Process & Approval for Collab Summit Travel Fund

[mikeal]

I know that we've already discussed this in the past but for audit purposes we need a more refined process for approving use of the travel fund so I'd like to talk about this prior to the board meeting next week.

A few people were added to the list for the August summit and it puts us over the budget we were trying to hold to before.

Process:

• TSC approves target budget (max amount to spend on travel) and caps on each type of spend (with the possibility that the TSC can approve a specific spend over if need be).
• Contributors in need of the fund apply (this will happen in the GitHub thread) but should explicitly state if they need flight, accommodation or both.
• If the number of contributors in need of the fund exceeds the target budget the TSC will prioritize the list of contributors applying for the fund.

My suggestion for the August Summit:

• 15K max budget (we had previously talked about 10K but I don't think that is enough)
• Approve a $900 max spend per person on accomodations.
• Approve a $500 max spend on domestic travel
• Approve a $1000 max spend on international travel (if someone has to go over it just requires additional TSC approval)
• @bnb and @snostorm seemed to be offering to put themselves towards the end of the list (although I may be miss-interpreting that). The working groups they are heavily involved in (website and evangelism) aren't expected to be the hottest topics of conversation during this summit so it might be best to wait for the next one and make more of an effort to bring more of those working groups in.
• Approve the following applicants now as they are expected to be low in cost compared to the rest:
  • @Fishrock123 (from British Columbia)
  • @nodebotanist (from Austin)
• Approve the following list if they can stay below the approved max spend, if their costs are going to be more than that we'll need to get TSC approval.
  • @yosuke-furukawa (from Japan)
  • @joaocgreis (from Portugal)
  • @Starefossen (from Norway)

[Fishrock123]

Contributors in need of the fund apply (this will happen in the GitHub thread) but should explicitly state if they need flight, accommodation or both.

In this thread? (Both.)

[mikeal]

@Fishrock123 the summit thread where we've already collected them for this one openjs-foundation/summit#1 I only called it out because we'll need to continue to do that for future events.

[Fishrock123]

Also, didn't @orangemocha potentially need assistance?

[mikeal]

@Fishrock123 I don't see that in thread but he did add @joaocgreis who needs travel assistance, maybe that is what you're thinking of?

[orangemocha]

I don't need assistance, thank you. @joaocgreis' ticket is well over $1000, but we managed to find him accommodation for free (staying at a friend's place). Perhaps the foundation can reimburse a higher portion of the ticket for him?

[mikeal]

@orangemocha that would fit provided the ticket is under $1900, if not please get us an estimate and we can bring it to the next TSC meeting.

[thefourtheye]

Is it too late to say I would love to attend (I became a collaborator last Friday only) and need travel assistance (I am from India)?

[mikeal]

@thefourtheye the upcoming one is only a few weeks away so the flight cost may be too high. We'll be doing another one soon enough though :)

[thefourtheye]

@mikeal Oh okay, Thanks :-) Looking forward to the next one. Also, do we have an agenda for this summit?

[joaocgreis]

@mikeal The ticket was $1,742.66. It would be great if the accommodation money can be used to reimburse the whole ticket!

[mikeal]

@joaocgreis shouldn't be an issue as the amounts are set with the expectation of being spent per person but we'll bring it to the TSC meeting tomorrow just to get a final stamp of approval :)

[yosuke-furukawa]

@mikeal Thank you for bringing the issue to TSC agenda. my travel ticket will be over $1900 :( . the week is in Japanese summer vacation, so my travel cost is crazy high 😨 ... It would be great if TSC approve the extra budget, But it is okay for me to not approved the extra budget, I can handle to go to the summit in planned assistance. I am looking forward to seeing io.js WG members on the summit :)

[rvagg]

15K max budget (we had previously talked about 10K but I don't think that is enough)

Agreed, although we may need to push higher because:

Approve a $900 max spend per person on accomodations.

SF is expensive and I'm going to guess that we may see additional requests for accom.

Approve a $1000 max spend on international travel

I suggest we bump this to $1500, $1000 doesn't get you very far from most countries outside of the Americas.