Mailing List Archive: Thoughts about a future board budget meeting (or budget board meeting ?)

Thoughts about a future board budget meeting (or budget board meeting ?)

May 11, 2005, 1:40 AM

Post #1 of 9 (714 views)

Hi Mav et al

I think the board should do a budget/financial meeting soon. The last one was done a trimester ago, so it is high time.

It seems to me we probably largely differed from our first trimester budget planning (but I may be wrong :-)). If so, I presume it will be due to the various hosting offers we got... In any cases, I think it would be most informative to see where we are going...

We need help from several of you to gather relevant information.

Mav
I have been wondering in the past few days if you could provide us an update on our financial situation ? Both general report (quick update on values) and later one of your nice quaterly report on the foundation website would be most welcome... I suppose you will answer me that you did not receive banking statements yet to do so... but I guess Terry could help there more than he could before.

Question for developers :
I'd like us to be informed on a non technical level of the future technical requirements to expect and possibly to be reminded how much we can expect from partners on this. Ie, how much is planned in the future to spend on servers, hosting and so on. I am sure you will answer it is tough to say, I know :-)
I also know Jimbo asked some related question not a long time ago. What did it boiled down to ? Do we have an idea of how much the tech side will cost in the coming months ?

Question for Danny and for those taking care of grants and prizes...
I think we have no grants planned right now (except for wikimania). Am I correct that we should not expect any income in the near future from that direction ?

The general idea would be to try to evaluate how long the money we have in the bank will last... and if we can envision spending some of it on more creative ways than servers :-)
Opinion on this topic ?

Also, depending on what is left, we must think of the time when the next fundraising will be reasonable to do. I suspect it is a bad idea to do it in summer... so, in short, do we need to plan something in june, or will we be able to last till september ?

Related question : if a fundraising is done before summer, will the french association be in time to be part of it ? Is it able to technically receive funds yet or not ?

Ant

PS : I must mention that we are currently stuck in a rather ridiculous situation. The french squids needs some RAM... this RAM can only be purchased in a few websites... which refuse american credit cards... so we are currently trying to have it bought by the german association... which legally is not really authorized to do this... so, either the french association quickly has cash to pay for such expenses, or the foundation should have a credit card in europe to take care of such matters... opinion ?

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Re: Thoughts about a future board budget meeting (or budget board meeting ?) [ In reply to ]

elian at djini

May 11, 2005, 2:15 AM

Post #2 of 9 (711 views)

Permalink

Anthere wrote:

> PS : I must mention that we are currently stuck in a rather
> ridiculous situation. The french squids needs some RAM... this RAM
> can only be purchased in a few websites... which refuse american
> credit cards... so we are currently trying to have it bought by the
> german association... which legally is not really authorized to do
> this... so, either the french association quickly has cash to pay for
> such expenses, or the foundation should have a credit card in europe
> to take care of such matters... opinion ?

Kurt ordered 9 RAM chips for the french squids on 3rd May, AFAIK.

greetings,
elian

Re: [Wikimediafr-l] Thoughts about a future board budget meeting (or budget board meeting ?) [ In reply to ]

beesley at gmail

May 11, 2005, 4:46 AM

Post #3 of 9 (711 views)

Permalink

On 5/11/05, Anthere <anthere9@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I think the board should do a budget/financial meeting soon. The last one
> was done a trimester ago, so it is high time.

Considering how difficult it has been to get the board together for a
meeting in the last month, I strongly suggest we have this as part of
the meeting planned for Monday 16th May rather than trying to find a
suitable point in Jimbo's schedule for two meetings.

> Question for Danny and for those taking care of grants and prizes...
> I think we have no grants planned right now (except for wikimania). Am I
> correct that we should not expect any income in the near future from that
> direction ?

Also, are there any grants out there that people think we _should_ be
applying for which we might not be aware of yet?

> Also, depending on what is left, we must think of the time when the next
> fundraising will be reasonable to do. I suspect it is a bad idea to do it in
> summer... so, in short, do we need to plan something in june, or will we be
> able to last till september ?

