Re: [Debconf-team] Discussing our budgeting and sponsorship situation
Richard Darst dijo [Sun, May 30, 2010 at 07:16:44PM -0400]:
> [...large ugh...]
>
> - We reword the reconfirmation emails to say "accommodation
> sponsorship decisions forthcoming". This is highly non-ideal, but
> maybe necessary to be honest.
>
> By SOME_DATE that is real soon now, if our fundraising activities do
> not report any substantive improvements:
>
> - Decide how much to reduce sponsorship. Perhaps we'll decide to
> sponsor 50%, instead of 0%.
>
> - Establish a team to review Debcamp work plans, and make decisions
> about if we can afford to sponsor those people. Possibly look at
> alternative accommodations (hostels, MrBeige's place), ask that they
> pay their own way. (expected savings: ~4,000-10,000 )
Umm... what worries me here is that, the closer we get to DebConf, the
rigider everything becomes. Not only have people already booked their
flights based on the traditional accomodation rules, but we will also
have to give final attendance numbers to Columbia. So, if we are to
try this, it should be done __NOW__. And expect a not very subtle
reaction from attendees, of course.
> - We look through DebConf attendees food/accommodation sponsorship .
> This is harder to tell who deserves sponsorship or not, since we
> want it open to as many people as possible. Our proposed starting
> point is to allow food sponsorship to everyone, and limit
> accommodation sponsorship to those with some preexisting
> relationship to Debian (being very flexible here), and a team would
> have to be dispatched to make these decisions (expected savings:
> ???)
Again, in order for this to be implementable, it must be announced and
implemented really soon. Of course, there is hope that if people see
we are in a desperate position, some more people will decide to pay
lodging+food (or even get sponsorship!)... but we cannot rely on
that.
> As a side note, I realized today that if there was insufficient money
> to reconcile our bills with Columbia at the end of the conference, it
> is _my_ reputation on the line more than SPI's (even though it is SPI
> who is on the line for paying). As such, I'd like to ensure that he
> can say "we can pay" in good faith, which doesn't necessarily mean
> having all the money already, but at least having had a real
> discussion about the budget.
Fun to be localteam, isn't it? :-) Well... Cheers anyway - The effort
you have put into this is amazing, and I'm sure things will end up
turning not-disastrous ;-)
--
Gunnar Wolf • gwolf@gwolf.org • (+52-55)5623-0154 / 1451-2244
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