Minutes of SFI meeting (27 August 2006 1900UTC)
Present: Joe, Matt, Robert
Sponsored goods update
- Well done to Pia for managing to translate random numbers in a spreadsheet into little brown packages!
More info in Pia's email to the board@sf-day mailing list, including the spreadsheet with final allocations. We were allegedly short of balloons.
- Packages will be put in the post on Monday or Tuesday - we just have to hold thumbs they all get there.
- Matt sent the final CD allocation spreadsheet to Marilize, who sent it directly to the CD printing/distributing people (with "elevated" priority).
- We have not yet heard about the status of the CD shipment - Henrik has been nominated in his absence to enquire from Marilize (on the grounds that she's probably had enough of Matt by now). Although we can't do anything about problems with the CD shipping, it's worth knowing about them.
- Matt foolishly volunteered to arrange the emails to teams, letting them know what's been shipped to them. We should also send an email to the T-C mailing list to announce that it's been done (Matt or Pia?).
Finances
- Matt reports that we have USD$457 in our bank account, and USD$55 in paypal for a total of USD$512.
- We lost bigtime in currency conversions between USD and AUD - something to bear in mind for next year. Example: US customer purchases shirts, we lose 2.5% on the conversion to AUD. Matt withdraws money from bank, incurring 2.5%, and wires it to Aussie T-shirt company with another commission cost.
- Matt has contributed USD$654 for the T-shirts.
- Pia will be coughing up between USD$1500 and USD$2000 for shipping tomorrow.
That leaves us in debt, except for the USD$45k from IBM which is being put towards prize servers. If any of that money is left, IBM may donate it to us.
Robert asked whether we were going to (a) write off the debt, perhaps by distributing it among board members, or (b) carry the debt over to next year. There was no clear decision about what to do about this - partly because of uncertainty about what can be done.
Quote: {{{(20:56:24) moquist: I have confidence that the transition from '06 to '07 will see one of the best improvements to date, because we're not going to be reestablishing our entire infrastructure for next year. }}}
Press release/Offline campaign
- Robert asked about ideas for offline campaigning, since we're now at the stage of trying to help teams maximise their impact.
Robert will put together a MediaResources page, to try encourage teams to use free advertising (flyposting, local TV/radio, newspapers, local mailing lists...).
- Joe offered to mail to the board mailing list a press release he sent to all the West African teams last year.
There was some discussion of Matt's "history of SFD" page. Robert liked it (particularly the bit about "I was driving down the road") and agreed it should be published.
FSF participation update
- Pia sent a friendly email on 26/8/06 to the FSF contacts indicating that unfortunately the materials didn't get to her on time, so no participation this year. Matt expressed ambiguous sentiments about missing out on their cooperation.