Proposal Libre Graphics Meeting 2025 in Nürnberg/Nuremberg, Germany

[Contact AFGRAL LGM]

Hi Lasse

I’ll try to answer as precisely as possible. But in some ways you went
further than us because i didn’t even remembre that there was a public
documentation that had been set up :-( That could have answer some of
my own questionning.


Le jeudi 13 juin 2024 à 18:06 +0200, 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.
> 
> 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/ 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.

indeed, there is not really an organizational structure, mostly just
people who do it, with the help of their own local network. What we may
have called the "board" is informal, and anyone who wishes can be part
of it. 
We called for it this year for the traditional talk-selection-meeting
but nobody showed up.

Your mission, i guess, is to make things go on, and keep the
spirit/culture (if there is one), and avoid hurting.
You may expect online people to help on some tasks, and we tried to
keep them alive as far as we knew them. In some ways, it’s a kind of
respect for interested contributors (be it on LGM or softwares), to
give has much feedback and be as inclusive as we can.
But really, i guess, there is no real rules for the organization. Plus,
the setup documentation seems to have been written in a time LGM when
was much bigger and with people more regularly involved. It doesn’t
mean it is not helpful, but that you don’t have to stick to it,
especially if it make things difficult. Process must be related to the
size : if the event is small, and organized by a small team, let it be
agile. 

>From people written has board member, only one was here this year
(Guess :-) ) and we had emails with 2 others, and just one helping
(just a bit, but enough to avoid blocking situations). So…


If you want to set up on board, or several, you’re free to set it, and
organize online meetings, if that helps.
In Rennes, we were few, but we were at least 3 people really on it.
It’s not that you will have to many tasks, because managing a team is
one too, but sometimes, it helps to make decisions (be they right or
not but you share the responsabilities, which can help sleeping well).


> 
> > 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/ ,b
> ut 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.

I think you got it. We may ask to sevilla or sarrebruck which were both
just before COVID break. 

> 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?

You can’t. In some ways, I think you should think of the LGM as a free
software project : people who do decide, how they do it, according the
the software culture and eventually open meetings to help make
decision. But in some ways it wouldn’t be fair that people who are not
in your situation to tell you how it should be done. You have some kind
of base source code, add your feature, or some kind of Helvetica
variation to be done, you have to stick to it, but not be afraid making
new changes, because they could be valuable. Otherwise, just stick to
the original.

This year, our consideration were :
- make it happen anyway because if not, it should end for ever and we
didn’t want
- make it for people interested in
- make it as a chance to make developpers (of any kind) and power user
meet, aiming at software improvements. We avoid the burden of local
amateur coming to discover (we had 3 unknown people that came only, but
some others LGM where really different).
- Go on with usual "where next year" :-)

> 
> 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.

of course. You’re welcome to do it.

> 
> 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 don’t exactly. And we didn’t contact them. When we had to organized
the 2020 LGM, we asked Sarrebruck’s team and they didn’t mention that. 
As i heard, they were sometimes slow the answer emails, that make
things more difficult to organize and unsafe. Make some guy of Gimp
team could say more because i guess they are more in touch with team. 
Remember that at first, LGM was an opening of the annual gimp meet,
which was part of Gnome. 

In Rennes, We had fund from Google Fonts and Font Bureau, thanks to
Dave. But that was all, and the deal, as been made directly with our
non-profit organization. It helps beeing efficient, i guess, to have
all the keys in your hands. If i remember, it was the same for
Montreal, and may be Sarrebruck (remembering some talks we had).

So if you have a non-profit organisation around you that is dealing
with free software, you may shorten the decision path.
If you don’t have, asking Gnome foundation or another existing helping
organisation would be good.
As for using a company, we decided not to. As free software defenders,
we have build a company, and 2 non-profit organisation (depending on
the subject). It was clear for us that organising the LGM was not a
commercial event (it could have), but it’s our decision, based on our
point of view, and of our experience (including local laws, which might
be different in germany). Creating a non-profit organisation just for
LGM is may be too much, but if it is easy to create and destroy, why
not.

