[Inpycon] Pycon India 2018 Finance

[qua non]

*TLDR;*
*1) form a new organization to avoid issues with existing ones*
*2) Let's get payments directly from sponsors to vendors solving immediate
issue with PyCon 2018*
*3) Let's work on making a organization with a good structure right now
instead of later.*
*4) Let's involve the community in this whole process.*

*That's the gist of what is below.*

I would like to shed some light on the situation AFROST is in.

Vipin & I, were among the directors(we helped form the org) of the company
when it started out, the main goal at the time was to support open source
communities.

However as time went by it became clear that; that was not really the case,
AFROST has as yet not done anything to support any community in any manner
what so ever(look at the accounts they are "clean" even after more than a
year). This is despite numerous opportunities for the same and despite me
and Vipin explicitly asking for such support. The org was more interested
in applying for grants, activities that would be financially positive.

Needless to say both Vipin & I resigned about 2 months back.

Existing liabilities:
There are MOU and MOA with IODA and AFROST which were done while filing for
some international grants, that have some responsibilities on AFROST to
take over certain tasks under those MOU/MOA.

There are legal proceedings between IODA and The Organizers of Global
Blockchain Conference that does involve AFROST due to it's close ties and
collaboration with IODA and the fact that some of the Global Blockchain
Conference organizers were also part of AFROST at the time.

*Form a new Organization! It would be better in the long run.*

*Urgent Issues:*

PSSI get's dissolved and does not renew beyond 7th July, so::

*1) It needs to transfer existing money to some one who can help with PyCon
India 2018*

    - Option 1: PSSI can pay existing money they have directly to vendors
for this year which solves the urgency issue.
      Cons: Involves a little bit more legwork trouble.
      Pros: This has worked for PyCon in the past
    - Option 2: PSSI can transfer money to a existing Org
      Cons: Existing liabilities and structure of org could come bite us.
      Pros: It's faster and given current urgency maybe the best solution
given the timeframe.

*2) We need a organization that can raise invoices for sponsors to support
PyConIndia 2018*

  - Option 1: Form a new non profit organization:
    Cons:  This could take a bit of time
    Pros:  Offers a `Clean Slate` where we know there would be no issues.
  - Option 2: Get Vendors for PyCon India to raise invoices directly to the
sponsors.
    Cons: Difficult to coordinate but still doable.
    Pros: This has historically worked out quite nicely for PyCon India.

My Suggestion would be to take the option of getting the Sponsors and PSSI
to directly pay to vendors.
This solves all the urgent issues and allows the rest of the community to
work on making a formal organization properly without effecting PyCon India
2018 .

On Thu, Jul 5, 2018 at 12:01 AM Noufal Ibrahim KV <noufal at nibrahim.net.in>
wrote:

>
> Hi Mani,
>    I have some reservations about this but given the situation, it's the
> best way forward.
>

We have a habit of sweeping things under the rug for the sake of, "Current
Situation".
It would be hard but let's do this, "Right" now.  So we don't have such
situations later on.


>     To avoid the mistakes with IPSS and PSSI, I think it's prudent to
> keep the charter of this new organization as small as possible to limit
> the damage it can do.


Maybe the organization was not structured properly or tasks outgrew the org.
It would be better to spend some time and structure the new organization so
it's better than before.



> All of the PSSIs goals were noble (support
> multiple conferences, stipend for sending people for conferences abroad,
> etc) but I think the effort needed to keep all this under control was
> under estimated and that led to many ad-hoc decisions and the overall
> organisation unwavering.
>

Let's outline the goals  and outline them publicly, list out the tasks and
what it would take to manage them.
Many people here are experienced product designers.

Let's put our heads together and do this correctly.

1. let's outline the procedure as it was before, including task lists and
their flows.
    This would have to be done by those who were part of the organization
till now.

2. Identify issues with the current system.
    This would have to be a open survey as the organizers definitely do not
know all the failings.

3. Figure out what parts can be automated so it does not fall on a few to
do all the tasks
You would be surprised by all the tasks that can be automated and the
number of people available to help out.
Many open organizations  are moving to truly open everything being
automated and put up for public consumption through blockchain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organization

I will start a new thread for the organizational part if people are
interested in that.

Regards
Akkshay
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