Re: [Debconf-team] Getting DebConf attendees reimbursed quickly for travel costs
On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 09:22:21AM +0100, Paul Wise wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 11:49 PM, Richard Darst wrote:
>
> > One of my goals to help DebConf attendees get reimbursed quickly for
> > their approved travel sponsorship costs. There are two parts to this:
> >
> > - Getting reimbursement forms in from attendees quickly. It is
> > DebConf's job to do this quickly, and I am working with various
> > teams to make sure that we get all the forms *during* DebConf this
> > year.
>
> Would it be possible to get and return the forms electronically again?
> Dealing with printers and scanners is a pain.
As Holger said, FFIS requires paper forms - so the best I can think of
is collect them on-site to save everyone from having to mail themselves.
> > - Getting money in from sponsors to be able to have money to send out
> > again. This can sometimes take months after DebConf, though we
> > should be in a better than normal position this year.
>
> BTW, an idea for new sponsors; the Debian derivatives census includes
> information about the sponsors for derivatives:
>
> http://wiki.debian.org/Derivatives/CensusFull
This is a great idea, I'm sure the sponsors team will be very
interested, next year if it is too late for this year...
> > One possibility to work around the second problem is to use general
> > Debian funds as a buffer. We could reimburse attendees from Debian
> > general funds, and then in a month or two, replenish Debian funds from
> > our sponsor money.
>
> I'd personally be a bit nervous about this ...
I should clarify - this would be committed and invoiced money, just
not received yet. To make it concrete, DebConf has €55k committed and
invoiced, but less than €20k in bank accounts right now. From my
experience, this mostly materializes.
I wouldn't propose reimbursing more money than was invoiced + we were
reasonable sure would be collected - and leave a good buffer. I would
expect a final decision to be made closer to or during DebConf itself,
since we'll have a better picture of cash flows then.
- richard
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