# Minutes of the General Assembly September 14th, 2024 ## Present and represented 12 people are present or represented + Simon Tournier + Andreas Enge + Adriel + Bertrand + Julien Lepiller + Christopher Baines + Efraim Flashner + Oliver Probst + Indieterminacy + Collin Doering + Tanguy Le Carrour (represented by Julien Lepiller) + Graham Addis (by email vote) ## Agenda + Activity report by the Presidency + Financial report by the Treasury + Situation with the Bank + Election of the new Presidency and Treasury + Election of the Solidary Administrative Council (SAC) + Fundraising + Website + Social time/Conversations. ## Activity report by the Presidency - Guix had a booth at the « Capitole du Libre » at Toulouse + All the week (2 days) + Really pleasant moment with the people there + We talked with a lot of people about Guix and Free Software - Website revamp thanks to Ricardo among others + It looks great! + Easier to contribute now, so feel free :) + https://foundation.guix.info/ - Guix Days around FOSDEM + about ~50 people + discussion about structuring decision-making (sociocracy, …) - Devroom at FOSDEM - Meetups + In-person: Paris ~every month (announced on the mailing list) + In-person? London + Online: Guix Social https://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2024-06/msg00037.htlm + Join force? - Helped with design for first international Guix HPC workshop in Montpellier Vote: 10 yes, 0 no, 2 blank ## Financial report by the Treasury The following summarises all our income and expenses since our foundation in 2016: €2524.65 Assets:Bank €37290.56 Expenses €22.98 Banking €6350.51 Conferences €190.88 Domains €10727.70 Guix Day €7439.23 Hosting €44.00 Legal €160.00 Membership €60.00 Promotional material €12295.26 Purchases €-39815.21 Income €-6105.16 Conferences €-9280.00 Donations €-7157.41 Guix Day €-5714.23 Hosting €-139.60 Interests €-1450.00 Membership €-80.00 2016 €-110.00 2017 €-120.00 2018 €-170.00 2019 €-170.00 2020 €-160.00 2021 €-210.00 2022 €-300.00 2023 €-130.00 2024 €-9968.81 Purchases 0 With 10€ membership fees, you can see we started with 8 members in 2016 and peaked at 30 members in 2023. We have lost half of our members (they likely forgot and with our bank situation has made it a bit more difficult). The situation is still dynamic, with people joining and people leaving. Each year, the in-person event in Brussels brings a few more people, which really helps the association. The first line shows we currently have 2524.65 in the bank account. The following shows the financial operations since our last general assembly, on 2023-05-26. €-2100.36 Assets:Bank €4807.98 Expenses €3.98 Banking €3084.00 Guix Day €1200.00 Hosting €20.00 Membership €500.00 Purchases €-2707.62 Income €-40.00 Donations €-1876.41 Guix Day €-111.21 Interests €-180.00 Membership €-10.00 2022 €-40.00 2023 €-130.00 2024 €-500.00 Purchases 0 Note that all expenses have a positive sign, all income have a negative sign. Most of our activities are usually neutral, since they are reimbursed by the Free Software Foundation. However, we have decided not to get reimbursements this year, because of the bank situation. This means our activities this year have been a big loss to us, compared to previous years. This puts us at risk of not being able to organize the future Guix Days in Brussels. We have reccuring fees for hosting bayfront. It is hosted by Aquilenet (an association) in a data center. We pay for hosting €75 a month (×16 months since last general assembly = €1200), as well as a yearly membership fee of €20 (in Membership above) Before the bank closing our account, we had a "Livret A" which earned interests, and it is visible in the list above. Membership is another way for us to raise money. Some membership fees were paid late in the year or for previous years, which is shown above. In February 2024, we organized the Guix Days in Brussels before FOSDEM. The expense of €3084 include the rent of the venue and catering at ICAB, while the income of €1876.41 is the money collected at lunch or close to the event via bank transfer and labeled as such. There are also €40 of donation that was not labeled specifically. The cost of ICAB have gone up from the previous year (€2656: venue €884 + food), but the money collected also went up by twice the amount (€1033). So, many thanks to all our