Re: [Debconf-team] reports from Le Camp "BSP", part 3: irc meeting(s) on the internet
On 31/10/12 09:22, Richard Darst wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 02:24:01PM +0100, Holger Levsen wrote:
>
>> If we dont manage to decide in the next 14 days, I personally think that it
>> will be very hard/unrealistic to gather sponsors in 2012 and if we fail to do
>> that, things will definitly become considerably more difficult. At the end of
>> the year there is quite some easy to get money floating around, but one needs
>> to apply for this earlier.
>
> Venues shouldn't influence the majority of the sponsorship, should it?
>
>>> But unfortunately it's premature to make any "final"
>>> decision until there is at least one plausible option presented,
>>> including among other things a plausible budget.
>>
>> The budgets we had at Le Camp were/are IMO plausibe, have they still not been
>> added to svn?
>
> I don't think that's agreed. Any budget which remotely looks close
> has ZERO travel sponsorship. (and the best budget anyone has produced
> still have deficits, despite assuming 50% more sponsorship than last
> year)
>
> My last email had a kind-of-fallback plan plan for lecamp, but that
> involves no attendees. Any plan that kind of makes it work involves
> huge amounts of sponsorship, or moving a large portion of the costs
> onto attendees. Since that time, there are lots of doubts raised
> about getting this many professional attendees.
>
> I think it's worth asking if any of these will be affordable, and
> (more usefully) what tradeoffs we'd have to make at different levels
> of fundraising: 50% more than last year, 100% more than last year, and
> so on.
Just to repeat the point - I expected Interlaken to demonstrate the
there is nothing cheaper in Switzerland. All we can get by changing
venue is flexibility (both in the budget, which should matter for
everybody, and in accommodation choices, which matters for some people
more than others)
The whole reason for visiting Interlaken was not an attack on Le Camp
itself, rather, I perceive the same concern about the Le Camp budget
that Darst keeps coming back to, and nobody seems willing to take hard
decisions (e.g. the shortening option was ruled out far too quickly by
people who went to meet with Le Camp last Thursday)
What are the other options at this point in time? If Le Camp is
impossible on the current budget, and if not enough local team members
can support alternatives in Switzerland, should the Latvian bid be given
the opportunity to propose a solution? Deciding that Le Camp is
unrealistic is only half the equation, for DC13 to go ahead next year,
we are also running out of time for alternatives to be created.
>>>> Surely one can look for dc13 sponsors now as the situation is
>>> Yes -- as has been said, it's late already. And the best way to show
>>> that any of the possible Swiss budgets are plausible would be to quickly
>>> get some promises of cash from non-repeat sponsors, to demonstrate that
>>> we can expect the sponsorship income to be greater than the last few
>>> years.
>>
>> we already have 46k secured for Le Camp, quite very probably 51k. Thats way
>> more then ever. (I do actually miss some applause here.)
>
> I am guessing that 40 kCHF comes from the "anonymous donors". No one
> has talked about this yet, but this I have gathered that this isn't a
> "donation", this is a loan to be repaid later... not that dissimilar
> to what Debian provides once we have a reasonable budget.
>
> And, while the donors nominally say we can keep it if we need it, what
> I head said they want it back before _before_ travel sponsorship... so
> even if we decide to use the money to fill a deficit, it can't be used
> for travel sponsorship. Also, if these donors feel they misjudged the
> financial risk of this lending, then it could produce bad blood...
>
That is not a sponsor then, it is a loan
It is also scary to think that putting DebConf in Switzerland puts
DebConf management decisions (such as travel sponsorship) under the
direction of an anonymous lender.
This is the very reason for my comments in previous emails about the
scary nature of debt (even though I knew nothing about this proposed new
loan at the time I wrote it), and everyone needs to reflect deeply
themselves and decide how much independence is valued.
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