> 
> 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:

Travel expenses are a big deal. When there is money it always is.
Usually, we assume that sponsor is to help things happen :
First of all, help people come because contributors already give their
time, they shouldn’t pay to meet their team, or other teams. Some LGM
didn’t reimburse all the individuals fees. But usually, people that
make a presentation get back some part of it. This year we did 100%
reimbursement because there was not hundreds of talks, but some at
Montreal, or Wroklaw, were big. And some  were further, so there was
more travel fees, so more expensive. 
We are happy that we didn’t have bad news for speakers this year, but
we had to get prepared to. And if font bureau would not help, our non-
profit organization had a bit of money left from previous event we
could use.
But the fees we had to reimburse for real was nearly 50% more than
expected at first sight (speaker had to give an amount when proposing
their talk). I guess that there is something to manage better on this
side, still to decide how.

sometimes there might be additional costs :
- venue : if you can’t get one free, that could be expensive. In
Rennes, we asked for some other place a bit bigger than ours (made for
non-profit organisation) but prices were about 6000€ per day, including
security people (mandatory) and other things like that (table,
chairs…). Well we made our decision, hoping that everyone would fit in.
Hopefully, we were right.
- video capturing (sponsors may like it, for example that was part of
the deal with Google + publish them on youtube). This year we hired a
guy to do it, because our team was too few to be full time on it. I
guess Sarrebruck team didn’t have to, and previously there was an
insider that don’t come anymore. May be there could be a deal with a
local video non-profit organisation.
- food/coffee (but not so expensive) : we had it cheap by donating to
some Video-game non profit organisation in which we contribute knowing
that they had just bought some big coffee machine, table, benches…
- advertising (Sarrebruck and Sevilla did)
- several kind of material : for exemple this year, we rent the display
Screen (cheaper and best color than a projector) and rent little truck
to get it from and back.
- t-shirts : not so expensive but we lost money on them this year (that
the related disadvantage of being few)

But mostly, the amount of fees will be related to the size of the event
and the constraints that your partner will ask for. As for us, we want
as few as possible.

> 
> > [...] 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.

i just finish publishing the video, so not really made the exact
calculation.
But what i have actually is that were about :
expenses 9547 €
sponsor income 10000$ (about 8900€)

> - Is it important for sponsors to get a "tax deductible relief" from
> a non profit?

as we had only one, i can’t tell, because he is not just a sponsor, but
a former LGM supporter and contributor.
I would say, it depends. 
But sometimes, it depends of the local situation : in France, not all
non-profit organisation are allowed to be tax deductible. It only
happens in special cases and it’s a lot of work and proof to get it
here.

> - Is it important where that non-profit is located: e.g. USA, UK,
> Germany?

I guess not. Font bureau or Google Font were not in France and i’m
happy they could help even if i don’t always support Google. 
We are not good at getting sponsors, but Femke was. If you are, don’t
be afraid.


> - 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.

Yep, that’s a point why it is difficult to make a company handle the
event.
It’is even difficult to get all the ticket with a right price on it.
This might also be something you would have take care of in advance,
may be by being more explicit on rules.
It was not a problem for us because we don’t have a big deficit, but i
have to say that when i saw some tickets as i was a bit scared every
would be similar :-(

> - Is there documentation on the numbers of the past?

I asked on Sarrebruck’s  (last LGM before Rennes) i didn’t get any. I
didn’t ask for other.

> 
> 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.

Developping an understanding, making how-to’s aso might be helpful.
It’s a longstanding discussion. IMO, if the previous team help the
next, we should improve a bit at each iteration without being too
square. But once again, it depends of the goal your aiming at.

you can send directly to my email if you don’t want to pollude the
mailing list. I’ll to be in touch. I used to be always an IRC, but it
costed me a lot, but i would be glad to do it if it can avoid you some
stress.

cheers
Cedric