local sponsors for debconf bids

[Allison Randal <allison@lohutok.net>]

(I promised to send this email in the sponsors team meeting this week.)

In the Cape Town bid meeting this Wednesday, we had a quick question
about relating (or not) to the local sponsors we list in the bid. For
the most part, we know it's fine to list them as potential sponsors, and
not reach out to them at all. We figure it's also fine to ask around to
other local contacts for suggestions on other sponsors we might list
(along the lines of reaching out to organizers of other events in Cape
Town or other ZA cities).

We were less sure whether it would be okay to make initial contact
directly with the potential sponsors. This came up because apparently
it's quite common in ZA for large conference sponsors to close their
budgets in Feb of the prior year (so they'd close applications for 2016
events in Feb 2015). What do folks recommend? Is it okay to approach
potential sponsors, making it very clear that this is just a *bid*, so
that we can find out what their submission deadlines will be?

Thanks for any thoughts,
Allison