[Sur] [SLOB] motion to approve travel advance

[Walter Bender]

Alas, we have made no headway on my email regarding our travel advance
policy [1], but we have an important decision to make as soon as possible
[2].

As you know, we are hoping to send three representatives from Sugar Labs to
the Google Summer of Code summit. Google has in fact allocated $3300
towards travel for this purpose (See [3] below). The plan of record was to
send Cristina Del Puerto, who will be traveling from San Francisco,
essentially at no cost, Samson Goddy, who will be traveling from Nigeria,
and Michaël Ohayon, who will be traveling from France.

Samson has requested that the SFC prepurchase a ticket for him, as detailed
in [2]. He has also accrued several hundred US dollars in expenses in
obtaining his visa, which was money lent to him by community members when
the SLOB denied his request for a travel advance. He is also asking for a
cash advance of US $550 to cover local transportation needs in Nigeria and
the States [4]. It is likely that the total cost of his and Michaël's
travel will exceed the Google budget by some hundreds of dollars. That
said, I think it is a worthwhile investment in two dedicated community
members. So...

Motion: Approve a travel advance for US $2550 (US $2000 SFC prepurchase of
an airline ticket and $550 towards local transport) for Samson Goddy's
travel to the Google Summer of Code mentor's summit.

Your timely response to this motion much appreciated.

regards.

-walter


[1] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2017-September/020168.html

[2] SLOBs,

As you probably know, Google provides a donation of $2,700 which they
suggest
projects use for travel for mentors and students, ideally for the Mentor
Summit.

Samson has asked us to book his flight.  It seems it will probably cost
around $1,800, but I'm sorting out details with Samson now based on his
email
in a private thread.

I ask that Adam Holt, as Representative to Conservancy from SLOBs, please
communicate immediate approval for up to $2,000 for booking Samson's flight
(prices may change by the time you send that approve, so extra budget room
is a good idea).

Note that the budget constraint by Conservancy's travel policy in this case
is US$2,748.54 for this particular travel, but the Google funding means we
do need to get approval from you, since likely the combined travel for GSoC
-- which includes Samson Goddy, Michaël Ohayon, and Cristina Del Puerto --
will likely, in combination, go above the $2,700 donation for this purpose
from Google.  Others have not sent their travel details so we don't know
their travel costs -- if you want to set capped budgets for them as well,
please do that immediately too.

I recommend approval for all this travel -- provided that it follows
Conservancy's main travel policy -- given the large amount of funds Sugar
Labs has at its disposal already, but it's of course your decision.

Martin Michlmayr

[3] Hi GSoC Org Admins --
As a thank you for your participation in GCI this year we want to give you
3 slots for mentors to send to the GSoC Mentor Summit (instead of the
normal 2).

We will add an additional $1100 to your GSoC mentor travel stipend payment
(for a total of $3300 for the mentor travel stipends). Feel free to have
the third person sign up for the Mentor Summit registration before
September 5th, the sooner the better so we can get more folks off of the
wait list early.

We will of course pay for the 3rd person's room for Friday and Saturday
nights as well so be sure they sign up for their hotel room at either the
Sunnyvale Sheraton Hotel  or Aloft Santa Clara Hotel before September 5th.

It would be great if you sent a mentor that was a mentor for both programs
as your third person. The person does need to be at least 18 years old.

If you have any questions please let us know.

Best,

Stephanie and Mary

[4] Sure and $550 for travel advance.... I will be in Lagos for almost 7
hours and London for 6 hrs, transportation and taxes in Both airport in
Nigeria and America. I wanted to fly from Port Harcourt direct to SFO but
it will cost additional $1500 to the flight money which i think people in
the board might argue on.. So i decided to use Lagos instead of Port
Harcourt to save $1.5k, though more stressful but less money spent

-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
<http://www.sugarlabs.org>
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