[IAEP] [SLOBS] URGENT action needed

[Adam Holt]

Thanks Karen for please responding to these 3 emails I sent you when
possible:

- July 12 subject line "Donation from Facebook" [paperwork required so
donations can flow to Sugar Labs]
- Aug 4 subject line "Donation from Facebook" [paperwork required so
donations can flow to Sugar Labs]
- Aug 9 subject line "Samson Goddy asks for visa supporting docs for GSoC
visit to USA" [so that his visa is less likely to be denied, as happened
around mid-June with the French Embassy]

If possible, a response would also be appreciated to this email sent to
accounting at sfconservancy.org :

- Aug 4 subject line "ACTION REQUIRED: GCI Grand Prize Trip and Org
Donations - Sugar Labs" [how do we work together to recover $9400 promised
by Google to accounting at sfconservancy.org on April 14?]

Separately it would be extremely helpful if SFConservancy can clarify all
accounts that today continue have access to Sugar Labs' financials, and
whether it would (presumably) be very wise to deprecate several ancient
such accounts known to be created in 2008-to-2015.

Additionally can SFConservancy assist providing svn credentials to any
person(s) that the Sugar Labs Oversight Board chooses to be trustworthy
enough have live ongoing & historical access to Sugar Labs' financial
records.  I'd personally motion for Laura Vargas to have such access, and
hope that other SLOBS members could confirm such in a vote during the
coming week, so that SFConservancy can then proceed if Laura Vargas is
indeed dedicating herself to this intensive task.

PS if other Board members also require detailed financial access to all
records since 2008 (now or in future) and are fully willing to stand up to
all associated responsibilities (including spending extensive time learning
the "ledger" command and protecting privacy of all) then please make that
known.

Finally thank you to Karen Sandler for pointing out that Sugar Labs
Election/Membership Committee could probably do substantially better
communicating election candidates & results @
https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/2016-2017-candidates (or
similar) as was done in all prior years:

https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/2015-2016-candidates
https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/2014-2015-candidates
https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/2013-2014-candidates
https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/2012-2013-candidates
https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/2011-2012-candidates
https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/2010-2011-candidates
https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/2009-2010-candidates


On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 11:25 PM, Karen Sandler <karen at sfconservancy.org>
wrote:

>
> Hi SLOBs,
>
> Conservancy staff doesn't follow our member projects mailing lists - the
> PROJECT at sfconservancy.org are always the official communication point
> between Conservancy and its member projects. As I hope you can appreciate,
> we have 45 member projects (including Outreachy, which has around 80
> internships per year that we administer). This thread has come to our
> attention though, and I want to clear up a few things.
>
> * Good communication with Conservancy
>
> We rely on SLOBs and the official Sugar representative to let us know when
> you approve some action and need us to do something. For example, no one
> notified us of the election results earlier in this year. In researching
> the issues that came up today, we discovered that the election happened,
> and we will update our records under the Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement (and
> the sugar@ alias) accordingly. We don't object to hiring someone to
> communicate with us or to rely on volunteers. If you do hire someone, we
> will rely on volunteers to let us know that the paid representative should
> be paid and that we can rely on their instructions (and then again if you
> decide not to have that person work for you anymore). We expect to
> communicate directly with the sugar@ alias and we cannot be expected to
> closely read mailing lists dedicated to other matters in case there is
> something mentioned that is relevant to us. We operate on a shoestring
> budget and have a staff of only 4 full time people.
>
> * Books and records
>
> As you know, we make our books available to Sugar on an ongoing basis,
> allowing you to generate your own reports. Until our accounts are closed
> for the year (and audited), there's a chance that transactions may not have
> been fully entered. Google recently switched payment methods for GCI and
> GSoC, and we haven't adjusted the bookkeeping on that yet, so it is lagging
> a bit. Google is regularly invoiced for all the GSoC and GCI funds for all
> projects, and we don't think there's any concern about payment from Google
> being uncertain. Google has never failed to pay Conservancy funds owed for
> our member projects.
>
> As we've mention before, if there is an item missing in the ledger that
> you want us to expedite checking on, just ask us.
>
> * Transparency
>
> I believe Conservancy has historically been the most transparent fiscal
> sponsor in free software, and we strive to stay that way. We are very open
> to concrete suggestions about how we can be more transparent about our
> operations (and I hope we are far from opaque)! All of our policies are
> public as are all of our filings. We make the books and records available
> to authorized project participants and strive to answer questions as
> quickly as we can[1]. We are always on IRC at #conservancy on freenode if
> you need to reach us urgently and are happy to be pinged.
>
> * Flexibility
>
> We will attempt to work with you to accomplish whatever Sugar Labs wants
> to do that is within our charitable mission to the extent that our
> resources allow. As Bradley already wrote to the sugar@ list, we can work
> with reimbursing 3rd parties or handle other unusual payment mechanisms if
> we understand that is the best or only way to accomplish the project's
> goals.
>
> I hope this is helpful. I know it's a tumultuous time for Sugar Labs, and
> I want you to make sure that we're all on the same page about how
> Conservancy operates so that we can best support the project.
>
> karen
>
> [1] Adam, I know that you have an email into me. I was on the road at
> DebConf last week and should catch up in the next day or two.
>
> _______________________________________________
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> SLOBs at lists.sugarlabs.org
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>
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