[Lugcomms] RDP revival; return of the return of the revival... or something.

[Peter Lieverdink]

For some time I've been mulling over a way to revive the Regional Delegates Programme for LCA.

In case you don't know what it is, the RDP is essentially a scholarship to attend LCA. I believe it was originally sponsored by Sun. It allowed one or more students to go to the conference, having their travel, accomodation and registration paid for.

With the new LCA being in New Zealand, I don't think there's a better time to revive the RDP.  There will be some people who won't be able to afford the flights, and with a chunk of the LA grants money going unspent last year I think that if a sponsor isn't found for the RDP, LA itself might be able to fund some places.

I'm not certain about the execution of the next steps, but we ought to be able to come up with a decent proposal for LA by say the middle of the year, before Wellingten registrations open.

As LUG leaders, we *should* be in an excellent position to try and get nominations or applications for RDP places. At a minimum, people applying for a RDP scholarship should be able to make a valuable contribution to their local (open source) community by attending LCA *and* be unable to attend without support.

And by regional I mean all of Oceania, not just small towns in Australia ;-)

Do any of you think this might be a worthwile goal to pursue? For LUGcomms? Any other ideas?

- P.