Re: GUADEC Sponsorship price increases

[Dave Neary <dneary free fr>]

Hi,

Paul Cooper wrote:
>> For the company, here's my two cents: you will need a bank account
>> to receive money locally. I'd recommend against it being a private
>> bank account. You will need to be very very careful about the tax 
>> implications (both for the structure you create, if any, in the UK,
>>  and for the foundation). If possible, I would recommend that all
>> money go through an account owned by GNOME-uk (if one exists). If
>> you don't have one, then partnering with an association might be
>> the easiest thing to do - say linux.org.uk?
> 
> Gnome-UK doesn't have a bank account. The feeling amongst the
> 'membership' seemed to be that one isn't needed (other than for
> GUADEC) and not to bog down the community with the machinery  (an
> elected Chairperson, Treasurer, Secretary, articles of membership)
> needed to get a 'club and societies' account.

Normally, I'd agree. I don't know your exact structure - but that kind
of structure should come after the need presents itself, not in
anticipation of some possible future needs.

> Not sure of linux.org.uk financial structure (will investigate).
> There is Debian-UK which has a bank account but it was one of their
> officers that suggested it might be easier / more prudent to do the
> Ltd company thing. Other options might be the AFFS (Association for
> Free Software) or the UKUUG (UK Unix User Group). Of the two the
> UKUUG seems more organised and experienced to me (they organise two
> conferences a year).
> 
> Presumably it would be acceptable for them (whomever them might end
> up being) to charge a reasonable admin fee and perhaps offer their
> members a reduced entrance fee?

For the reduced entrance fee, I'm in favour, especially if it brings
more people to the conference. For the bank account, I can only tell you
what's happened in the conferences I've been involved with:
 - Kristiansand: We had access to the organiser's bank account - the
university helped organise.
 - Stuttgart: I have no idea how we handled this in the end. I know we
were hoping that gnome-de would have an account, but their acts of
incorpration didn't go through in time
 - Barcelona: We used the GNOME Hispano account
 - LGM: We used my personal account. Shush.
 - GIMPCon 2003 (in Berlin): The money went through Sven Neumann's
personal account. There wasn't much of it, though, which made things easier.

So - I can tell you what doesn't work (LGM, GIMPCon, Stuttgart) and what
did (Kristiansand, Barcelona). Perhaps Jeff can tell you what
linux.conf.au does. Aside from that, a partnership with UKUUG (which
involves us being nice to them, and not paying any money on transfers
over & above bank costs and beers for the treasurer, and cheap rates for
their members) sounds great to me.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
Dave Neary
dneary free fr