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

[Arnulf Christl]

On Thu, August 31, 2006 18:46, Jason Birch wrote:
> 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

This makes a lot of sense. We should work this into the membership /
volunteer / project benefit section in the Wiki.

Regards,

> -----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
>
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-- 
Arnulf Christl
http://www.ccgis.de