Re: Proposal Libre Graphics Meeting 2025 in Nürnberg/Nuremberg, Germany

[Timothée Giet]

Hi Lasse,

Le 13/06/2024 à 18:06, Lasse Fister a écrit :
> 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.

Good luck with both !

>
> 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/ 
> <https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm/public-documentation/> 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.

Great that you found this link, indeed it contains lots of useful info, 
even though some are dated/obsolete...

>
> 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.

Yes, according to that page there used to be a board at some point... 
I'm not sure when it stopped but probably a long time ago..

> 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.

There used to be a global organization team... However, many people in 
the list on this page are not really active anymore. And it looks like 
the lack of events the last few years made it fade away... For sure it 
would be great to revive it.

> 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?

This is a bit special this time: in previous years, local organizers 
would first make a formal proposal, with a venue and as much details as 
possible, then it would be discussed during the event, eventually 
approved, and then once approved it would make them officially represent 
the LGM for the next steps... The ideal being to have proposals accepted 
2 years in advance to make it easier...

But as this process of proposal/venue selection has been rebooted, it's 
obviously more difficult. As you didn't yet make a complete proposal 
with a venue, we didn't officially announce it publicly yet. Though if 
you're committed to make it happen as much as possible, and others 
agree, and (afaik) as there's no other ongoing work to make it happen in 
another place for next year, maybe we can already make a semi-official 
announcement if it can help you in the process? @everyone: please 
speak-up your thoughts about it.

About "Is there a scenario where the endorsement of my efforts can be 
removed?", I would say unless you do something really bad, that's 
unlikely to happen. If you have any serious doubt about a decision, best 
is to ask here.

>
> 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.

Yes, sure :) It'll be a good way to see who's still alive and willing to 
participate to the global organization.

>
> 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.

This info looks quite obsolete. I don't know more about this part of 
history, maybe someone else can answer what happened there. As far as I 
know that part (collecting funds and handling travel reimbursements) has 
been handled by local organizers for many years already.

>
> 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.

 From a quick look it looks like a good fit if they are interested to 
get involved in this...

>
> 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.

Getting such advice could be useful, yes. Creating a dedicated 
non-profit would surely be more work than delegating that part to a 
separate entity, though it might be easier to handle in the long run 
(depending on your relationship with that entity and how reactive it is).

>
> 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?

As I didn't personally handle the financial part, I can't answer most of 
these questions. Only that for reimbursements, of course people need to 
provide a copy of their expenses bills for the bookkeeping.

I let others with more insight on this points answer you.

>
> 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.

Yes, if you can take notes about your process, it can help to shape more 
up-to-date info for next organizers. That sounds highly welcome.

Let's hope that by LGM 2025 we'll have a solid proposal for 2026, and 
maybe even for 2027 ;)

Again, thanks a lot for your efforts, and I wish you best luck in the 
next steps !

Timothée

>
> Lasse
>
>