I'd prefer June since that is still within the 2nd quarter which is
when the next fundraising drive was expected.

> ...so, either the french
> association quickly has cash to pay for such expenses, or the foundation
> should have a credit card in europe to take care of such matters... opinion ?

Is there any reason we don't have a credit card on the Belgian account?

Angela.

Re: Thoughts about a future board budget meeting (or budget board meeting ?) [ In reply to ]

maveric149 at yahoo

May 11, 2005, 5:18 AM

Post #4 of 9 (713 views)

Permalink

--- Anthere <anthere9@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I think the board should do a budget/financial meeting soon. The last one was
> done a trimester ago, so it is high time.

Yep it is.

> It seems to me we probably largely differed from our first trimester budget
> planning (but I may be wrong :-)). If so, I presume it will be due to the
> various hosting offers we got... In any cases, I think it would be most
> informative to see where we are going...

I was planning on just asking the board to extend last quarter’s budget to also
cover this quarter, since that is what actually is happening. I had hoped that
we would *finally* be able to buy much more than we needed and thus get ahead
of traffic increases but that did not seem to happen. A supplemental budget
could be added along with a supplemental fund drive if needed.

> Mav
> I have been wondering in the past few days if you could provide us an update
> on our financial situation ? Both general report (quick update on values) and
> later one of your nice quaterly report on the foundation website would be
> most welcome... I suppose you will answer me that you did not receive banking
> statements yet to do so... but I guess Terry could help there more than he
> could before.

You suppose right. :) The problem has been on my end (my fax machine was not
working). As of this week it should be working now, so I’ll remind Terry about
that.

> Question for developers :
> I'd like us to be informed on a non technical level of the future technical
> requirements to expect and possibly to be reminded how much we can expect
> from partners on this. Ie, how much is planned in the future to spend on
> servers, hosting and so on. I am sure you will answer it is tough to say, I
> know :-)

Yes - this is very, very much needed. I asked for a needs/wants/wish list for
the last budget but that never materialized. Thus we brought in a whole bunch
of money with no concrete plan on how to spend it. That is not something I want
to repeat.

> The general idea would be to try to evaluate how long the money we have in
> the bank will last... and if we can envision spending some of it on more
> creative ways than servers :-)
> Opinion on this topic ?

We need some numbers on that first.

> PS : I must mention that we are currently stuck in a rather ridiculous
> situation. The french squids needs some RAM... this RAM can only be purchased
> in a few websites... which refuse american credit cards... so we are
> currently trying to have it bought by the german association... which legally
> is not really authorized to do this... so, either the french association
> quickly has cash to pay for such expenses, or the foundation should have a
> credit card in europe to take care of such matters... opinion ?

We could wire some money to the French chapter’s bank account.

-- mav

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Re: Re: [Wikimediafr-l] Thoughts about a future boardbudget meeting (or budget board meeting ?) [ In reply to ]

walter at vankalken

May 11, 2005, 5:57 AM

Post #5 of 9 (717 views)

Permalink

>Is there any reason we don't have a credit card on the Belgian account?
>
>Angela.
>
>
Just a wild guess ...... maybe because there is no money in that account
yet???

Walter

Re: Thoughts about a future board budget meeting (or budget board meeting ?) [ In reply to ]

anthere9 at yahoo

May 11, 2005, 9:11 AM

Post #6 of 9 (710 views)

Permalink

Elisabeth Bauer a écrit:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>> PS : I must mention that we are currently stuck in a rather
>> ridiculous situation. The french squids needs some RAM... this RAM
>> can only be purchased in a few websites... which refuse american
>> credit cards... so we are currently trying to have it bought by the
>> german association... which legally is not really authorized to do
>> this... so, either the french association quickly has cash to pay for
>> such expenses, or the foundation should have a credit card in europe
>> to take care of such matters... opinion ?
>
>
> Kurt ordered 9 RAM chips for the french squids on 3rd May, AFAIK.
>
> greetings,
> elian

