[Board] Travel Expenses

[Jeff McKenna]

Hello mpg, Frank, Cameron,

Actually the purpose of my email was to hopefully come up with
'guidelines' for using an OSGeo ambassador (such as Cameron stated,
"expect to cover travel, accommodation and a daily rate of XXX"). It
would be great if we (the Board) can agree on this standard rate and
draft the guidelines together on the wiki.

So in fact I was not asking for any money from OSGeo.

But I am open to hearing other options of course.

-jeff



On 12-08-28 7:52 PM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 2:02 PM, Jeff McKenna
> <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com> wrote:
>> Hello Board,
>>
>> I am in contact with several local committees to do some talks/keynotes
>> as an OSGeo ambassador at their events.  I have done enough travel for
>> OSGeo now to know that there are many more expenses during these events
>> other than "flight & hotel".
> 
> Jeff,
> 
> This also suggest we ought to revisit how Ambassador funding is
> allocated.  I see we have about $8K left in our budget for it this year.
> I believe previously the procedure was that if Arnulf *and* Daniel
> agreed about a proposed activity that was sufficient (within the
> budgetary limits).  The effort earlier this year to add more structure
> to the program morphed into the OSGeo Advocate effort which while
> laudable doesn't give us any more guideance on how to approve
> funded ambassador activities when they are judged to be strategic.
> 
>> I would like to see us (the OSGeo Board) agree on standard rates for
>> travel expenses for OSGeo representatives (i.e. a per diem that covers
>> food and misc expenses during OSGeo travel).  I don't mind starting that
>> wiki page draft, if the Board feels this is a good idea.
> 
> While I *prefer* us to be only reimbursing expenses for which there
> are actual receipts I can understand that this isn't always practical.
> I am open to a proposal but I want to stress that I would want it to
> err on the side of frugal.
> 
>> I hope I am not off-base in bringing this issue up publicly to the Board.
> 
> I can't see how it would be off base and with such financial matters
> it is particularly important that we be as open as possible.
> 
> Best regards,
>