). > Therefore in a mail from September [7] I voted against having FOSS4G in > Beijing but at the same time proposed a motion to hire Jeff McKenna for > money to help organize the FOSS4G 2012 in Beijing. Jeff is the chair of > the conference committee and helped organize every single FOSS4G we > have celebrated so far, so he is a perfect fit. But he cannot spend as > much time as will be required for FOSS4G in Beijing as a volunteer. The > motion was not accepted by the board and so there was no decision but > it started some thinking. > > Jeff is a member of the board of directors and to avoid a conflict of > interest he will abstain from any decision as suggested here [8]. The > next step will be a proposal from Jeff describing the required work load > and budget to get going. Then the board of directors will have to decide > how to go forward – and all of this must happen asap. > > You can see, this is a long ongoing process and all of it is openly > available but, as Gary pointed out, many will probably not know anything > about this. > > So what do you think in general. Is this type of informative mail > enough, or should we blog about the meetings in more detail, make a > video or fully socialmedialize them? (...please bear in mind that we > will then not be able to do other stuff, so it should better be > important, not just a nice to have). Suggestions are welcome. > > Thanks, > Arnulf > > [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board > [2] http://irclogs.geoapt.com/osgeo/ ...starting at 17:03:02 > [3] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board > [4] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_2011-11-10#Minutes > [5] http://irclogs.geoapt.com/osgeo/%23osgeo.2011-11-10.log > [6] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2012 > [7] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2011-September/008872.html > [8] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2011-September/008894.html > > -- > The Open Source Geospatial Foundation > Arnulf Christl, President > http://www.osgeo.org > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.osgeo.org > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >
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