Re: GUADEC Sponsorship price increases

[Dave Neary <dneary free fr>]

Hi Paul,

Paul Cooper wrote:
<snip>

> These all seems reasonalbe to me, although there were some concerns
> expressed about the figures that Bastien set, in that they might move
> above 'normal' people budget threshold and require very senior
> management and therefore be harder get and take longer to approve.
> However Bastien seemed confident from his experience in and with big
> corps.
> 
> This also brings another question / issue. We've been debating how to
> setup Gnome-UK to deal financially with GUADEC. Should we create
> what's called here a clubs and societies account or should Bastien,
> Thos, and I create a limited company, hire an accountant (as
> recommended in Quim's HOWTO), and get a 'company' bank account (and
> then wind it up and send any surplus to the foundation). Or just let
> the Foundation hold all the money, with the downside that since it's
> US based, we have to do some convaluted currency transfer for each
> transaction and thereby lose a chunk of the sponsorship to the banks
> charges.
> 
> Guidance from the Board on which (or another) road to take would be
> welcome. Also how would the Board like us to report GUADEC progress -
> I'm happy to join the conference call at a specific time or submit a
> monthly progress report?

If guidance from the board is what you want, then guidance from the
board is what you shall get :) /me opens the floor.

For progress reports, once a month is more than enough. A short email
splitting things up into separate streams (say, conference schedule,
marketing, volunteer organisation, accommodation, receptions,
sponsorship/finances?) would be brilliant. A projected budget for the
conference will help, if you can keep one and keep it up to date.

It's especially important that we're in the loop during delicate periods
where the financial risk is the highest - securing the site, deciding a
provisional travel budget for participants (which sponsorship catches
up), putting you in contact with keynote candidates if we can. There are
3 board members on the GUADEC lists so as long as your process is open
(all meetings are minuted pretty quickly, all discussions and decisions
documented) we should be pretty well in the loop.

If you have questions (especially of a financial or confidential
nature), then going straight to the board or guadec-planning will do
grand. And if you feel there's a need, don't hesitate to ask for a few
minutes of a board meeting to present particular concerns (we'll return
the favour).

For the company, here's my two cents: you will need a bank account to
receive money locally. I'd recommend against it being a private bank
account. You will need to be very very careful about the tax
implications (both for the structure you create, if any, in the UK, and
for the foundation). If possible, I would recommend that all money go
through an account owned by GNOME-uk (if one exists). If you don't have
one, then partnering with an association might be the easiest thing to
do - say linux.org.uk?

I don't know if the overhead of creating a limited company and opening a
company bank account is worth it - and that path certainly creates the
greatest number of questions for me in terms of tax implication (an area
I don't know squat about, and which scares me a little.

For those tax questions, we would probably have to ask our accountant
and/or lawyer about it - in the meantime, I've added the Legal list as a
CC so that they can comment.

>> As I mentioned to Paul this week, it will be useful to have a
>> budget to know how much the conference will cost (rather than just
>> saying "a bit more than last year", I mean) since I'd like the
>> board to have a rough budget for the year before the end of
>> January.
> 
> The budget will be the main point of order at our next meeting
> (probably on the 20th).

Great. Thanks.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
Dave Neary
dneary free fr