[Linux-aus] Candidacy Support Statement - President or Ordinary Council Member

Sat Nov 26 16:20:09 AEDT 2016

That's a great list of actions. No question we need much of that to happen. 

But where will the revenue come from to pay for this? 

Via mobile. 

> On 26 Nov. 2016, at 14:45, Kathy Reid <kathy at kathyreid.id.au> wrote:
> 
> Thank *you* for a well considered question, Donna!
> 
> Firstly I think there's a bit more nuance to the positions Hugh and I
> hold - and again I want to underline how much we respect each other's
> positions - and how willing we are to work again together next year. Our
> positions are not so much 'Sustain and maintain' vs 'Grow' as 'Pare back
> what we do maintain' vs 'Invest in things that help us sustain'.
> 
> As an incorporated association, there's a lot of administrivia we have
> to do simply to maintain compliance with Fair Trading NSW - the
> regulatory body under which we are incorporated. This includes keeping
> accurate books, accurate register of members, handling insurances, doing
> annual reports, keeping minutes etc. Think of this as the bare minimum
> we have to do - without doing these tasks we aren't legally allowed to
> operate. Because of the size of the events we run now, and volume of
> events, this work is in itself high volume.
> 
> Couple this with some systems that, while once useful, and well
> intentioned by all, are now past their useful life - MemberDB, our
> website needs a refresh and so on - and we have a situation where it's
> harder to do the bare minimum. For example, to effect member renewal
> from our recent process, we need to manually execute SQL against
> MemberDB to expire members who didn't explicitly renew their membership.
> This is a several hour process for something that should be automated -
> less yak shaving is a good thing. Additionally, it's difficult to
> communicate with our members. We have lists and MemberDB, and people who
> are on lists who are not Members, and we have few ways - short of
> resorting to Mail Chimp - of reaching some people - as the 2013 Member
> survey [1] identified. So, we need to reduce the overhead in managing
> and communicating with members. We also maintain manual records of
> things like Event Leaders, Treasurers etc, but having a more accurate
> record of volunteer hours and input would be useful to identify items
> like who are our superstars, or where could we do better targeted comms
> - such as "send this key piece of information to all Treasurers of
> current events", or "send this useful open source program to people only
> in the North Queensland region".
> 
> Response #1: Transition from MemberDB to CiviCRM at a cost of approx
> $23k AUD, with ongoing opex of around $2.5k AUD annually and have a
> custom voting module developed to facilitate Elections (cost not yet
> estimated).
> 
> As also identified in the 2013 Member Survey, we don't have a pipeline
> of newer members, enthusiastic to volunteer their time to further our
> values [2]. While some events we auspice promote the values and brand of
> Linux Australia, for attendees of some events, LA is just a link in a
> footer. To continue to strengthen the organisation we need to encourage
> new membership - and to do that we need to focus on younger members,
> such as high school students and University students. Students generally
> get *fantastic* pricing to LA events - as we're investing in their
> future. But for us to invest in their future, they need to know about us!
> 
> Response #2: Develop and execute a formal recruitment program aimed at
> younger potential members, using an outsourcing model (cost not yet
> estimated, but likely low $AUD thousands)
> 
> A related issue is the ongoing engagement of existing members, and
> regularly communicating both with existing members, other partners,
> stakeholders and like-minded organisations through social media,
> newsletters, briefing papers, white papers and so on. At the moment our
> social media presence is minimal, largely because the Media and Comms
> Team is quite small and overlaps significantly with Council. There is
> opportunity here to engage communications professionals to assist with
> work that is not necessarily our key strength, but which has the
> potential to be valuable for the organisation as a whole. Similarly, our
> website, which has served us well for several years, is in need of an
> update, and restructuring to help further the organisation's values and
> objectives, and to help us partner effectively with organisations who
> share our values on projects or campaigns of mutual benefit.
> Additionally, with special thanks to Josh Stewart and Kimberlee
> Weatherall, LA has had a stronger voice in issues like the TPP and
> Copyright reform, and it would be ideal to continue these efforts
> without over-burdening the same people. We need to avoid burnout for the
> long term good of the organisation.
> 
> Response #3: Evaluate the cost/benefit/risk profile of outsourcing
> communication and engagement work to a paid professional (cost not yet
> estimated)
> 
> Response #4: Refresh linux.org.au (likely at same time as move from
> MemberDB to CiviCRM)
> 
> In terms of managing finances and risk, we've recently implemented the
> Treasury and Finance Committee - big shout out to Tony Breeds, Sae Ra
> Germaine, Russell Stuart, David Bell, Ritesh Kapoor and Jan Bryson for
> all your excellent efforts so far - and this will help to ensure
> additional oversight of LA and event budgets, better identification and
> management of risk via our Risk Register, and better 'pipeline' of
> members with knowledge of the organisation's finances and treasury
> operations, providing better Council succession planning. There may be a
> need here (less pressing than the above) to engage business advisory
> professionals in areas of risk management, project management and
> accountancy to provide guidance or templated responses to issues and
> risks we have - such as forecasting event cashflow throughout the year
> (current event budgets provide and overall profit and loss, but not
> projected cashflow, which is not usually a risk other than when two
> large events with large expenditures are run close together - such as
> Pycon AU and GovHack).
> 
> Response #5: Evaluate the need to engage business advisory services
> (cost of services not yet estimated).
> 
> 
> As always, we really, really appreciate this feedback, and such useful
> questions and probing - they help us shape, guide and steer the
> organisation in alignment with our members' wishes.
> 
> with kind regards,
> 
> K.
> 
> 
> [1] https://linux.org.au/news/news/linux-australia-member-survey-2013
> 
> [2] https://linux.org.au/values
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 26/11/16 13:40, Donna Benjamin wrote:
>> And yet again, we are talking more about style, and ignoring the substance. 
>> 
>> Kathy, Hugh - thank you for this deeply considered approach to leading our organisation. 
>> 
>> It is indeed an inflexion point. 
>> 
>> I'm, as yet, somewhat on the fence. 
>> 
>> Sustain and maintain is compelling. Simply because LA provides a critical service supporting open source events. 
>> 
>> Growth is compelling, LA has barely scratched the surface of its potential. 
>> But this also puts the onus on future committees to do more in order to sustain and maintain.  
>> 
>> I'd like to hear more on how you foresee resourcing those efforts. 
>> 
>> - Donna. 
>> 
>> Via mobile. 
>> 
>>>> On 26 Nov. 2016, at 11:48, Craige McWhirter <craige at mcwhirter.com.au> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> On Wed, Nov 23, 2016 at 14:16:17 +1100, Hugh Blemings wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Now I think about it, that is a a markdown - style idiom, so perhaps that's
>>>> what's done it.
>>> Hugh's email rendered perfectly in Mutt, so I'd concur with Chris and Hugh
>>> that Russell's KMail client is attempting to interpret the text as something
>>> other than plain text.
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Craige McWhirter
>>> M: +61 4685 91819
>>> W: https://mcwhirter.com.au/
>>> GNUSocial: https://social.mcwhirter.io/craige
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> linux-aus mailing list
>>> linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au
>>> http://lists.linux.org.au/mailman/listinfo/linux-aus
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> 
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