[Ambassadors] VISA fee reimbursement

[Siddhesh Poyarekar]

On 13 July 2015 at 23:21, Danishka Navin <snavin at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> As all of us know we have an issue with funds for events.
> Do we really need to  reimburse VISA fee?

I have a more pragmatic view of this.  We did not promise visa fee
reimbursement for FUDCon Pune.  In fact we did not promise
reimbursements under specific cost heads (cab fare, visa, airfare,
etc.) and instead went for allocation based on what we had.  More
importantly we made sure that the subsidies we gave justified the
people coming in, i.e. specifically for contributors and speakers and
then just distributed based on what we had.

In the end, we have some left over from the budget and if it helps a
fellow contributor (especially in APAC where an $80 visa fee means a
lot of money) then why not?  But I agree, not as a policy.

> For example, If 10 guys requesting for 50$ if VISA fee, we have to allocate
> 500$.
> * This amount may help on either one or two guys to flying to an event
> * This amount may really good enought to run several low budget events.

Sure, that is a valid point, but like I said, some people (students
for example) just cannot afford the visa fees and if we have budget
left over and we really want them to come over, then I don't see any
harm in helping out if we have room in the budget.

> As Fedora is not a travel agency, should we continue this practise?

It's not and in that case we should help with travel at all (by
booking tickets, helping with transit, etc.), but we do.  Subsidies as
I understand, depend on the contribution the requestor could
potentially make to the event and if the organizers believe that their
event would benefit greatly from a specific attending the event,
they're (rightly) free to spend whatever money they can to get them
there as long as it is within the budget and is within ethical
guidelines.

Siddhesh
-- 
http://siddhesh.in