generous donators. Our main income comes from the Guix Days, where we collected donations from the participants. The aim was to cover the lunch fees, while the FSF would reimburse the rental of the place. It went well above the lunch fees, which really helped our finances. We were sponsored by Université de Montpellier to find a t-shirt design for the first Workshop on Reproducible Software Environments for Research and High-Performance Computing in November 2023, which appears in the Purchases section. In addition to the €500, we had €3.98 of currency conversion for this purchase. > Indieterminacy added comparative venue fees at the footer Vote: 9 yes, 0 no, 3 blank ## Situation with the Bank - The bank of the association warned that they will soon close our account (that was in 2023) - That was probably due to receiving money from USA (reimbursement from the FSF) - The account was closed despite our numerous attempts to communicate with them to prevent it (on 2024-03-21) - The money is now currently on the personal bank account of Andreas - Tanguy, Andreas, and Simon looked at other banks meanwhile, but it was difficult still to open a new account for the association - Tanguy and Simon are currently trying to open a new associative bank account close to Paris connected to one of them - Free of charge account would be difficult to have - Small fee - One of the other possibility would be to open a German a bank account - Is not necessarily easier while keeping the french association - At least small fee - Online (uninsured) bank, as Wise - They work well especially for world-wide money transfer - But our balance would not be assured against bankruptcy of Wise - Would work, But the money would disappear if the bank crashes - An extreme and radical option would to close the association and create a new one - Very heavy paperwork - Proposal to make an assembly around December 14th at 19:00 to decide on the matter This part will not be made public to the website in the French version, if any. ## Election of the new Presidency and Treasury + Simon is current presidency Relected Vote: 10 yes, 1 no, 1 blank + Oliver is current vice-presidency Relected Vote: 5 yes, 2 no, 5 blank + Tanguy runs for Treasury Elected Vote: 10 yes, 0 no, 2 blank + Adriel runs for vice-Treasury Elected Vote: 8 yes, 0 no, 4 blank ## Election of the Solidary Administrative Council (SAC) + Andreas Enge + Adriel + Bertrand + Julien Lepiller + Christopher Baines + Efraim Flashner + Oliver Probst + Indieterminacy Elected Vote: 8 yes, 0 no, 4 blank ## Fundraising Fundraising options were discussed. It was agreed that using an option such as Liberapay or HelloAsso was a good idea, in addition to allowing direct bank transfer. Adriel and Andreas are to look into various options and report back to the association before deciding what to do. ## Website We could have a section for monthly news about Guix on the website. Oliver and Simon volunteer to start it. ## Social time/Conversations/Questions Why don't we have more meetings where we discuss the Guix project? OliverP Can we use any social media platform for informing the public about the project? Any ethical reason why can not do it? OliverP Can we trust mails sent to the mailing? Sometimes I get feeling that some people don't trust mails sent to the list. Oliverp Can we have a meeting in France soon? Oliverp What do we think about the general state of the GNU project? Can Guix contribute to make it better in any way? Is it worth considering alternative venues for Guix Days? Indieterminacy Should we propose a booth at Capitole du Libre this year also? -> at least two other people would join. Julien agrees to send a booth proposal. ### Alternative Venue ``` Petite Halle 400 personnes debout / 120 personnes assises Plus intimiste, la Petite Halle permet quant à elle d’accueillir des conférences, spectacles, réceptions et drinks. Espace : 215 m² Possibilité de scène et de bar. Tarif: 2000 euros / jour (tarif plein), 1000 euros par jour (tarif associatif) Cave/Piscine 300 personnes Espace polyvalent de 400 m² Elle se compose de deux espaces : - Le foyer équipé d'un bar, de tables et de chaises - Une salle dite "la piscine" de 100 m² et 6 m de profondeur Tarif: 1000 euros / jour (tarif plein), 500 euros par jour (tarif associatif) ``` https://www.halles.be/fr/sp/54-locations