Q1 2021 - Directors Report

Announcements
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General Updates

As discussed in the ClassicPress governance proposal, the committee has been dissolved as of January 1st. In general, the Teams will continue to operate as previously, and team leads and roles are up to date on our website’s Community page.

With this change in 2021, Team Leads are expected to participate in regular update threads on the forums approximately every 2 months.

Team Leads that are not making regular progress in their areas will be personally asked to do so, or to make way for another person to lead the team if that’s not possible.

Financials

Note: Financials are in USD. Additionally, some stats are skewed due to the migration from the UK to US organization.

Total Contributions in 2020: $2,385.20

  • Note: Contibutions in the UK org prior to the move totalled $308.86 which are included in the transfer outlined below.
  • Note: This included a one time transfer from UK to US org of $1,050.41 minus a $107.05 back payment for UK taxes.

Operating Expenses in 2020: $420.35

  • Note: Operating Expenses in the UK org prior to move totalled $1,097.96 which aren’t included here.

Net Profit in 2020: $1,964.85

Bank Balance as of Dec 31st, 2020: $1,964.85

Roadmap for 2021

Petitions Migration

The migration of the petitions from Fider to the Forums has been completed. There are still some outstanding pieces that community help would be appreciate with. You can follow up on the following threads:

ClassicPress Directory

The further development of the ClassicPress Directory is my main project in 2021.
This includes the following:

  • Polling GitHub for most recent releases and updating public download links (this is almost done, and should be released soon)
  • Developer Login for the directory so developers can update and manage their plugins independently (this is a larger project that I have begun work on)

Outside of the above projects, there are a few minor tweaks that are also outstanding. If anyone in the community has experience with Laravel it would be great to get some help completing those outstanding tasks that can be found in the Directory Support Category.

Marketing

Please join us at the first marketing meeting of 2021: Marketing Meeting: January 17, 2021

ClassicPress Core

Roadmap and updates will be shared at the next team update.

Other Teams

@Team-Leads are expected to make an update thread prior to the end of January outlining their roadmaps for 2021 and work completed since the last team update.

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Can we get a list of ongoing expenses? Maybe we can crowdsource some savings/deals to cut expenses.

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The only two ongoing expenses we have are:

  • DigitalOcean which is ~$70/mo
  • PO Box Rental which is ~$130 every 6 months

Not included above is Mailgun and Bitwarden. Mainly because we have only paid Bitwarden once (for $12), and we haven’t got a bill from Mailgun yet.

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Thanks. My two recommendations:

  • For servers, only option I can think of is going with European provider like Hetzner. Can get better specs for the money, or lower cost for the same specs.

  • PO boxes tend to be expensive. My preferred option is a virtual mailbox. I use ipostal1.com, it’s $10/mo. They scan outside, and I either request them to open it and scan contents, forward it to me, or discard it. Scans and forwarding comes at additional cost. Mail can also be picked up if location is local, usually $1 per item. If mail volume is low, it’s a great option. Note, there is a $25 fee you pay to notarize USPS form but that’s paid to notarize.com.

Hope that helps. Maybe others have better recommendations.

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Our server provider should have an API that works with Terraform, so that we can rebuild any of our boxes/sites using a mostly automated process. We are pretty happy with DigitalOcean so far including specs vs price.

If it were necessary we could get that cost way down using our existing provider, currently we have each site isolated on its own server as an extra security measure. I think this measure is worth taking as long as we can comfortably afford it, but that’s up for revisiting among/with the directors.

Switching to another mailbox would not be quite as easy I think, we have some corporate and other official addresses to keep up to date. A physical box is still also an advantage for some things like dealing with smaller banks.

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Makes sense for VPS.

Virtual mailbox acts like a PO box. They can hold mail for pickup. Address looks like a regular business address. A bank wouldn’t know the difference. The main difference is that you don’t have a physical box to open. Services are fulfilled by local mail centers. Just FYI.

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Hi Viktor – I agree, PO Boxes can be expensive. However, the nonprofit is domiciled in Virginia, and the State Corporation Commission requires a street address in order to incorporate here. Not being willing to share a home address, the decision was made to go with a business mailbox (not technically a PO Box, since it’s not housed at a Post Office) that would allow us to use a street address.

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I don’t think that sounds too bad tbh, especially taking this into account:

I’m paying £100/mo ($137/mo) excluding VAT for a single UK-based VPS. I know I could probably get cheaper if I shopped around, but sometimes it’s just best staying with who/what you know.

Oh, and Hetzner’s website confuses the heck out of me. :confused:

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