[wplug-board] Report and Plans

[Patrick Wagstrom]

I hadn't planned on sending around all the plans and all that, but Dave
started it and I think it's a great idea.  We'll still discuss and come
up with one solid plan for everyone tonight.  In the mean time, here's
some light reading for you all -- my comments on the past year and plans
for the future

--Patrick

Treasurer Yearly Report:

Major Duties of the Treasurer:
 * Provide a financial report to the membership at each meeting
 * Maintain the records in an accounting pacakge and provide the data for
   members to examine.
 * Enact all correspondence with the bank
 * Approve funding requests (force people to do them too)
 * Write checks for reimbursement
 * Provide change at the meetings

Additional responsibilities which may be relevant:
 * Renew the PO box in January

What was good over the past year:
 * Finally have some sense of control over the books of WPLUG
   * bank account is reasonably balanced
   * no longer bleeding money
 * Adopted accounting software to manage money (JGnash)
 * Brought new organization to WPLUG
   * PO Box makes us more professional
 * Divided up financial responsibility so people can buy snacks
 * Spent money on very needed items
   * Switches
   * Cooler
   * Food for elections
   * Giveaway Prizes
 * New funding process in place
   * Provides a paper trail for when funds are spent, allows people in the
     future to track how we spent the money, who approved it, etc.

Problems for the past year:
 * We still don't have all the account information cleaned up, in particular we
   need to get the situation with the paypal account straightened out.  
 * Despite having the funding mechanisms in place, people continued to ignore
   it.  Going out and spending money without consulting the treasurer or filling
   out the forms.
 * Paperwork for meetings wasn't the answer I thought it would be.  While it
   initially worked okay, if I wasn't hand-holding everything it just wouldn't
   get filled out.  When I hosted meetings I was often too busy to make sure it
   all got taken care of.
 * Funds approved at board meetings without a formal notification to the
   treasurer or consultation of the amount of money we had.  If funds are to be
   allocated, we need to at least check to see if we have them.  The allocation
   of funds while I was in Honduras was particularly worrysome.
 * We need better record keepin on the refreshement fund.


Now I'll copy some of Dave's post with question and answers.

Q: How could the position run better?
A: Keep a much tighter control on the finances.  Although now we have
documentation for many things, we still don't have documentation for all the
money we spend (and receive).  To me this is a large problem, especially in
terms of accountability to the membership.

Q: Who were key contacts for you?
A: Eureka Bank, Squirrel Hill Post Office, Donut Troll.  As time went on and
we ordered less Pizza things got much easier because I didn't feel like I had
to be there to organize everything related to Pizza.

Q: How did the position surprise you?
A: I had no idea the problems of putting a financial management and accounting
system into an organization that never had one.  Many people still are unaware
about how to get money from WPLUG.  We've got some money, what are we going to
do with it?

Q: What would you like to see the position do?
A: Continue to work toward recording all transactions for the organization.  I'd
imagine that if we ever want to formally incorporate, we'd need to provide some
sort of good accounting for the funds we've spent.  Ideally, this would be in
a system other than JGnash too, but being as MoneyDance is not Open Source, I
did not feel it appropiate to use it.

Additional reports on the amount of money obtained from the kitty at each
meeting would be helpful as it can help alleviate the guilty giving complex.



A note on Dave's comments about these plans.  We'll discuss them all tonight.
The purpose of the three and the five year plan is that we never reach them.
Instead we set our goals for this year that lead to the three year, which leads
to the five years.  At the end of each year, we set new one year goals, and
revisit the three and five year goals to see how to adjust them.

One Year goals should be revisited every board meeting.

One Year Plan:
* LUGRadio Live USA
* LUGRadio Live USA
* LUGRadio Live USA
* Two outside corporate presentations
* Two presentations for well known OSS projects
* Joint events with Pittsburgh Perl Mongers, PittJug, and Pgh.NET
* SIGS - ubuntu, freebsd, wireless, etc
  This means the SIGS could have meetings.
* Solidify meeting schedule for next year as early as possible.
* Assign formal chairs to the comittees
* Five WPLUG members on comittees for OLF 2007
* Themed InstallFests
  Nov - Edgy Fest, January - Game Fest, March - Virtual Fest, etc
* Migrate all services to new WPLUG box and leave SCS

Three Year Plan:
* Large yearly conference together with other technical groups in Pittsburgh
  Maybe not LUGRadio, but something similar
* Educational outreach program
  Provide training and support to non-profits and schools
* How to use Linux/OSS sessions
  OpenOffice, Scribus, Inkscape, Gimp, F-Spot
* More professional members of the organization
  Hopefully SIGS will help this
* 60 paying members

Five Year Plan:
* Contacts with the city of Pittsburgh
  Work toward Linux migration in Pittsburgh
* Distribution of Linux into schools and universities
* Yearly hosting of major F/OSS conference
* 100 paying members
* Strong SIGs that meet monthly