Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of March 25th, 2014

[Sindhu S <sindhus live in>]

On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 9:36 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna <sri ramkrishna me> wrote:

The original plan was that Diego was going to pay for the visa processing and the foundation was going to pay for the ticket.  Unfortunately, he was unable to get a visa and was out a significant amount of money and had asked if the board would pay for the visa application in lieu of the plane ticket.  Meaning if we were already going to pay for a larger sum of money anyway it should be OK to pay for the smaller amount.

My approved sponsorship was for 1000+ USD if I remember correctly. I spent 73 USD on visa fees and I spent 306 USD on flights reaching the Embassy. How does my expenses exceed the sponsorship amount? This was all clearly mentioned on the thread where I asked for reimbursement too.
 

The difference between your situation and Diego is that Diego isn't going anywhere and is out of money.

I honestly *needed* 130 USD on the upcoming berlin hackfest but I was told the sponsorship is to *help* and not to cover everything. I had to borrow it from someone and now I in debt. Is my reason not good enough for a 130 USD more?

 The second difference is that Diego only applied for the visa because I asked him to come to the west coast hackfest.  So it wasn't even his idea or his initiative but mine.  That's why it was looked at as a special case.

I did *not* apply to come to Docs Hackfest, Kat told me to. She was my mentor then. I then applied for sponsorship after she instructed me to do so. I was contributing to GNOME 2 months then, I had no idea about sponsored events.  Why wasn't I special case?

All I ask of the board is not to bend rules. Whatever revision on the reimbursement policy, please bring it in force *first* and then entertain cases that occur once the policy is in working, not before. It is unfair to me and to everyone who lost money due to visa rejections.