Hi everyone,
This is my first blog post for the OCA. I hope it’s the first one of many more. My name is Virginie, and I’m a new member of the OCA board since January 2021. I’m the only one elected member who’s not a developer. My personal goal in joining the board is to bring another perspective, less technical, within the board, and also to contribute with more communication and transparency in order to make the OCA bigger, stronger, better (wow a lot of big buzz words!). You also had this nice song in your head while reading this?
During the past years, as a contributor to the OCA, I had some difficulty in understanding the structure, the organization, the missions of the OCA, and also how to contribute, what were the communication channels (Github, mailing list, website…).
I feel that this could be the same for other members or contributors to the OCA. That’s why I’ve decided to take some time to write down what we do during our OCA board meetings (once a month), share what the challenges are that we face, and how we decide what to do to help the Community as much as we can.
In January and February 2021, we focussed on the distribution of our roles inside the Board. We also spent some time to (re)define some “pillars” to contribute to the OCA mission. Everything is explained just below. Enjoy!
Our mission
Establish and support an Open Source and collaborative community for the development and promotion of the Odoo features and modules.
What do we need to pursue our mission?
We defined 3 main pillars :
People know us and understand the value we offer them
Why do we want this?
You can only support what you know and have understood
To foster Open Source collaboration
To attract more people
Happy members, contributors and users
Why do we want this?
Happy people bring others and allows us to grow
To exist: our stakeholders are driving and sustaining our community
Contributions flow and are based on good will and this comes with belonging and feeling you are part of a greater whole
Sustainable funding
Why do we want this?
For a long-term sustainability of the OCA
To be able to invest in our projects to pursue our mission
To fund amazing events
2021 Priorities
We decided to focus on 3 priorities this year:
Happy members & contributors: We should embrace new contributors and give them an amazing experience with us
Communication: people need to better understand the value we offer at the OCA
Sponsorship and funding program: Secure our revenue (and specifically for OpenUpgrade)
To focus on these priorities, we have some ideas. Here are some of them:
Rework / completely redo our website (better explanation of our value proposition, quickstart guide, etc.) through a real communication strategy (with an external expert)
Bring more value to our members (e.g. webinars, training & talks from our people)
Promote our projects and sponsors realization
Organise a meet up with PSC members, to get the people who are active in this aligned about the tasks
PSC: organize meetings with all of them
All of this will need a lot of work from the board members, but also from all OCA members and contributors!
You feel like helping us on one of these topics? You just had the best idea ever? Share it, by answering below this blog post or mailing the OCA.
Who does what?
We are 9 people on the board, plus our dear General Secretary Rebecca. Each of us now has a specific role to play.
President: Joël Grand-Guillaume
* Public voice
* Ensure that decisions are taken in respect of the association goals
* Responsibility to organize board meetings
* Responsible for the legal aspects
* Manage the relationship with Odoo SA and other international organizations (Python, PostgreSQL, etc.)
* Involve in the relationship with key sponsors
*Help other positions to get their job done and back them up
Vice-President: Graeme Gellatly
* Assist and support the President
* Administration of the Association
* Manage the election process for the Delegates and the General Assembly
* Prepare the documents for the General Assembly
* Manage content of legal documents: Bylaws, CLAs
* Manage new CLAs registration
Treasurer: Frederik Kramer
* Oversee invoices and payments
* Oversee bank accounts
* Manage budgets
* Prepare documents for Financial Auditors
* Oversee the membership and sponsorship renewals
Events: Simone Orsi
* Ensure the OCA event quality
*Decide which external events to participate to or to organize/sponsor
* Budget holder of the events
* Planning and topics organization
* Support contributors to organize events (w/ General Secretary)
Communication: Virginie Dewulf
* Lead the communication strategy impulse, based on the OCA strategy for the year
* SPOC for communication providers (link between board and providers)
* Ensure there is a good communication rhythm
Income: Daniel Reis
* Lead the sponsorship and value proposition strategy
* Manage crowdfunding campaigns
* Responsible of membership, sponsorship and other leads
*Manage goodies and products inventory
Support: Stéphane Bidoul
Support: Alexandre Fayolle
* Manage the infrastructure budgetMaintain OCA servers
PSC/Community Manager: Benoit Guillot
* Enhance contributors experience & happiness
* Manage PSC and their conflicts
* Onboard new PSC responsible person
* Manage community requests
* Support Local Communities
*Manage security issues
General Secretary: Rebecca Gellatly
* Support all other roles
* Run the administration of the association
* Invoicing & reconciliation
* Membership renewals
* CLA registration
* RFQ publication
* Events organization: contact, coordination,..
* Relationship with sponsors
What's next?
We will certainly ask for help and/or contribution in order to work on our 2021 priorities.
We’ll keep you posted!
Written by Virginie Dewulf
2021 OCA Board Member
Cover photo by Qunio Al on Unsplash
