Re: Fwd: Query: DebConf16: 2016 - International Debian Developers Conference, hosted at UCT

Hi Martin

The short answer is that they can do whatever we ask of them, but the more they do, the more they charge.

Graham, please check if you have the same understanding as me?

Once we decide this is a route worth pursuing (and I'm 100% for it), then we will negotiate the contract - which will be much simpler than the current template)

On Wed, Jul 22, 2015 at 3:41 PM, martin f krafft <madduck@debconf.org> wrote:

also sprach Bernelle Verster <bernellev@gmail.com> [2015-07-22 15:25 +0200]:
> Good news! Around R11 000 estimate, 2015 prices.

Can you please provide a summary of what this entails?

My intention at this stage (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that they will ONLY hold the funds, and pay the UCT related fees - venue, accommodation, maybe food; basically provide the use of a dedicated bank account. We will manage the details of the venues, registrations, accommodation, etc, ourselves - most of that is halfway done already anyways.

Does it mean they handle all attendee accommodation payments and
credit them against our liabilities?

Yes

Can they collect fees on our behalf, e.g. the prof/corp fees and net
them against our balance, so that we end up only paying the
remainder (or even get a refund)?

I think yes. They assign us one of their existing bank accounts. But we have to go find the funds, obviously, they manage it ( so it's like bookkeeping or financial manager or something like that).

Would they also accept within-ZA-sponsor payments on our behalf?

I think yes. They usually accept the attendee registration fees, which is a whole bunch of little payments, we'd be a smaller number of (mostly) bigger payments, correct?

What's the tax situation like? Who would be the body organising
DebConf16?

We would be an external group to UCT. It sounds like we only get the internal 'UCT' thing if it is organised by e.g. the Head of a Department at UCT (which we could try to arrange, but it doesn't sound like it gives any benefits, and will likely increase admin - thoughts here?) The body who would be organising DebConf16 would be the people usually doing it - DebConf or SPI or whoever does it.

We asked about the tax situation, but both sides need clarification here (we probably need to talk to their accountants directly) but it sounds like it will be pretty much the same story as the registering a company ourselves (but less effort, obviously)

What forms of payment do they accept?

All, but they don't like cheques, as far as I can tell (but I can't remember where I saw this)

Do they provide advance payment options, e.g. credit card online?

Yes, as far as I know.

If they will be registering all attendees, do they provide an API or
oauth2 for us to interface with? This might be an interesting lead
for us…

Uhm, not sure. But at this stage the understanding is that we will do this ourselves. I have contacted the ATAS people who does the software side to see if this interesting lead might lead up to something. (http://atas.co.za)

--
.''`. martin f. krafft <madduck@debconf.org> @martinkrafft
: :' : DebConf orga team
`. `'`
`- DebConf15: Heidelberg, Germany: http://debconf15.debconf.org
DebConf16: Cape Town: https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf16