Proposal Libre Graphics Meeting 2025 in Nürnberg/Nuremberg, Germany

[Lasse Fister]

Thanks Timothée,

I'm back on the topic and I'm trying to build a complete understanding
of the organizational requirements. 

For once, I need that to write to and talk to potential venues, but
also, to understand which kinds of financial transaction will be
required, so I can set up and handle them appropriately.

Further, in two weeks, June 26th to 29th, the openSUSE Conference (oSC)
is in Nuremberg. I'm planning to give a presentation about the
undertaking of bringing LGM to Nuremberg in 2025 in order to reach out
locally in search for a team, partners and supporters.

In both cases I don't want to tell wrong things to the people and in
general I want to represent the community appropriately.

The https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/ [1] website is very helpful. On
one hand the archive of older editions really helps to get an idea of
the extend an LGM can have and it has a lot of inspiration in there. On
the other hand https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm especially under
"LGM set up" but also under /lgm/ideas/lgm-board/ and /ideas/libre-
graphics-association/ a lot of the spirit is transported.

However, it feels a lot like archaeology, as it seems to me like not
much of the aspired organizational structure is left.

> As far as I know, all the organization is done by the local team.
> [...]
> Only for the talks selection we use to have a selection committee.

This is interesting, especially when looking
at https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm/public-documentation/ and other
discussions it seems to me like there's extensive interest of the
online community to shape the event. I've been at many LGMs so I
believe I have a good understanding of the culture and expectations,
I'm also thankful for the existing docs. However, as it seems, there
has not been a board or similar (ever?), just talk about it.
I also see sometimes mentioned a "Global Organization" team,
e.g. https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm/about/organization-team/ ,but
I don't see what their tasks were.
Your answer is a lot like a blank cheque for the local organization.
But one of the risks I see, that decisions may not be OK for some/all
of the community. E.g. there's a discussion about rules for
sponsoring: https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm/public-documentation/rules-for-sponsoring/
I also see that that discussion is not finished, but you get the idea.
In general, as it seems to me, there's a lot of burden and
responsibility on the local organization also taking the risks of any
decisions.
How can I or potential partners be sure that I actually represent the
"LGM"? Is there a scenario where the endorsement of my efforts can be
removed?

I'm sure we'll find more tasks that can be handled from anywhere, and
as we do and require it, I'll ask here for help.

Another one about decision making: I see the GNOME Foundation is
mentioned in https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm/ideas/lgm-board/

This quote is about collecting sponsoring funds:

>  The money doesn’t need to be in the bank, it needs to be secured by
> the simple mean of a written agreement, an exchange of emails, and an
> invoice sent from the GNOME Foundation to the sponsor.

and this one is about instructing the payment of the travel
reimbursements:

> The data is easily exportable to a spreadsheet we share with the
> GNOME administrative staff.

What has happened to that relationship with the GNOME foundation? Is
there any documentation about the agreement or required/possible
interaction with the foundation?  It could be a good blueprint for
whatever I have to establish.

I also ask, because I can talk to the Geeko Foundation
(https://geekos.org/) about providing similar services to us. They have
a board meeting at the oSC and in general a fitting mission statement.

I also consulted the lawyer of my company
(BTW: https://strong-type.systems/), whether it would be possible to
handle this kind of transactions via my company or if it would be
(more) feasible to create a non-profit for the task. Waiting for the
reply so far.

More specifically, the sponsoring-reimbursement-complex creates the
biggest questions for
me. https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm/ideas/lgm-board/ mentions it a
lot and highlights the difficulties. I believe, without help, I won't
be able to secure sponsoring for the event that also covers travel
expenses. But there seem to be knowledgeable people around:

> [...] some of us who have been involved into the process of getting
> the money in

Is there anyone who can tell me more about:

- More concrete numbers about the expected costs.
- Is it important for sponsors to get a "tax deductible relief" from a
non profit?
- Is it important where that non-profit is located: e.g. USA, UK,
Germany?
- I need to understand how the reimbursements are handled from the
bookkeeping and tax paying perspective. AFAIK, there will be no proper
invoices for this.
- Is there documentation on the numbers of the past?

The next important tasks are, somehow interrelated:

- Get a venue and a date.
- Get a structure to handle money flow.
- Start search for a sponsoring a budget.
- Team.

I'll soon kick off the active part of the quest for a venue and I'm
working to understand the financial requirements.

For the future, I'd like to develop an understanding on how to support
local organizers better, in order to make it lower-threshold to
organize an LGM. There's a lot valuable information and discussion on
the website, but, as I said before, it seems there's not much structure
behind it anymore.

