1/3/18 meeting follow-up

[Tim Loudon]

Hi All,

I've got a few notes here:

• 6 months would be Feb-July; making the August meeting the first meeting of the new Coordination Lead.  I'm bringing this up because, historically AFAICT, this has been a big anniversary meeting.  So how do people feel about this?  I can do the August meeting too and we could dedicate some time in the July meeting to transition, so the next Coordination Lead would have two months to plan for the September meeting.  Yay/nay?  Other ideas?

• Brent WRT New Relic and beer--is the issue w/ NR providing the beer?  So it would be okay if we said BYOB in the meeting announcements?  Or alternatively, if we asked for a pizza/beer/bartender sponsor?

• Brent also saw that last June, NR had a company-wide retreat--do we need a different space for the June meeting this year?

• How do we want to handle accounts and credentials?  If we are going to have folks help out with the tweets, etc; we need some kind of centralized doc or something.  Any ideas on how to do this so it doesn't feel insecure?

• Jesse, is meetup the only ongoing cost?  Do you still need money for this?  How are we communicating this to folks--just after each 6 month invoice?  On this front, has anyone looked at setting up a non-profit to run things?  It would make contributions easier (ie tax deductible), allow for some centralization of processes/docs, provide financial transparency w/ a 990, and make the group more self-sustainable (ie less dependent on corporate sponsors).  <--NB: JUST BRAINSTORMING HERE

• Lucas and I are set to meet on Monday to plan things out a bit more, but it looks like we will just have lightning talks for the Feb meeting.  We'll send a follow-up note, assuming folks on this list are interested--so please LMK.

Thanks!

tim

[Rico Jones]

Tim,

Would it be helpful for me to reach out to some people regarding a talk for the February meeting?

-Rico

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[Sam Livingston-Gray]

On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 12:38 PM, Tim Loudon <t...@loudonco.com> wrote:

• 6 months would be Feb-July; making the August meeting the first meeting of the new Coordination Lead.  I'm bringing this up because, historically AFAICT, this has been a big anniversary meeting.  So how do people feel about this?  I can do the August meeting too and we could dedicate some time in the July meeting to transition, so the next Coordination Lead would have two months to plan for the September meeting.  Yay/nay?  Other ideas?

I'm fine interpreting "6" as "6ish" 

• How do we want to handle accounts and credentials?  If we are going to have folks help out with the tweets, etc; we need some kind of centralized doc or something.  Any ideas on how to do this so it doesn't feel insecure?
  

We've historically transmitted these from person to person, and everybody keeps the credentials however they manage other ones (1Password, sticky notes, logging in once and forgetting, etc; I've personally used two of these).  Someone at the meetup (possibly Jesse?) suggested a particular bit of tech that sounded useful:  your SSH key gets you in.  Still need someone to manage *that*, of course.

Incidentally, owners on the Google Groups 'pdxruby' list are:  me, Audrey Eschright, Kirsten Comandich, Reid Beels, and Tim Krajcar.  Owners on this business list are the same, minus Tim.  As far as I know, I do most of the moderation work on the lists.  (This is fine with me, but if we want to recruit another few people, there's a very short chat to be had about how to handle posts from new list members.)

• Jesse, is meetup the only ongoing cost?  Do you still need money for this?  How are we communicating this to folks--just after each 6 month invoice?  On this front, has anyone looked at setting up a non-profit to run things?  It would make contributions easier (ie tax deductible), allow for some centralization of processes/docs, provide financial transparency w/ a 990, and make the group more self-sustainable (ie less dependent on corporate sponsors).  <--NB: JUST BRAINSTORMING HERE
  

How much administrative effort goes into setting up / maintaining a nonprofit?  (I think there's a new "professional association" nonprofit org that might be simpler; Ruby Together uses it.)

I remember Stumptown Syndicate talking about the possibility of acting as an umbrella org a few years ago, but IDK if that's something that's still on their radar. 

• Lucas and I are set to meet on Monday to plan things out a bit more, but it looks like we will just have lightning talks for the Feb meeting.  We'll send a follow-up note, assuming folks on this list are interested--so please LMK.

Cool!  Haven't had those in a while.  :)

[Audrey Eschright]

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 12:43:55 PM UTC-8, Tim Loudon wrote:

Hi All,

I've got a few notes here:

• 6 months would be Feb-July; making the August meeting the first meeting of the new Coordination Lead.  I'm bringing this up because, historically AFAICT, this has been a big anniversary meeting.  So how do people feel about this?  I can do the August meeting too and we could dedicate some time in the July meeting to transition, so the next Coordination Lead would have two months to plan for the September meeting.  Yay/nay?  Other ideas?

• Brent WRT New Relic and beer--is the issue w/ NR providing the beer?  So it would be okay if we said BYOB in the meeting announcements?  Or alternatively, if we asked for a pizza/beer/bartender sponsor?

• Brent also saw that last June, NR had a company-wide retreat--do we need a different space for the June meeting this year?

• How do we want to handle accounts and credentials?  If we are going to have folks help out with the tweets, etc; we need some kind of centralized doc or something.  Any ideas on how to do this so it doesn't feel insecure?

