Minutes:2005-02-07

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Minutes from 2005-02-07

Questions?

A finance meeting was held on IRC on February 7, 2005.

• Present from the Board: Angela Beesley, Florence Nibart-Devouard, Jimmy Wales, Tim Shell
• Also present: Daniel Mayer (Chief Financial Officer)

Summary of meeting

• USBudget/200530k budget approved. See Budget/2005.
• Fundraising (US$75k): for 3 weeks starting 18 Feb
• Jimmy to discuss hiring options with Brooke Vibber
• Google proposal to be edited via emails later this week
• GuruNet have tentatively pledged €30,000 for Wikimania sponsorship
• Bank account history available (PDF)
• Open board meeting: 15 Feb
• Google meeting: March.

Incoming

• A US$40,000 grant from Lounsbery was received. In return, they expect "a substantive update on The Wikimedia Foundation, as well as a financial report detailing the use of Lounsbery funds" in one year's time.
• €30,000 has been tentatively pledged by GuruNet for Wikimania sponsorship
• There are no grant applications currently underway. OSI should be contacted again for potential grant opportunities. Florence is exploring collaboration with African countries, possibly something with Burkina Faso. More may be reported at the next meeting.
• A dedicated RSS service has been requested to provide sites with a live feed of our articles so they can update their indexes of our content more easily. Money raised from this will be spent on developer contracts.

Fundraising

• A fundraising drive to raise US$75,000 will be held for three weeks starting 18 February.
• This date is after the new servers are installed, and should coincide with the publication of the Wired Magazine article and an article in Les Echos, and with the release of the second edition of Quarto
• Implementing improved fundraising feedback was discussed briefly, with Angela and Daniel supporting it but Jimmy suggesting that the standard feedback mechanism was fine and that fancier feedback would not bring in more money.
• The PayPal login will be shared more widely, so that more people can keep the counter updated during the fundraising drive.
• We are close to having the credit card account set up. This may require some developer time, which will be funded from the money set aside for promotions.

Hardware and hosting

• Jimmy will talk to Google on Friday 11 February regarding their hosting offer. Edits to the terms will be made by email before then.
• Bomis will start paying proportionate to usage rather than half of the base charges, meaning they will pay approximately US$1,200 instead of US$2,200.
• Hardware estimates were made based it on a model by Daniel, and were confirmed with Jamesday.
• A minimum of US$55,000 is needed, though James has asked for 70K-100K
• Any shortfall on the expected US$75,000 fundraiser will be taken from the "Extra hardware/dev projects" section of the budget
• Ten new servers are being installed on Friday 11 February.

Developers and employees

• Brooke Vibber will be employed using money which is being donated for dedicated RSS feeds and similar deals.
• Chad Perrin is being employed as a hardware assistant for one day per week. US$1,500 is budgeted for this in the first quarter of 2005.
• Brooke may be asked to complete the proposed membership task.
• Jimmy will to try to recruit more developers at FOSDEM 2005 in Brussels later this month.

Other expenses

• Jimmy is working full-time working on Wikimedia from the Wikimedia offices, as is Terry Foote half time, so office expenses are now being budgeted for.
• A mass mailing to previous donors is planned, with a "thank you" letter and receipt. "Office expenses" will include this mailing.
• Domain names were under-budgeted for in the final quarter of 2004, but this included trademark registrations. We now have a valid EU trademark. (See Trademarks for future clarifications of this.)
• The proposed Romanian local chapter may require some start-up money next quarter.
• The next budget needs to include a reserve amount.
• Some reimbursements are outstanding.

Future meetings

• A general meeting will be held in #meeting.wikimedia on 15 February at 21:00 (UTC). This is open to the public. An agenda is at Board agenda.
• A private meeting between the board and a representative from Google will be held in March to discuss proposed terms of the hosting contract.