Lasse



On Thu, 2024-05-23 at 12:38 +0200, Timothée Giet wrote:
> Hello Lasse,
> 
> Great to see you back on next year's organization topic!
> I'll try to answer some of your questions below.
> 
> Le 23/05/2024 à 09:56, Lasse Fister a écrit :
> > Hello everyone,
> > 
> > it was great to be back an LGM in Rennes two weeks ago and to meet
> > for
> > real again! Many thanks to the organizers for the reboot!
> > 
> > When I went to the organization meeting for next year, I thought
> > I'd
> > get information about what needs to happen from my side for a
> > proper
> > proposal from me for Nuremberg for 2026 or later. However, due to
> > the
> > lack of proposals for 2025, I agreed to try to get an edition for
> > 2025
> > going in Nuremberg. Because it is a complete cold start for me, I
> > set
> > the condition that I'd need to assemble a local organizer team etc.
> > and
> > see how it evolves.
> > I had a busy time directly after the meeting, but now I want to
> > renew
> > my pledge to try to make this happen. This also marks the kickoff
> > of my
> > efforts, I'll start to contact local people and organizations in
> > order
> > to assemble a team, find a location and sponsoring.
> > 
> > I went to LGM since Leipzig in 2014, with the exception of Rio de
> > Janeiro, but I never took part in organizing. It would be very
> > helpful
> > if we could establish communication channels and create some
> > knowledge
> > transfer. I'm not sure if the mailing list is ideal for it though.
> > 
> > I have some immediate questions as well:
> > 
> > How is the division of labor between the local organization and the
> > LGM
> > network/board? Is there any general board/organization left at all,
> > is
> > it this list, or is there rather just ad-
> > hoc/decentralized/spontaneous
> > collaboration? (BTW, the website is down again, but archive.org
> > works, 
> > https://web.se.org/web/20230604114444/https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm/about/organization-team/
> > is the best I could find.)
> 
> As far as I know, all the organization is done by the local team.
> Only 
> for the talks selection we use to have a selection committee. You can
> make a call for interested people to join that committee on this list
> when launching the call for proposal, so people will have some time
> to 
> react and join.
> 
> 
> > 
> > What kind of work can I expect from the general LGM, e.g. review
> > and
> > selection of talk proposals, collecting sponsoring for travel
> > reimbursement and handing it out. Is there a bank account
> > somewhere?
> 
> There is no general LGM organization/association/legal entity.
> Usually 
> all is handled by the local team.
> 
> So to answer your related question below: yes it's probably a good
> idea 
> to create a local organization to handle the finances part, unless
> you 
> have good contact with an existing local organization which you can 
> trust and would agree to handle that.
> 
> > 
> > What are the minimal tasks of the local team, what would be nice to
> > have? At least, we need a location. I also have the impression that
> > the
> > design and website is usually made locally. Video recording is
> > mentioned at .
> 
> The tasks of the local team are:
> 
> - to find a venue, and propose some dates. Most of the time the
> venues 
> have been provided free of cost by interested entities... The most 
> common is to get in contact with the local university, see if they
> would 
> be ok to host the event. Or a local artistic or developer
> organization 
> with an appropriate venue which could be interested...
> 
> - to find some financial sponsoring. It is mostly needed to provide 
> travel support for speakers, maybe rent some hardware if needed 
> depending on what's available at the venue, then if there's more it
> can 
> be used to organize a community event (like the dinner evening we did
> for example), print some t-shirts, or other related expenses. So,
> having 
> financial sponsoring is not a hard requirement but highly recommended
> to 
> ease all of these points.
> 
> Video recording is a nice thing to have, though not directly
> mandatory. 
> For sponsoring, you might discuss with Dave Crossland who has been
> able 
> to get some from Google for several years, with one of the
> requirements 
> being to have the talks recorded and uploaded on youtube...
> 
> - to make the website and design, yes. You can reuse some content of 
> previous years for the generic pages, and probably get some help from
> some people on this list if needed. The website can be simple, and
> the 
> logo design can be the generic one (there's no requirement to make a 
> yearly adaptation of it, though it's a nice thing to have). About the
> technical details to publish the website, that should be discussed 
> further in a dedicated topic (currently, Ale manages the publishing 
> rights, and AFAIK the domain is handled by Louis, but the host seems
> not 
> very reliable, so we might consider migrating it...)
> 
> - launch the call for proposals, organize the selection committee, 
> communicate with the speakers to organize things. For speakers travel
> support, usually it only covers the travel part, not the hosting or
> food 
> (though with a very big budget it could include that, but it's
> usually 
> not expected).
> 
> - and of course, run the event when the date comes...
> 
> > 
> > Handling of the finances. E.g. How would a sponsor for the
> > location get
> > funding to the "LGM" and how would "LGM" transfer that to the
> > location.
> > Maybe the location is a bad example, and usually done differently,
> > but
> > there must be some way to receive and spend a local budget. Do I
> > need
> > to find or create a local organization that can handle this kind of
> > finances?
> > 
> > I believe it's most important to find a location quickly, but a
> > local
> > team and budget are interdependent with that.
> > 
> > I'd be thankful for further urgent topics that need consideration.
> > 
> > Cheers, Lasse
> 
> I hope this answers your questions, I'll let the others complement if
> they see any important missing point. And don't hesitate if you have 
> some more questions.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Timothée
> 


[1] https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/
    https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm/public-documentation/
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