[LGM] reimbursing traveling expenses: for active people or for presentations?

[ale rimoldi]

hi dave,
>
>> currently, we have three or four pledgies that are running in parallel
>> and are -- as far as i know --  all equally unsuccessful.
>> this is not something i'm proud of, but it's probably a direct
>> consequence of the current policy.
>
> I have not heard of any of them, in spite of being a rather active 
> free software contributor, albeit not in the graphics world any more.
>
> How are you promoting these pledgie campaigns? They don't promote 
> themselves.

this is exactly the problem.

as far as i know there are three persons around the world, who are 
trying to come to the LGM but can't afford to wait for the reimbursement.
they (or somebody in their name) have setup a pledgie each.

on top of it, there is the LGM official pledgie.

those three persons, cannot promote the official lgm pledgie, which 
would anyway pay for their traveling, because there is no way for them 
to pay for the flight, if they don't get the money in advance. so the 
official pledgie is of no use to them (as i wrote in a previous mail we 
are talking about collecting several months of full time salary... from 
their point of view).
on the other side, if those three persons were motivated to help 
promoting the official pledgie, that would probably help getting the 
money flow in. don't you think?

so, right now, we are collecting money for those people who -- basically 
-- could/can afford to pay for their traveling (but choose to ask the 
LGM to reimburse them) and fail to collect the money for those who 
really need it and have no other way than count on other people's help 
(and have to stay home or collect the money otherwise and won't get any 
reimbursement because of it).

under these circumstances, i think that it would be better if the LGM 
would stop running its own pledgie and start officially supporting 
individual pledgies.
which is somehow stupid, but, at the end, would be of more help for the 
people that really need it!


btw, for those who followed last year's pledgie for maria: despite 
having decided very early that she would come to the lgm, each time she 
came close to the total she needed for the ticket, she had to raise the 
amount of the pledgie by a few hundred dollars because, now, the ticket 
was more expensive. that was really a pain to follow. at last, she made 
it to vienna.


ciao
a.l.e

disclaimer: i don't personally know any of the three people concerned by 
the pledgies. (well, not more than i had some mail/personal exchange in 
the role of lgm organizer... or having chatted with them for support...)