[H-GEN] Big ticket spending [was: The lca movie.]

[Russell Stuart]

On Mon, 2009-06-22 at 03:38 +0100, gavin duley wrote:
> To me, the purchase of a video camera does seem like it would be a  
> good idea. It wouldn't be wasted after LCA, it could be used to film  
> talks given at regular HUMBUG meetings which could then be made  
> available on the internet. This assumes HUMBUG starts having at least  
> semi-regular talks, though.

Matt has collected some quotes for purchasing the A/V equipment for LCA
2011 outright verses renting it.  Matt says the prices are in the same
ball park.  If they are with 50% or so I'd say purchasing them is a very
good idea.  However it ain't our money we are playing with there, so we
would have to run it past Linux Australian.  That said, I suspect if we
won Linux Australia would accept whatever we put up in our bid.

I don't think Greg is talking about that though.  Matt (who should put
his 2c in here anyway), is proposing Humbug purchase some A/V equipment.
This would cost a substantial fraction of Humbug's current bank account
balance.

I principle I have no problem with Humbug spending a lot of money on any
open source project.  However I do agree with Greg that this decision
should not be made unilaterally by the Exec without consulting the
members.  It is ultimately the money contributed by the members that is
being spent, so it seems like common courtesy to at least ask them what
they think of the idea before deciding to spend it.

Some questions I would like to see the Exec at least endeavour to answer
are:

1.  What proportion of the members think spending this sort of money is
a good idea?

2.  What proportion of the members think they might make use of, or have
fun playing with the equipment?

3.  It is going to be insured?

4.  Are there members who with other projects that would essentially
compete for the same pot of money?