Re: [Debconf-team] howto deal with debian/debconf money at ffis (and spi)
On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 9:02 AM, Holger Levsen <holger@layer-acht.org> wrote:
> Two month _before_ DebConf OTOH, I assume very often to be too short. I'd
> start the DebConfN year on January 31st or the day of the first money
> transaction :-)
Clearly there's no need before "the day of the first money
transaction". But I'd actually say it's less urgent to have a
separate earmark/account before DebConf than it is important to keep
one for a little afterwards. Richard's worry is that people won't get
round to recording transactions in the DebConf version of the accounts
-- but there's a strong incentive to do that for the period where
money is coming *in*, to be able to spend that money later.
Closing and reopening the (reported) accounts each year raises the
question that we previously discussed at DC10, of what happens to
left-over money, and what money DebConf initially gets access to each
year, and reminds me that not all DebConf spending need necessarily be
run through the DebConf team:
- I'd like to give a reminder here that the original reason people
tried to have money left over was because there are often expenses
that happen early on, like deposits for venues, before any income has
come in for that year. So while I'm personally happy to call
everything Debian money, and *not* automatically give the left-over
money to the next DebConf (there may be other spending priorities,
including other meetings that will happen first), there will still be
a need for some (non-neglible) initial sum each year.
- I'm not making a proposal here, but we should remember that
'merging' some aspects of DebConf back with other DebConf teams, as
discussed at DC10 could include things that raise and spend money.
Long term, I'd personally be very happy to see sponsorship raising as
part of a wider Debian fund-raising team, and travel sponsorship run
by an appropriate DebConf team. While we may (or may not) want to
limit travel sponsorship to a portion of money raised specifically for
a DebConf, in my view there's no good reason why the processing of
sending the money to people's bank accounts should be run by the same
people who look after organising the actual conference. Splitting
that out could help a lot in closing the specifically *DebConf*
accounting earlier. [I would like us to try to pay people back much
earlier, but I think there will always be a few cases where there are
problems and so delays.]
--
Moray
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