Panorama of Iguassu falls
The Travel Committee has received 48 sponsorship requests and we have started to processing them. It will be a bit hard, as you may guess and as you may deduce according the following tables:
| 5 | Females |
| 43 | Males |
| 19 | Speakers (not confirmed yet) |
| 8 | Google Summer of Code students |
| 30 | Members of GNOME Foundation |
| 1 | Applicant declined his request |
| Minimum requested: | $ 59,038.- |
| Maximum requested: | $ 61,101.- |
| Funds available for sponsoships: | $ 30,000.- |
The amount requested should be a bit higher than it is shown in the second table, because we need to get some clarification from some people. However, I am confident we could save at least $ 9,000 if we look for a different lodging than the main one recommended by the organizers.
Sooner than later we should send emails asking for more information (when it were needed). We will do our best.
Do you think people didn’t understand the difference between “minimum” and “maximum”? An average of $1100 per sponsored participant? I think step 1 is “come on, seriously… what’s the minimum you need to get to GUADEC?” and them work from there.
I do not understand your first question. I think everybody understand the diference. minimun and the maximum. I did not explain anything else, except that not all applicants gave us a number. So, the final amount could be higher than the table shows. That is all.
As everybody would like to stay in the main hotel, which costs €96 a day (a double room), the lodging costs would be around $500 (8 nights) each. But, you should not forget the costs of each ticket. I expect to get the lodging costs near to $240 each (8 nights).
With respect to the step 1, that is suppossed to be the amount stated in the form. However, the way of dealing with values is getting the airfare costs by ourselves and ask for the difference.
It means more work for the committee, but this is the only way I see we could get better prices and being able to sponsor more people. Moreover, when the data came in the form of a document, not in a database.
Hi German,
The meaning of my first question was just from my observation that max – min is under 4% of the total max. In other words, on average people are stating that they are prepared to pay for 4% of their total costs out of their pocket. That seems very low – I would expect people to cover around 20% – for the reason you point out, we have $30,000 travel budget for 60 people who want it.
If I were you, I would offer people a daily subvention for accommodation, based on the cost of the cheapest available option, and offer a portion of flight costs, to allow you to cover costs for as many people as possible.
If, among the people you offer this to, some say no, you will be able to go back to others who accepted the offer and let them know that they will be getting a little more of their costs covered.
Cheers,
Dave.
A few applicants wrote as airfare the amount they were requesting, not the real cost of the airfare. But I got your point. I think is a matter of time, now we are testing how effective are the instructions, the form and the process. So, there are areas to improve and we are taking corrective directions.
I am not worried about that, because we can talk about it and it is under our control. But I am afraid of the lack of response from the travel agency and organizers about our intentions to book rooms in a hotel.