[PD] pd~conf 2.0

Hans-Christoph Steiner hans at eds.org
Fri Mar 24 17:10:16 CET 2006


On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, geiger wrote:

>
>
>
> On Wed, 22 Mar 2006, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
>> Its been a while since pd~conf and I think we are long overdue for
>> another.  I have recently started a job at Polytechnic University in
>> downtown Brooklyn (http://poly.edu I work at http://idmi.poly.edu ),
>> and I can host conferences here for free, and the dorms are available
>> for US$35/night when the students are out of session.  This place has
>> a lot to offer in terms of facilities: a 350 seat auditorium, lecture
>> halls, a big plaza for art projects, a 9-screen/9-computer hall with
>> multi-channel sound where we are currently developing software so
>> that it can be used as one OpenGL space, one video screen, or a 9-
>> screen laptop jam.
>>
>> The problem in the U.S. is that there are very few grants for this
>> kind of thing, so it would probably be hard to get grants to fund
>> everyone's travel and hotels like the IEM folks did so amazingly.
>> The standard way that conferences fund themselves in the U.S. is by
>> charging a conference fee.  Since this is about free software, it
>> would be nice to have the conference free too.
>>
>> Let's start the process now and get some ideas flowing, and maybe we
>> can come up with something.
>
> Hi,
>
> Great initiative, my proposal for funding is the one I already expressed
> in our discussion about donations. We get a bank account and a
> "Donate" button on the puredata web site.
>
> Maybe we should calculate the costs for such an event in advance and
> when we are about to reach the amount, we organize a conference.
>
> Although this model didn't find much appreciation back then, I still
> think it is a fair use of the collected money on a project where so
> many individuals are involved.
>
> I know that you didn't like this idea, but I have no experience in fund
> raising, so collecting donations is the only thing that comes to
> my mind right now.

I think this is a great idea, we just need to discuss how to handle it. 
That's the tricky part.  This could make it easy, we could just say that 
all funds donated to Pd go to running the pd~conf.  Then we don't have to 
figure out how to make more fine grained decisions as a group (tough thing 
to do...).  Then it doesn't really matter where the group is based.

So its sounds like a Verein is very easy to start in Austria and Germany, 
does it provide tax-free status?  The next question is whether we can use 
tax-free money from the EU to fund a conference outside of the EU without 
paying taxes.

Another approach is to have who ever is planning the next pd~conf take 
control of the donations under the guise of whatever organization that 
they are working for.  I know Alexandre has talked about hosting pd~conf 
at artengine in Ottawa, CA.  They have non-profit status, so they could 
accept donations tax-free (AFAIK).  As for Brooklyn, I could do it as part 
of Polytechnic University if that gives us tax-free status, or another 
arts org that am affiliated with in NYC (there are a couple).

Then the last thing is, I don't think we are really going to get so many 
donations.  I've had my donate button up for years and I think I've 
received around US$250 in total.

.hc

 	zen
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