[FAmSCo] Budget information, updates.

[Robyn Bergeron]

On 07/25/2012 09:34 AM, Christoph Wickert wrote:
> Am Dienstag, den 24.07.2012, 11:23 -0400 schrieb Robyn Bergeron:
>> On 07/24/2012 10:43 AM, Christoph Wickert wrote:
>>
>>> FAmSCo had to dramatically cut costs in Q4 of FY12 because we were told
>>> we were more or less out of money. We postponed whatever was possible
>>> and only spent money on sending people to events or reimbursing them,
>>> but all swag production had come to a stop. Here in EMEA we are out of
>>> swag except stickers and cheatcubes ad people beg for shirts and stuff.
>> I totally understand - though I can't recall if it was that we were told
>> that we were out of money, or just that the lack of updates to the
>> budget made it hard for us to tell if we were close, or not, or... what,
>> and I know that we have always been very careful with spending.
> We were explicitly told we are out of money. We asked for figures,
> waited for weeks and then were told that only 5k from the global budget
> and 2k from discretionary funds was left. There was a lot left for
> premiere events, but we still had FUDCon NA, several FADs and a lot of
> unpaid bills from previous FUDCons left.
>
> That was back in October [1], so basically we cut all possible spending
> until the end of FY12. If we don't spend any money for 4-5 months, it
> makes perfect sense that we only spend 2/3 or our budget.
>
> But not only that: We were told that for FY13 we would get a the same
> budget again or even 20k more, but instead we get ~40k (or ~60k) less
> than before.
>
>>> What else is needed to get back to the old budget? Will we need to spend
>>> all money and have the budget increase over time (years!) or is there a
>>> quicker way to restore the previous state?
>> As I noted in the previous mail - I think the best way is to probably
>> spend (responsibly) as close to the budget as we can, and if we have
>> absolute needs this year, we do have some room to grow beyond the amount
>> that was handed over,
> I think we do have needs, but we hardly can justify them as "absolute".
>
>> and I'm wanting to set that whole number for the
>> rest of the year so we know for sure what the total amount is.  The
>> numbers I have put together show an amount that is about 20k over what
>> was received (iirc) (and of course is not set in stone as to what it has
>> to be spent on).
> Is there a place to look at these numbers?
The numbers are on the wiki page that I previously referenced.
>
>> And I expect that as we approach the end of the year
>> we will have a much better idea of what we have or have not spent, so
>> that we don't wind up again in a use-it-or-lose-it budget situation.
> I think we will always be in this situation. You never know what is
> going to come, so you are more careful at the beginning of the year. As
> you get a better picture on the one hand and  less money remains on the
> other, you can try to match it.
>
>> For future years - I think we absolutely can grow the budget, especially
>> if we have a reasonable, concrete plan for who we want to reach, what we
>> want to spend, etc., what kind of increase we want.
> Frankly speaking I don't want to justify our spending because I thing we
> already have all this in the older budgets. I am just asking to get back
> what we had and the numbers from previous years should be sufficient,
> shouldn't they?
Yes, they should have been sufficient during the time when budget 
planning was occurring. We're well past that now.  I'm trying to justify 
why this amount is insufficient for the duration of this year; if you 
don't want to justify it, that's fine, but I'm still going to do my best 
to get what I can get. Max did the work to justify the spending to his 
boss in the past, by looking at this information, quarter by quarter, 
and I am now doing my best to cobble things together from the data that 
I have.

>
>> In particular, I
>> think that we are going to continue to see our needs for spending
>> increasing probably more rapidly in APAC and LATAM - simply because we
>> spend so little currently, and I think that those regions are continuing
>> to expand and mature. EMEA and NA certainly have their needs increasing
>> as well, but I think we have good coverage on major events right now,
>> where we may not have as much coverage in the other areas.
> Well, we have good coverage but we certainly could do better. Take
> LinuxTag for example: One of the biggest events in EMEA (if not the
> biggest). I have been organizing it for the last two years and I have
> reduced costs every year. Last year we spent ~3500 EUR. This year we
> roughly spent the same amount but with 900 EUR for hot dogs included.
>
> We managed to lower the costs by bringing less people to Berlin. You
> don't need 20 or 30 ambassadors, if you have the right people, 6 are
> enough to keep a good booth running for 4 days. However it will not
> really help Fedora in long term. In the past we had more people there
> and even though not all of them helped at the booth, we had a lot of fun
> and managed to grow our community. Getting together with other people
> who are passionate about Fedora or Free software will encourage people
> to spend (more) time on Fedora and definitely does help to attract new
> contributors. However we hardly can measure the success and will never
> be able to justify it as an "absolute need".
>
>> So,
>> definitely - as we get towards the end of the year - thinking about
>> maybe doing things that are new and strategic, and thinking about how
>> much that would cost - as well as considering how our basic needs around
>> the world are increasing - are things we want to do.
> I would like to spend more money on non-ambassadors, e.g. for sending
> technical people to technical events. But I have no idea about these
> events or how much they would cost us.
Yes, and I know that inode0 has had at least a draft for this in the past.
>
>> So I guess to answer that more concisely: Unless we have a serious
>> emergency or critical need, I think an increase is going to be not
>> absolutely immediate, but I think that it's certainly something we can
>> hope to get back to sooner than over a period of years, and I think that
>> the more detail we have around planning for next year, the more likely
>> we are to be able to enhance it.
> Given these numbers and facts, it's really hard for me to keep this
> discussion positive, I am just disappointed. Serious damage has been
> done to Fedora and it will take us years (at least two) to recover.
>   
> Kind regards,
> Christoph
>
>
> [1]
> https://fedoraproject.org/w/index.php?title=Community_Architecture_expenses&oldid=266369
>
>
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