Ah, thanks. This is good news :-)

ant

Re: [Wikimediafr-l] Thoughts about a future board budget meeting (or budget board meeting ?) [ In reply to ]

anthere9 at yahoo

May 11, 2005, 9:16 AM

Post #7 of 9 (709 views)

Permalink

Angela a écrit:
> On 5/11/05, Anthere <anthere9@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I think the board should do a budget/financial meeting soon. The last one
>>was done a trimester ago, so it is high time.
>
>
> Considering how difficult it has been to get the board together for a
> meeting in the last month, I strongly suggest we have this as part of
> the meeting planned for Monday 16th May rather than trying to find a
> suitable point in Jimbo's schedule for two meetings.

Quite true, but I am not sure we will have gathered all the relevant
information by monday... but we can try...

Mav, are you free on monday ?

<snip>

>>Also, depending on what is left, we must think of the time when the next
>>fundraising will be reasonable to do. I suspect it is a bad idea to do it in
>>summer... so, in short, do we need to plan something in june, or will we be
>>able to last till september ?
>
>
> I'd prefer June since that is still within the 2nd quarter which is
> when the next fundraising drive was expected.

I am not sure we should say "expected". We only need to do fundraising
if we have need of money...

>>...so, either the french
>>association quickly has cash to pay for such expenses, or the foundation
>>should have a credit card in europe to take care of such matters... opinion ?
>
>
> Is there any reason we don't have a credit card on the Belgian account?

I do not think there is a valid reason. I suggest we get one.

> Angela.

Re: [Wikimediafr-l] Thoughts about a future board budget meeting (or budget board meeting ?) [ In reply to ]

anthere9 at yahoo

May 11, 2005, 9:16 AM

Post #8 of 9 (711 views)

Permalink

Angela a écrit:
> On 5/11/05, Anthere <anthere9@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I think the board should do a budget/financial meeting soon. The last one
>>was done a trimester ago, so it is high time.
>
>
> Considering how difficult it has been to get the board together for a
> meeting in the last month, I strongly suggest we have this as part of
> the meeting planned for Monday 16th May rather than trying to find a
> suitable point in Jimbo's schedule for two meetings.

Quite true, but I am not sure we will have gathered all the relevant
information by monday... but we can try...

Mav, are you free on monday ?

<snip>

>>Also, depending on what is left, we must think of the time when the next
>>fundraising will be reasonable to do. I suspect it is a bad idea to
do it in
>>summer... so, in short, do we need to plan something in june, or will
we be
>>able to last till september ?
>
>
> I'd prefer June since that is still within the 2nd quarter which is
> when the next fundraising drive was expected.

I am not sure we should say "expected". We only need to do fundraising
if we have need of money...

>>...so, either the french
>>association quickly has cash to pay for such expenses, or the foundation
>>should have a credit card in europe to take care of such matters...
opinion ?
>
>
> Is there any reason we don't have a credit card on the Belgian account?

I do not think there is a valid reason. I suggest we get one.

> Angela.

Re: Re: [Wikimediafr-l] Thoughts about a future board budget meeting (or budget board meeting ?) [ In reply to ]

gerard.meijssen at gmail

May 11, 2005, 9:25 AM

Post #9 of 9 (712 views)

Permalink

Anthere wrote:

>
>
> Angela a écrit:
>
>> On 5/11/05, Anthere <anthere9@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>> ...so, either the french
>>> association quickly has cash to pay for such expenses, or the
>>> foundation
>>> should have a credit card in europe to take care of such matters...
>>> opinion ?
>>
>>
>>
>> Is there any reason we don't have a credit card on the Belgian account?
>
>
> I do not think there is a valid reason. I suggest we get one.
>
Hoi,
I learned that there is EUR 30,-- in that bank account. Until we have
some serious money in there I would not want to get a credit card for
this account.
Thanks,
GerardM