[FAmSCo] my famsco-related updates

[Max Spevack]

Hi all,

*** NOTE: I will be on a small vacation, from Thursday afternoon of July 
22 through the end of the day on Monday July 26. ***

I apologize for the fact that I've been a bit absent lately -- I was on 
a business trip for team meetings as well as the Community Leadership 
Summit from Tuesday the 13th until Tuesday the 20th, and today was my 
day to get caught up on a few things.

There are a few Ambassador/FAMSCO related topics that I know are 
swirling and that I need to chime in on.

(1) Release parties -- Joerg, I saw your pings about setting a budget 
for the release parties, and for the plans to get that money to people. 
I think that the total budget can be whatever you, or the rest of famsco 
thinks it needs to be.  Anything up to a few thousand dollars shouldn't 
be any sort of a problem.  In terms of making sure that people are able 
to get their money quickly, if someone in famsco can make sure that we 
get a list of all the paypal addresses and amounts that we owe, i can 
make sure the money gets sent out fast.

(2) Overall budget -- I got everything updated today, and our famsco 
budget page is fully updated as well.

 	https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAmSCo_budget

One of the things I'd like to encourage everyone to do in their regional 
ambassadors meetings is tell folks that they don't need to be afraid to 
make budget plans, and spend more money.  I think one of the concerns 
that folks might have in NA and EMEA is that the $100k regional budget 
for the year needs to be divided into exactly $25k for each region.  But 
the truth is that the general cost of goods in EMEA and NA tends to be a 
little bit higher than in other parts of the world, and the historical 
activity in those two regions also tends to be a bit higher.  I want to 
make sure that Ambassadors everywhere are spending the money they need, 
and not worrying overly about the total.  It's my job to make sure we 
don't spend too much, but I've heard a few comments about folks feeling 
like they need to choose between FOO and BAR, when the truth is that we 
have enough budget to support everything.

It's a fine line between being smart with money, and being too frugal. 
I want us to be smart, but I don't want us to be afraid to spend.  Help 
me spread the word!

(3) LATAM -- Maria, I know you've pinged me a couple of times this past 
week about stuff in LATAM, including FUDCon as well as the general state 
of things in the region.  I think there are a lot of things that we need 
to talk about, and I'm sorry that I was on a trip this past week and 
didn't have enough time.

I'll follow up with you more, but I have a couple of ideas that I'd like 
to put in your head.  First, I want to personally make sure that you 
have a chance to get to the FUDCon in North America later this year. 
Secondly, I know that there has been some talk about a Fedora Design 
Team FAD, and if/when that happens, I also would like to make sure that 
you are able to attend that.

In terms of LATAM in general, I think it's clear to everyone that the 
region needs to move into its next phase of leadership growth.  The only 
way this happens is if we have a few people who can look after different 
parts of the region, and work together to make sure that budget needs 
are known, plans are made, etc.  I think you're obviously a person who 
should be involved in that, and I'd like to know who else you think 
could help.

I guess that's all for now...

Thank you all for your time,
Max