Re: [guadec-list] Visa section

[Robert Kratky <robert kratky liberix cz>]

Dne St 29. května 2013 13:28:18, Florian Nadge napsal(a):

> Hi Rui,
> My experience is that this so called letter does not help. The Czech
> embassy unusually asks to see the registration conformation. Sindhu had a
> very bad basically lost a lot of money because she assumed that she could
> travel when she could not. Maybe we could call this letter Confirmation of
> Participation or something along these lines and make clear that this is in
> no way a guarantee to get a visa.
>
> Robert,
> do you think this makes sense, can you send a letter of confirmation to
> help along the visa process?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Florian

As I have said before, we have no problem with sending these letters. I'm quite sure that the letters won't 
be of any real help in the visa-application process (in my experience, the officials do not even read such 
letters - instead, they want to verify that the applicant has compelling reasons for returning back to their 
home country, such as family, career, studies, etc.). That, however, is another matter entirely, and I'm not 
the one to judge that.

So, again: if anybody wants to receive such letter, just give me their email address and name and I'll take 
care of it.

Robert



> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 10:56 PM, Rui Tiago Cação Matos <
> tiagomatos gmail com> wrote:
>
> > > Od: Florian Nadge <fnadge gmail com>
> > > We had this discussion in this list and with Karen. She knows about the
> > > status of these letters. From hard learned experience. I can say that
> > these
> > > letters give the wrong impression that we can help with the process when
> > we
> > > can not. People are quite upset if they are turned down. I would rather
> > > have a short text giving the link Robert mentioned previously.
> >
> > I had a quick chat with German Poo who is in the Foundation Travel
> > Committee and is generally knowledgeable about these things.
> >
> > He says the we can't, of course, send formal letters, which, as I
> > understood, are the ones that basically guarantee that you get a visa
> > unless you have a criminal record or something. The inviting person in
> > that case basically takes all the legal responsibility for the invitee
> > in that case.
> >
> > That's not what we do.
> >
> > What we can do is send a letter that will help people prove that they
> > are coming for a conference and we know them basically. It help to
> > prove, but they can still be turned down of course.
> >
> > So, seems to me that all your gripes, Florian, are that the current
> > wording on the website suggests we can send out the former rather than
> > the latter kind of invites? That's pretty easy to change.
> >
> > But I do want to do this anyway. German says that they've always
> > managed to do it and it does help in some cases though possibly not
> > all.
> >
> > Rui