From secretary at linux.org.au Fri Sep 9 09:46:00 2016 From: secretary at linux.org.au (Linux Australia Vice President) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 09:46:00 +1000 Subject: [Announce] Final chance to confirm your Linux Australia membership Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, *TL;DR - If you got an email asking you to confirm your Linux Australia Membership, and you haven't confirmed either way, please do so. Final cutoff for this is Friday 16th September. * If you are currently a member of Linux Australia [1], you would have recently received an email to the email address we have on record for you. This email asked you to confirm your Linux Australia membership, or advise us that you no longer wish to be a member. We'd like to ask that you take a moment to check your email and respond as appropriate. * The original email was sent on 25-26th July. * The follow up email was sent on 17-18th August. For legal and constitutional reasons, and to aid decisions in regard to moving to a new membership platform, it is important that we have an up to date record of memberships. If we have no further confirmation from you by Friday, 16th September we will, with regret remove your membership of Linux Australia. We thank you in advance for your co-operation. With kind regards, Kathy Reid [1] Check your Membership details at http://linux.org.au/membership -- Kathy Reid Vice President Linux Australia secretary at linux.org.au http://linux.org.au Linux Australia Inc GPO Box 4788 Sydney NSW 2001 Australia ABN 56 987 117 479 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From secretary at linux.org.au Mon Sep 26 11:57:43 2016 From: secretary at linux.org.au (Linux Australia Vice President) Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2016 11:57:43 +1000 Subject: [Announce] Call for nominations - Treasury and Finance Subcommittee of Linux Australia Message-ID: <4b59248f-d212-dfed-2341-3dc05abeb4fd@linux.org.au> Dear Colleagues, This email is intended to inform you of the new Treasury and Finance Subcommittee, provide background information on why the Council believes it is required, and seek nominations for appointment to this Subcommittee. As always, your comments, queries and questions are warmly welcomed, via return email address or to whole of Council at council at linux.org.au. Nominations by return email should be rec'd by Monday 3rd October. Kind regards, Kathy Why is this Subcommittee required? Linux Australia has grown in size and scope over its fifteen-year-or-so history, and now auspices over half a dozen large events per year. It has a financial turnover in the order of $AUD 1 million. The scale of financial management now required for the organisation is a significant responsibility, which has been executed diligently and commendably by Treasurers current and past (Tony Breeds, Francois Marier and Josh Hesketh in recent history). This role is a large commitment for a volunteer. While we're currently documenting a number of our processes and procedure to make this easier, there are many 'ins and outs' of managing our finances that are difficult to document. A Subcommittee will thus help the sitting Treasurer both with operational management of finances, and also help to create a pipeline of community members who have the background, skills and aptitude to take on the Treasurer role in the future. What will the Subcommittee do? It is envisaged that some of the tasks with Subcommittee will do include: * Assist with account reconciliation * Assist with budgeting and reporting, particularly during preparation of reports for the Auditor, required at the AGM * Assist events with budgeting, reporting and use of the financial platform * Assist in maintaining Linux Australia's Risk Register Who can be on the Subcommittee? Any Linux Australia member can nominate and we'll appoint 2-3 nominees who can demonstrate an interest, desire or background in this area of management. What's in it for me? Like many open source volunteer roles, this one gives you exposure and experience in a large, complex organisation, and strong skills in bookkeeping and accounting. This role would strongly suit a university student or graduate in finance, accounting or economics, or someone who has experience as Treasurer with a Linux Australia event. This role will have privileged access to Linux Australia's corporate information and as such a great deal of trust will be placed in members of the Treasury and Finance Subcommittee. How do I nominate? Via return email to this address, secretary at linux.org.au by Monday 3rd October. What was the original motion? *MOTION* by Kathy Reid that a Finance and Treasury Subcommittee is formed, chaired by Treasurer, in line with S(21) of the Linux Australia constitution [1] with a remit to: * Assist the Treasurer to monitor and report on financial activities using the financial systems of Linux Australia * Provide advice and input to Treasurer and Council on preparation and execution of budgets and other financial interests * Own and maintain the organisation's Risk Register and provide advice to Treasurer and Council on risks and mitigation activities * Provide a pipeline for training and upskilling Members of Linux Australia interested in taking on the Treasurer role * Invite Members of Linux Australia to the Subcommittee as appropriate, providing that Council is informed when Members are appointed and/or removed -- Kathy Reid Vice President Linux Australia secretary at linux.org.au http://linux.org.au Linux Australia Inc GPO Box 4788 Sydney NSW 2001 Australia ABN 56 987 117 479 From president at linux.org.au Mon Sep 26 14:15:30 2016 From: president at linux.org.au (Hugh Blemings) Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2016 14:15:30 +1000 Subject: [Announce] An update on Linux Australia's activities Message-ID: <85958a9a-bd1f-303d-e77d-f9be7e7e0918@linux.org.au> Hi Everyone, Although many of you may read the Council minutes that are posted on the Linux Australia website [0], we'd also like to take the opportunity to keep you up to date on Council's actions, and the broader activities of Linux Australia. -= First majority female Linux Australia Council =- The new Council was elected at LCA Geelong in February, and for the first time in Linux Australia's 15 year history, the Council is majority female. Congratulations to Katie McLaughlin (OCM), Cherie Ellis (OCM), Craige McWhirter (OCM), Tony Breeds (Treasurer), Sae Ra Germaine (Secretary), Kathy Reid (Vice President) and Hugh Blemings (President). As always you can contact the Council at council at linux.org.au - such correspondence is of course treated in confidence. -= Linux Australia events =- The year got off to a great start with the excellent linux.conf.au 2016 Geelong - LCA By the Bay, and things are well underway for an equally