[Foundation-l] Report from the Wikimedia Foundation Meeting, 9 October 2004

[Angela]

A report from the last board meeting has now been published on the
Foundation wiki at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings/October_9%2C_2004 and is
included below.

Please use http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Board_meetings
if you would like to give feedback on this report, or
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Board_agenda if there is anything
you would like raised at future meetings.

Board meeting, including the Chief Financial Officer,
#board.wikimedia, 9 October, 2004

Present: Angela Beesley, Michael Davis, Daniel Mayer, Florence
Nibart-Devouard, Tim Shell, Jimmy Wales.

The agenda for the meeting was published at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Board_agenda

Contents:

1 Financial report
2 Hardware budget
3 Bandwidth and hosting fees
4 Domain names
5 Travel expenses
6 Other costs
7 Donors
8 Merchandise
9 Convention 2005
10 Membership
11 Other matters arising
12 Date of next meeting

1 Financial report

    * Wikimedia raised close to US$60,000 in the fundraising drive.
There is $47,675.54 USD in the PayPal account, $25k in the bank, and
€10,000 due from Ars Electronica, making approximately $85 overall.
Quarterly fundraising drives are planned.

2 Hardware budget

    * Daniel presented a draft hardware budget at meta:Wikimedia
budget/Q4 Hardware and asked for policy direction on this.

    * Daniel projected 85 percent growth by the end of the quarter,
thereby requiring $45,000 to be spent on hardware in this period.
Florence noted that the sites are still at the stage where one server
failing can have a large impact on speed. It was proposed that the
developers be given the choice to order what they need within the
constraints on the budget total. Tim Starling will be asked to report
on the proposed budget at the next meeting. A total hardware budget of
$50,000 was approved.

3 Bandwidth and hosting fees

    * The Foundation has recently signed a bandwidth contract for
40Mbs, doubled from the previous 20Mbs commitment. Current activity
suggests this may need to be increased again within this quarter, and
at this point Jimmy would no longer maintain the 50% donation he
currently pledges. Approaching the colo about donating bandwidth in
exchange for a banner was felt to be unnecessary since the Foundation
has received hosting offers which will soon allow us to divert
bandwidth seamlessly. It was agreed that $20,000 should be budgeted
for bandwidth and hosting for this quarter.

4 Domain names

    * Jason Richey is preparing a comprehensive report regarding
domain names, which will be discussed in more detail at the next
meeting. Jimmy noted briefly that the Foundation is paid up with
current domains. The Netherlands domain name is owned by Wikimedia
technically but the legal transfer can not take place for some more
days. Jason will be asked to inquire about this.

5 Travel expenses

    * Agreed upon travel costs for this quarter were $3,000 for Jimmy,
and $1,000 each for Angela and Florence. These amounts are maximums,
and any unused money would remain in the general Wikimedia fund. The
Foundation will be sharing the cost of Tim Starling and Brion Vibber
attending the MediaWiki developers' conference in Berlin in December
with Wikimedia Germany. Travel for the conference will cost $2600.
Conference tickets may also need to be paid for. It was agreed that
outside of the developer conference, the Foundation ought to be
conservative about travel expenses.

6 Other costs

    * Jimmy and Michael are to investigate and report back on
insurance costs, including liability insurance.

    * $500 will be budgeted for an accountant at the end of the year.

7 Donors

    * Letter of thanks will be sent to all donors above some threshold
at the end of this year, with consideration will be given to the fact
that we can not solicit donations outside of Florida.

    * Daniel will explore the possibility of sending emails
acknowledging all donations made with PayPal.

    * Jimmy will add the details of the hardware donation September
2004 to the benefactors page on the Foundation website.

    * Angela asked for feedback regarding the proposed scales at
Talk:Benefactors to be given following the meeting.

8 Merchandise

    * Whether or not a printed newsletter should be funded by the
Foundation was discussed. Florence agreed to publicise the
meta:newsletter poll more widely in order to gain additional feedback
on this. There was no opposition to printing locally on a small scale
but mass printing was not felt to be a viable option.

    * For small ventures, such as the printing of flyers for an event,
approval of the entire Board was not deemed to be necessary.

    * A report from the existing wikishop (http://shop.wikipedia.org/)
should be obtained before decisions are made about the Foundation
embarking on a similar venture.

9 Convention 2005

    * Elian has been working on putting together the committee for
selecting the location of the Wikimedia Convention 2005. This will be
announced on October 10, along with a shortlist of cities. Volunteers
will be asked to present their city to the committee.

10 Membership

    * Membership issues were postponed so that Angela, Florence and
Jimmy could discuss these in detail over the course of the next week.
Their conclusions will be discussed at the next meeting.

11 Other matters arising

    * Tim requested that a public relations committee be added to the
agenda for the next meeting.
    * Angela noted that boilerplate letters for OTRS
(http://ticket.wikimedia.org) were needed and Tim suggested that some
emails being received by the board ought to be going to our PR
department.

12 Date of next meeting

    * Saturday 16, 2004. 22:00 UTC. Tim Starling will be invited to
this meeting.



Angela Beesley, on behalf on Wikimedia.