[VisCom] Re: [OSGeo-Board] Re: People at FOSS4G

[Jason Birch]

Re: benevolent fund:

My take on this is that the "Grant" should be part of the conference
organising committee's expenditures, and that there should be a
qualification process (statement of merit, statement of need) with a
sanity check by the organising committee, followed by a random draw from
all accepted entries.  This ensures that the people receiving the grants
are both "worthy" and that nobody has to say No.

The justification for placing this with the organising committee is that
the grant is not just a gift, it is enhancing the quality of the
conference by bringing in more smart people.

Perhaps the grant could be tied to a requirement to present.  If they're
smart and doing stuff that benefits the community, then the community
must be interested in what they have to say.

I think we have to concentrate on our core too.  If VisCom needs to send
people to other conferences for marketing, then this is reasonable, but
OSGeo grants should be limited to attendance of "our" FOSS4G conference.

Jason

-----Original Message-----
From: Tyler Mitchell [mailto:tylermitchell at shaw.ca] 
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 09:33
To: OSGeo-Board; OSGeo-VisCom
Subject: [VisCom] Re: [OSGeo-Board] Re: People at FOSS4G

> I'm thinking of a benevolent fund, yes, and then looking at the budget

> document and thinking "well, there's an allocation which looks like 
> what I have in mind and has the same sort of name". I'm thinking that 
> travel expenses is a good way to support "people we like". "Promotion"
> is a difficult word for me and I'd maybe say "representation".

I would like to see us have a travel grant fund that people could
request support from or apply to and a committee could dole out, but I
see this as distinct from the promo budget.

While I would like to see ways to help get members more involved in
events, I'm a little concerned about setting precedence on what "people
we like" means, without some clear guidelines.  Of course, at present,
no one is going to want to say they don't like the people you or I like,
so then it comes down who asks first or who is 'brave'  
enough to ask the question :)  Who is going to say no, since we all have
a benevolent nature?

I'm sure that if some of the PSC's or other members knew we had money to
help support them, they would have asked to come to promote their
projects, which would seem much easier to justify.

I assume VisCom should get a plan together for how the promo budget gets
spent, so there is some longer term vision for how the funds are
directed.  I'm not saying this kind of support wouldn't fall in there,
but I'm having trouble seeing the benefit for OSGeo to fund to have
someone come when there are already so many supporters going to be
there, unless EuroOSCON is in desperate need of OSGeo representation or
a certain project is having trouble getting a rep there.

I guess it also touches on the point of whether or not we want OSGeo to
be seen as having money to give away for this kind of support in
general.

Were you looking for VisCom support on this?  I assume the board will
decide what to do on this, but I just wanted to bring up a few
discussion points.  Would love to see Andy there, of course :)

Arnulf - Are there some conference passes still available at all?

Tyler