Agenda for next board meeting - bursary reimbursement process

We can collect the agenda items for next board meeting in this thread.
Reimbursement process:
I think we can allow any of the persons authorized to approve bursary to also approve the request for reimbursement with Navodaya (For XMPP Foundation, we already have a process in Open Collective UI, that needs an approval before payment is initiated).
So people can send the reimbursement request to Navodaya copying bursary team lead, treasurer and board (not sure if we need to keep the board in the loop here since it is approved already - may be we should forward the bursary approval mail to Navodaya).
Then bursary team lead or treasurer can approve the request. We need to also inform Navodaya/GN about the office bearers and the bursary / reimbursement process.

Pirate Praveen Mon 31 Mar 2025 2:22PM
@Badri Sunderarajan yes, that would come under the bursary process, but better to define some guideline for cases like this. Can you propose draft resolutions? For this case and also for the reimbursement process.

Ravi Dwivedi Mon 31 Mar 2025 2:40PM
@Badri Sunderarajan Yes, that should be called "bursary process". For a concrete example, consider NLBRT's case. They want to travel to Mumbai for representing Prav in MumbaiFOSS on the 19th of April given that we can cover their travel expenses. However, we may have some local volunteers for the representation. So, should we spend money or raise funds for travel expenses in these cases?
@Pirate Praveen mentioned in personal chat with me this idea of considering such requests based on factors like how active that person is. There could be other factors like whether we have a local community there.
Badri Sunderarajan Mon 31 Mar 2025 2:41PM
@Pirate Praveen let me think. I guess one way is, if we vaguely know which are the important conferences coming up, we can reserve some budget for those, and afterwards we can allocate to local conferences prioritising lower-costs (eg. people who already live nearby/are involved in the community) but having at least one person who's been reasonably involved in Prav itself.
Badri Sunderarajan Mon 31 Mar 2025 2:44PM
@Ravi Dwivedi oh, your reply came in as I was drafting mine! I guess we are thinking on similar lines though 🙂

Pirate Praveen Mon 31 Mar 2025 2:46PM
@Badri Sunderarajan though we are not sure if there will be volunteers for all conferences (based on location and date). So we might miss some volunteers, but we can always use the funds for future conferences. So it is a balancing act, I think it might be ok to do trial and error and make some mistakes.

Ravi Dwivedi Mon 31 Mar 2025 2:48PM
@Badri Sunderarajan Yes, we are thinking along similar lines :) Think of this practical scenario where NLBRT needs travel expenses to travel to Mumbai. How will we decide to grant them funds even if we have funds?
For now, we need to think what happens if we have a couple of volunteers from Mumbai or nearby. Should we grant NLBRT funds in that case? Should we start raising funds for them?
Badri Sunderarajan Mon 31 Mar 2025 2:58PM
@Ravi Dwivedi there is also the question of whether NLBRT wants to attend only this specific conference or can go to some other more nearby conference if that is happening later. i.e. how restricted are we in terms of which conferences someone can potentially attend

Ravi Dwivedi Mon 31 Mar 2025 3:41PM
@Badri Sunderarajan I don't see any FOSS United conferences close to their location (Patna was the closest from their place - that distance is same as Lucknow is for me). It might be the case that they will be announced later.
Badri Sunderarajan Mon 31 Mar 2025 3:45PM
@Ravi Dwivedi okay. But we are talking about the generic case right? So, had there in fact been a FOSS United (or other Free Software related) conference close to their location, it would have been a good idea to take that into account!

Ravi Dwivedi Mon 31 Mar 2025 3:46PM
@Badri Sunderarajan Yes, that can definitely be a factor.

Ravi Dwivedi Mon 31 Mar 2025 3:48PM
@Badri Sunderarajan Am I doxxing NLBRT though? What should I do if that's not a good idea? Edit my messages? Or is it safe here because it's a closed, trusted group?
Badri Sunderarajan Mon 31 Mar 2025 3:50PM
@Ravi Dwivedi I thought it was fine as it was private to the Board. However, maybe we should stick to keeping it only within the bursary team? 🤔
Does the Board end up knowing about it anyway, or only after the bursary team decides?

Ravi Dwivedi Mon 31 Mar 2025 3:55PM
@Badri Sunderarajan Anyway, I think this case gives us a starting point to think about such cases. We need to decide whether to grant them bursary. If we don't have enough funds, we can start a fundraiser and impose a condition that they can join if the fundraiser is successful.
@Pirate Praveen also added an important point that it depends on how active they are. Right now, NLBRT has given 4th of April as a deadline to submit the website design. If they do that, that will make their case stronger.

