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

[Paul Cooper <paul openedhand com>]

On Wed, 2009-02-18 at 10:09 +0100, Dave Neary wrote:
> Hi Bruno,
> 
> Bruno Boaventura wrote:
> > I'm with Claudio on this issue. Last year I could not go to GUADEC if
> > I had to pay 200 € (wait to be reimbursed has been difficult). GUADEC
> > should be a special case.
> 
> You are making an assumption of unlimited funds!
> 
> This year, we have allocated a provisional travel budget of €30,000 - it
> may go over that, butu this is our provisional budget.
> 
> Do you remember how much it cost you to get to Istanbul, Bruno? With
> accommodation, perhaps €1000? Baris told me that last year we funded
> people for $60,000 - which covered travel and accommodation for...
> flights for 27 people, and accommodation for 35 people. Do you think
> that perhaps we could have used this money more efficiently to benefit
> 60 or 70 people?

For reference in 07 we spent around 36,000 GBP on travel and hotels for
52 people - which was 6K over our budget, partly because we'd secured
more sponsorship and partly because I found it hard to say no to so many
cool people. I'm glad I'm not on the travel committee.

Also, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but does DebConf not do a similar
things, ie. have a travel subsidy (with a contribution from the
attendee) rather than full sponsorship.

Why not just make this a clearly optional part of the form, e.g.

Total estimated cost of travel & accommodation:
Total contribution from applicant (recommended smaller of %15 or 200Eu):
Total request for subsidy (difference of the above): 

or similar but with better wording.

Paul

> So which has more value? Being able to cover 30 people, or being able to
> cover 40 people, because we ask people to pay what they can afford when
> we agree to fund them?
> 
> Cheers,
> Dave.
> 
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