memorable event in Hobart in January 2017. Miniconfs have just been announced, and our ever-amazing Papers Committee had a difficult job indeed choosing from the high calibre of submissions to the Call for Papers. Registrations to linux.conf.au will be open soon [1]. Bids for LCA2019 recently closed, and we?re delighted with the responses we received [2]. We?ll now work with the relevant folk to refine their bids, and the winner of LCA2019 will be announced in due course. May saw another successful WordCamp event run on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland [3]. Well done to Luke Carbis, Ricky Blacker and the whole crew for an excellent event. This weekend just gone saw an equally amazing WordCamp Sydney, held at UTS [4]. Big thanks to Wil Brown and the team for all their efforts here. Pycon-AU returned to Melbourne this year, held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre August 12th-16th. Some great work by Richard Jones and his team [5], thank you. This year, Linux Australia is once again auspicing GovHack Australia events, with the hackathon itself held over July 29th-July 31st. Big thanks to Richard Tubb, Alysha Thomas, Jan Bryson and the GovHack Global Operations Team for what is now recognised as one of the largest national hackathons in the world. The National Red Carpet Awards will be held in Adelaide in October - a huge congratulations to all teams who?ve made it through to the National Awards [6]. DrupalSouth this year heads to the Gold Coast October 27th-28th, led ably by Vladimir Roudakov and Janna Malikova [7]. Tickets are now available! If you're thinking about running an open-* event in your area, please do get in touch with us. -= Council Face to Face =- Council Face to Face was held in May, and we discussed a number of priorities for 2016 including making progress on Membership expiry/renewal and a new membership platform, improvements to the Code of Conduct and related processes and policies, among many other issues. We noted that Linux Australia's activities, particularly with events, have grown significantly in recent years, and many of our volunteers are now stretched. We explored ways to reduce this, such as onboarding additional volunteers, and identifying ways to outsource pieces of work where it makes sense to do so. One of the immediate pieces that came out of F2F was the need for Council to track yearly and regular activities, which have now been articulated to allow for better planning [8]. There are a number of pieces from F2F which are still works in progress such as a Process Manual, Risk Register and strengthening of our Code of Conduct. An extra special thanks to Joshua Hesketh, past President, for attending Face to Face to share his expertise and wisdom. -= Advocacy and government submissions =- In April Linux Australia made a submission to the Australian Government in relation to the Senate Committee on the Trans Pacific Partnership noting our significant concerns about the proposal. Our submission is #128 in the Parliamentary Joint Committee page [9] A direct link to the PDF is at [10]. In June a submission was made to the Australian Government Productivity Commission?s enquiry into Intellectual Property Arrangements - in which we sought to ensure the interests of Free and Open Source Software and Technologies were considered by the Commission. A PDF of the submission is here [11]. We are grateful for the tireless efforts of Josh Stewart on the preparation of these two submissions and to Kim Weatherall for her assistance with research and discussion of same. -= Grants and projects =- LA undertook charity matching at linux.conf.au 2016 Geelong, providing nearly $5k to charity Give Where You Live, which undertakes works of social good in and around Geelong, making a total of nearly $10k donated. LA also made a donation to Electronic Frontiers Association as part of an event partnership arrangement at linux.conf.au 2016 Geelong. We're currently in contact with the Software Freedom Conservancy, and intend to make a large donation to them shortly to support their important work. If you would like to seek a grant or project funding in line with LA's values, more information is available [12]. -= Membership renewal =- As part of moving towards a more robust Membership platform, we're currently undertaking a Membership Renewal activity. Huge thanks to everyone who responded to our recent mail out - your responses help to keep our membership information up to date. We're still sorting through responses but our active membership looks to be around 1,000 members. You can adjust your membership information at any time [13]. -= Treasury and Finance Subcommittee =- Council has recently voted to form a Treasury and Finance Subcommittee to support the Treasurer and to ensure we help build a pipeline of Members with the aptitude to take on this role in the future [14]. -= Next steps =- Over the coming months, Council will be busy with a number of pieces, including; * Wrapping up financials for the 2015-2016 financial year, which ends on September 30, and budgeting for the year 2016-2017 * Inspecting bids for LCA2019 * Progressing on work started on our Process Manual and Code of Conduct including the establishment of a subcommittee to assist with the latter. * Our Admin Team will be undertaking enhancements to the LA infrastructure, and our Membership Team will be continuing to strengthen our membership platform and website. As always, if you'd like to be involved in some capacity with LA's activities, we'd be delighted to hear from you. Elections for the Council are not far away, if you have the time, energy and passion to contribute, please consider throwing your hat into the ring when the time comes :) In closing my thanks to the Council for their efforts and in particular to Kathy Reid for doing the heavy lifting in preparing much of this summary. Kind Regards, Hugh Blemings President, Linux Australia [0] https://linux.org.au/news [1] https://linux.conf.au [2] http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/announce/2016-July/000226.html [3] https://2016.sunshinecoast.wordcamp.org/ [4] https://2016.sydney.wordcamp.org/ [5] https://2016.pycon-au.org/ [6] https://www.govhack.org [7] https://goldcoast2016.drupal.org.au/ [8] https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/blob/master/activities-calendar.md [9] http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Treaties/9_February_2016/Submissions [10] http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=38187468-9761-4e05-84f1-281ba68e65a8&subId=410396 [11] http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/201280/subdr488-intellectual-property.pdf [12] https://linux.org.au/our-projects [13] https://linux.org.au/membership [14] http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/2016-September/022801.html