Pirate Praveen Tue 1 Apr 2025 7:39AM
@Ravi Dwivedi SInce they made a request for travel support, we need to know their approximate location to evaluate the request. Also this is a closed group, elected/authorized to handle such issues by the community.
Badri Sunderarajan Tue 1 Apr 2025 7:49AM
@Pirate Praveen actually ideally we should ask for an approximate budget right? Like we do for DebConf bursary requests. Since they'll be in a better position to estimate, at least for travel.

Pirate Praveen Tue 1 Apr 2025 7:51AM
@Badri Sunderarajan yes, makes sense.

Ravi Dwivedi Tue 1 Apr 2025 11:05AM
@Pirate Praveen @Badri Sunderarajan Let's ask them (in the thread they agreed to volunteer) to send their request by email to bursary team and Cc treasurer, CEO, Chairperson, along with an estimate of the expenses.

Pirate Praveen Tue 1 Apr 2025 11:22AM
@Ravi Dwivedi Ideally they only need to send request to bursary team. Other process is for our internal checks and balances.

Poll Created Mon 31 Mar 2025 2:09PM
Board meeting to decide on reimbursement process, clarifying some bursary cases, and officially delegating more teams Closed Thu 3 Apr 2025 2:00PM
More votes for Saturday. So lets do on Saturday. Please send drafts of resolutions to board mail alias.
What is the meeting or event?
Board Meeting
Why is this important?
We have gathers a few agenda items to have another board meeting,
decide / document on reimbursement process
clarifying some bursary cases
and officially delegating more teams
What are you asking people to do?
Join the meeting online (bbb)
Mark the timeslots you are available with the green 'thumbs up' icon or leave the red 'thumbs down' in place when unavailable.
Use the 'thumbs sideways' icon to say you are available 'if need be'.
Results
UTC | Votes | ![]() |
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Fri 4 Apr 2025 2:30PM |
2.5 |
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Sat 5 Apr 2025 2:30PM |
3 |
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4 of 12 people have participated (33%)
Badri Sunderarajan Tue 1 Apr 2025 8:00AM
Friday is preferable (but if everyone has already decided for Saturday that works too)

Pirate Praveen Tue 1 Apr 2025 8:10AM
@Badri Sunderarajan Friday works for me too, if more people prefer Friday, we can change.
Badri Sunderarajan Tue 1 Apr 2025 10:19AM
@Pirate Praveen can you add it as an option for voting? I'm not able to add options.

Pirate Praveen Tue 1 Apr 2025 10:37AM
@Badri Sunderarajan done.
Badri Sunderarajan Tue 1 Apr 2025 10:47AM
@Pirate Praveen thanks! Updated.

Pirate Praveen Mon 31 Mar 2025 2:09PM
Either works for me.
Badri Sunderarajan Tue 1 Apr 2025 10:47AM
Friday is preferable (but if everyone has already decided for Saturday that works too)

Pirate Praveen Sat 5 Apr 2025 4:19PM
We need two more votes to pass the resolution, @Pirate Bady @muzirian @perry @Athul @Vivek K J @Satan Vysakh please vote by sending a digitally signed email to Kannan's email. If you have not setup OpenPGP yet, Thunderbird is very easy to setup - both for android and on the desktop.
Badri Sunderarajan Sat 5 Apr 2025 4:21PM
@Pirate Praveen I believe there is also the provision to physically travel and ink your signature onto a printout of the resolution document 😄

Pirate Praveen Sat 5 Apr 2025 4:22PM
No, that option is only available if you are actually present during the meeting, not after.
muzirian Mon 7 Apr 2025 11:26AM
voting yes to bursary reimbursement process resolution

Pirate Praveen Tue 15 Apr 2025 6:02PM
@muzirian next time send a digitally signed email (a good and easy way to verify votes are authentic). For example, admins of codema.in can modify codema.in database directly including these comments. But digitally signed email cannot be tampered without the private key (which is only present in your device).
Badri Sunderarajan · Mon 31 Mar 2025 2:17PM
@Pirate Praveen oh! That would be bursary application/selection process (not just reimbursement). @Ravi Dwivedi is that what you meant? I thought you were talking about specifically how to apply for reimbursement at the end.