[Linux-aus] [LACTTE] Grant Application: OLS speaker travel

[Donna Benjamin]

On Sun, 2007-04-01 at 21:09 +1000, James Purser wrote:

> Ben, unfortunately the committee has voted not to approve your grant
> request. It was felt that it did not meet the "benefit the community"
> criteria in that while being beneficial to yourself, there was little
> that could be brought to the community that couldn't be brought through
> other much more cost effective means.

I think this is unfortunate.

Whilst the current grant scheme may not be able to accommodate such
requests, I propose we need to consider something that does.

The benefit to our community of Ben going to OLS as a speaker - is we
can ask him to represent Linux Australia, raise our international
mindshare, spruik LCA, talk about our community and what makes it
special. In general, fly the tux-spangled flag of the southern-cross.

If someone from our community is accepted to speak at important
conferences like OLS - then that in itself is of benefit.

I guess it comes down to definitions of benefit. I'm sorry I didn't
speak up earlier.

Sure we may not be able to cover all such requests, but given the
relatively low number of grants at the moment, there may have been room
for this one. Even if we just assisted with part of the travel cost.

We're a long way from the rest of the world, and that in itself makes it
difficult for us to participate in the great F2F events that happen
overseas.  If we could find a way to assist someone to attend OLS and
Kongress or Tag each year... that would be 'a good thing' in my mind.

-- 
donna benjamin - executive director
http://www.creativecontingencies.com/
ph +61 3 9326 9985 | mob +61 418 310 414
research - facilitation - web development