GNOME Travel Committee & Travel Policy: A proposal for consideration and feedback

[Stormy Peters <stormy gnome org>]

The GNOME Board of Directors is proposing a GNOME Travel Committee to
handle travel assistance for GNOME developers traveling to events. The
GNOME Foundation supports the GNOME project and one important way of
doing that is sponsoring contributors to travel to GNOME events like
conferences and hackfests. The sponsored travel is meant to help those
that would like to attend GNOME related events but are unable to do so
for financial reasons. All GNOME contributors are always encouraged to
apply.

The GNOME Travel Committee would ensure that all requests and
reimbursements are handled in a timely and consistent manner.

Two things in this email:
1) Proposal for a travel committee (with attached form - thanks to the
GNOME.Asia planners for the first draft of the form!)
2) Proposal to change standard travel reimbursement policy to 85% of
costs or total costs minus €200.


== GNOME Travel Committee Proposal  ==

Here's how the new travel committee would work. (Open to comments.)
When a new event is planned:

* The event planners will indicate to the travel committee what their
travel budget is and if there are any special circumstances like
invited speakers or a specific attendee that they would like to make sure comes.
* The travel committee puts out a notice to the foundation-list
announcing that they are now taking applications for travel assistance
and stating a deadline for applications.
* Developers who would like sponsored travel apply by filling out the
application form (see attached form) and emailing to
travel-list gnome org (not created yet.)
* At the deadline, the travel committee will weigh in on all the applications.
* Two weeks after the application deadline, the travel committee
should notify all applicants of whether their travel has been approved
for sponsorship or not, the amount of sponsorship, and point all
approved applicants to the policy for reimbursement and the deadline
for submitting expenses.
* After the event, all sponsored developers should submit their travel
reimbursement form with receipts within 2 weeks. (Receipts sent after
this date may not be reimbursed and will definitely take more time to approve.)
* Checks should be mailed within four weeks after the expenses deadline.

== Travel Policy Proposal ==

Travel reimbursement policy proposal. Currently, the GNOME
Foundation's general policy is to reimburse travel and lodging. It has
been proposed to have the sponsored travelers pay some of the costs.
By doing so, people would be encouraged to spend money wisely and it
would enable us to fund more people. Exceptions could always be made
on a case by case basis (like maybe for students) or on an event basis
(like for a particular hackfest.)

Current policy: Transportation and lodging only.

Proposed policy: Total transportation and lodging minus €200 or 15%
(which ever is greater.) The amount to be agreed on before hand
between the travel committee and the traveler. Documented on the
application form.

Please let us know your thoughts or if you'd like to help out on the
travel committee.

Thanks,

Stormy

--
Stormy Peters
Executive Director
GNOME Foundation