• Jesse, is meetup the only ongoing cost?  Do you still need money for this?  How are we communicating this to folks--just after each 6 month invoice?  On this front, has anyone looked at setting up a non-profit to run things?  It would make contributions easier (ie tax deductible), allow for some centralization of processes/docs, provide financial transparency w/ a 990, and make the group more self-sustainable (ie less dependent on corporate sponsors).  <--NB: JUST BRAINSTORMING HERE

If you're thinking about going a non-profit route (and it's come up lots of times in the past!) please talk to Stumptown Syndicate about fiscal sponsorship. They're set up for it now and you won't have to do any of the difficult paperwork. You can check with Donut.js or UX Night School if you want to hear from another group about how it's working.

[Tim Loudon]

Rico - thanks! let's catch up on Monday @ the Sellwood meetup.

Sam - interested to hear more about the ssh key idea.  I think we should pursue either non-profit status or a Stumptown Syndicate financial program--either way, I think this will resolve the central location issue.

Audrey - I'll ping the donutjs folks, their model seems closest to ours.

I'll look into the 503 paperwork, costs, benefits, etc and as mentioned ping the donutjs folks and the Stumptown Syndicate folks.  Reid do you have any thoughts/input here?

Cheers

[Jesse Cooke]

Shared credentials can go in a repo using Mozilla's sops.

Jesse, is meetup the only ongoing cost?  Do you still need money for this?  How are we communicating this to folks--just after each 6 month invoice?  On this front, has anyone looked at setting up a non-profit to run things?  It would make contributions easier (ie tax deductible), allow for some centralization of processes/docs, provide financial transparency w/ a 990, and make the group more self-sustainable (ie less dependent on corporate sponsors).  <--NB: JUST BRAINSTORMING HERE

I'm perfectly happy managing the Meetup fees as I have been so far. They hit twice a year, and I cover them until people chip in after I send an email. It's pretty light touch.

We've talked about doing the non-profit thing before, and having started one, I think it would be overkill for this group. That being said, if we want to start managing money more, then I think the easiest way to do that is via Stumptown Syndicate.

However, all our financial needs (so far) have been met without any official financial support. I'm worried were conflating organization with money (again, we've done this before) and we can have the former without the overhead of the latter.

--

[Rico Jones]

Agree with Jesse on this. A legal entity makes the group harder to manage. Right now we are having a hard time managing the group. It seems to me like a bad move to make it harder for us to do the thing we’re having a hard time doing.

-Rico

[Tim Loudon]

I'm thinking about things w/in a 3-5 year context--since we want sustainable practices and I thought there was consensus that the current state was not sustainable.

Financially the group costs like $10k a year, right?  New Relic covers all of this, but it's only guaranteed for a given FY.  I'm just thinking if you ask folks to annually contribute say $25, you give yourself an emergency fund so that if next March we find out NR has not renewed hosting for FY 2019; it's not a total scramble.  The group could always spend the previous year's fund doing some kind of community project, so the balance stays around $3k.  Asking most members to contribute a small amount seems completely fair to me, especially since free food, alcohol, networking, and educational content are provided.

I understand the group has been around for 15+ years w/o org structure or a bank account, but if we are thinking about creating a sustainable system those are at the top of my list.

W/ that in mind, I think either a non-profit or the Stumptown Syndicate route are most appropriate.  I haven't started a non-profit before and have no burning desire to do so, but I did think it would be worthwhile to do the due diligence by talking to donutjs and a founder of a non-profit in town.  (I did create my LLC though, so it seems reasonable to assume there's a similar amount of initial paperwork/time and then an on-going annual amount; please let me know if this is off-base!)

Are we in agreement that it makes sense to see what the options are?

Jesse can you please expand on the sops workflow?  It looks like there's a bit to unpack there, and a cursory review of the README hasn't cleared everything up for me.  What happens if we need to give someone new access to twitter?  We have a group of folks that want to contribute and having a new person handle all promotion for a few months seems like it would be both helpful and a nice easy way for folks to become more involved.  If that's something we want to do, does sops work w/ that?

Thanks!

On Sat, Jan 6, 2018 at 3:53 PM, Rico Jones <ri...@toasterlovin.com> wrote:

Agree with Jesse on this. A legal entity makes the group harder to manage. Right now we are having a hard time managing the group. It seems to me like a bad move to make it harder for us to do the thing we’re having a hard time doing.

-Rico

On Jan 6, 2018, at 3:40 PM, Jesse Cooke <je...@jc00ke.com> wrote:

Shared credentials can go in a repo using Mozilla's sops.

Jesse, is meetup the only ongoing cost?  Do you still need money for this?  How are we communicating this to folks--just after each 6 month invoice?  On this front, has anyone looked at setting up a non-profit to run things?  It would make contributions easier (ie tax deductible), allow for some centralization of processes/docs, provide financial transparency w/ a 990, and make the group more self-sustainable (ie less dependent on corporate sponsors).  <--NB: JUST BRAINSTORMING HERE

I'm perfectly happy managing the Meetup fees as I have been so far. They hit twice a year, and I cover them until people chip in after I send an email. It's pretty light touch.

We've talked about doing the non-profit thing before, and having started one, I think it would be overkill for this group. That being said, if we want to start managing money more, then I think the easiest way to do that is via Stumptown Syndicate.

However, all our financial needs (so far) have been met without any official financial support. I'm worried were conflating organization with money (again, we've done this before) and we can have the former without the overhead of the latter.

On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 6:08 PM Tim Loudon <t...@loudonco.com> wrote:

Rico - thanks! let's catch up on Monday @ the Sellwood meetup.

Sam - interested to hear more about the ssh key idea.  I think we should pursue either non-profit status or a Stumptown Syndicate financial program--either way, I think this will resolve the central location issue.

Audrey - I'll ping the donutjs folks, their model seems closest to ours.

I'll look into the 503 paperwork, costs, benefits, etc and as mentioned ping the donutjs folks and the Stumptown Syndicate folks.  Reid do you have any thoughts/input here?

Cheers

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Tim Loudon

971.266.1649

loudonco.com

[Audrey Eschright]

I think this is the point in the conversation where I usually say something like: (and I apologize that I’m butting in when I haven’t been active in the group for a while)

Financial questions are also governance questions. You can’t really decide how to handle money without deciding who is allowed to handle the money. You can’t decide who’s allowed to handle the money without deciding who has oversight. We have yet, in the history of the group, to find good answers to those questions. Which isn’t to say you can’t, but someone has to be motivated to do the organizing and build consensus for a particular direction.

Starting a nonprofit is a ton of work, way more than running a LLC. It’s paperwork, higher accounting standards, legal organization, and those letters you have to send every single person who makes a donation. You also have a different kind of liability as a nonprofit board member than as a person casually organizing a get-together where people who like a thing come learn together. One of the bonuses to working with a fiscal sponsor is that they already have a board and insurance.

Not easy stuff to sort through! But this is why the group has generally met wherever someone has connections for a free meeting space, spent no money except what an individual was willing to front, and goes through waves of more organized vs ad hoc content. Rico is right that you can’t address any of these questions without the core organizational work.

Audrey

[Jesse Cooke]

Thanks for your insight Audrey!

I'd like to go back to the reason we had the business meeting in the first place. It wasn't because the group needs money. It wasn't because the group needs structure defined by an organization. It's because the group needs leadership and direction with respect to the other facets, like member engagement, speaker coordination, content topics, hackathons, etc. I'll continue to challenge the desire for money, as I've yet to see the "lack of money" be a problem. NR has been kind enough to support the group for years, and if they stop, we can find somewhere else to meet. We've done it before, we can do it again, and we've always done it without a legal entity or money.

I'd like to see us concentrate on content, targeted to both junior and senior developers, and speaker coordination. AFAIK that's been the biggest problem over the last few years, and I think it's what leads to burnout from the leaders that step forward.

As for sops, it's a tool for managing secrets. So I would kick it off by adding my GPG key, and then I can give other people access by adding their GPG keys as well. Then they can use sops to view the encrypted contents. It's pretty slick, and we could keep all of our credentials in one file, or, I'd probably rather have separate files for each set of credentials.

Jesse

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[Tim Loudon]

Thanks Audrey.  I appreciate your perspective and firsthand experiences here.

Jesse, thanks for your thoughts.  I think I should provide a little context for my emails.

I brought up org structure because the group sent out a what I think can be fairly interpreted as a crisis email.  Additionally, the group’s precise intentions and goals are a little difficult to pin down, at least for me—so I appreciate your understanding over the next month or so.

I am interested in the long-term viability of the group, and my personal opinion favors organizations/systems/processes over individual efforts, so that is the perspective I’m bringing to this.  We certainly don’t have to go that route, and I’m not trying to force the group to.  I am trying to bring up what I think are reasonable recommendations for the group as a whole to consider.

Additionally, I hear your point on focus.  I would also like to see topics that engage both jr and sr developers and have been working toward that goal.  As mentioned, I’m meeting up with Lucas today to hash out the February meeting and start planning the March one.  Lucas or I will send a brief update later today/this week.  I think we are on track here.

Since you have the credentials already, can you please get us going w sops?  Embarrassingly, I don’t have a public key, but I think there are probably a few potential volunteers who need one too.  Maybe we can have a key signing party at the end of the Feb meeting.

Lastly, from my perspective, we can drop the topic of legal structure.  Does that work for everyone?

Thanks!

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[Jesse Cooke]

I really appreciate the energy you're bringing, Tim. Thanks for spearheading things with Lucas! I'm good with dropping that part of the conversation for now. I'm glad we got to discuss it and no one got upset.

I got us going with sops this evening. Right now, it's just our Twitter creds, but I can add more as I get them. I'll give other people access as needed, and I believe once they get access, they can give other people access.

https://github.com/pdxruby/creds

Jesse

[Tim Loudon]

Thanks Jesse!

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Tim Loudon

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