Re: [Debconf-team] Early travel sponsorship

[Richard Darst <rkd@zgib.net>]

On Mon, Jun 06, 2011 at 11:17:30PM +0200, Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> someone approached me today with the following thought / idea:
> 
> "As your sponsorship meeting is a bit late, how about approving travel
>  sponsorship for a selected set of people earlier? It seems a shame to
>  wait until the meeting is done as the travel prices will go up in the
>  meantime, so people who are obviously deserving could get it earlier."

Here is some information from a budget perspective:

- about 50k € pledged so far
- Actual costs are very low since gov will pay most things (less than
  k € so far we know about... ).
- about 8k € received in bank accounts so far.

>From a budget perspective, I think it's feasible to allocate money
early this year (and probably most years, too).  People have good
arguments about why this should be done early.

Money isn't paid out until after the conference, for the most part.
In the past Debian has often provided the support needed to make
travel allocations - basically "Spend money on travel sponsorship
within reason, since getting people there is important".

Regardless of the general case, I have confidence that allocating
10-20k EUR already is fine this year.  I can provide more detailed
financial pictures if anyone would like.

I think the biggest thing is that things keep going on inertia.  If
someone new came in and created a plan, herded cats and spoke to
budget people, we could make things happen early.  Phil, would you
like to be travel sponsorship team leader next year?  I will provide
all support needed to make it a success.

- richard

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