[Osmf-talk] Conference organizer travel

[Gregory]

In other organisations I have claimed expenses and as a separate
transaction made a donation equal to the expenses. I prefer this method as
someone taking my position in future may not have the means to cover the
same costs but at least the costs are record and so the organisation should
have planned for them in budgeting (the fact that it was covered by a
donation is formally unknown and fundraising is a different budget matter).

However with OSMF, I can see that the board claiming their travel expenses
just for paperwork-sake would add a relatively significant amount of admin
work because the OSMF is still a small organisation with no paid staff or
even full-time volunteers. I have also been happy with the board elections
and so trust the current board would be managing finances appropriately.

Happy Mapping,
Greg

On 16 October 2014 17:38, Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch> wrote:

> Hi Paul
>
> Both the expense account and the SOTM costs are opaque to the board
> members not directly involved in finances and SOTM organisation so there
> is no quick way to check.
>
> As a result it would be speculation to even assume that there are SOTM
> related travel expenses at all.
>
> Please note that I realize this is not an ideal situation from a
> transparency point of view, it is simply the current board continuing
> with the policies of the previous ones.
>
> I do however want to point out that the question of expenses is not
> simply black and white. As far as I know most of the board members do
> not claim expenses for their OSMF related activities, leading to the
> situation that more transparency would lead to singling individuals out
> which is something, at least I, would prefer not to do.
>
> Fixing this would essentially require us to all claim expenses which
> would clearly stress our budget more than it already is. I could argue
> that this is perhaps the done thing anyway, since the current situation
> hides (at least relative to our current budget) significant costs in the
> pockets of the individual board members.
>
> Simon
>
>
> Am 16.10.2014 17:13, schrieb Paul Norman:
> > I was looking at the income statement for 2012, and I was wondering if
> > conference-related travel expenses are accounted under Travel and
> > Accommodation or under Conference Costs.
> >
> > Obviously, there are reasonable expenses associated with travel and
> > lodging when organizing an international conference, it's just important
> > to be transparent about what they are. Any travel must be economy class,
> > but the expense policy
> > (http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Finances#Expenditure) doesn't
> > mention lodging, which is probably an oversight.
> >
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