[IAEP] [SLOBS] Action needed on two issues

[Laura Vargas]

Adam,

Am not sure how the Conservancy can help us get better if we don't have our
financial policies well defined.

According to the published numbers (I'm attaching a Spreadsheet with the
information published by you) for the last 4 years, ~80% (USD$26,400) of
expenses are related to promotional travels/activities of a very reduced
group of members.

Only 4,13% (US$ 1,375) has been dedicated to development.

For Sugar Labs Community/Board to be able to make coherent decisions,
financial planning should be done ASAP with whatever funds remain in SL
accounts. It might be necessary and convenient to split accounts with
Capital from Trip Advisor grant to really understand the contingency.

Only by having awareness of how unbalanced the situation is, the
board/community may be able to propose an adequate course of action.

As a preliminary conclusion, we need to define purpose/vision/strategy and
plan for a fundraising soon.

Best regards,
Laura



2016-04-10 13:18 GMT+08:00 Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org>:

> On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 1:01 AM, Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 10:33 PM, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 9 April 2016 at 11:26, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I also agree that $500 does seem excessive, and even inappropriate
>>>
>>>
>>> FWIW, I thought it was small; it is under minimum wage for some places.
>>>
>>
>> Some teachers I work with in Haiti make less than this amount in an
>> entire year :(  When the TripAdvisor grant's defining 2013 document said
>> "Sugar Labs is a 100% volunteer project" that may have been the case, but
>> it is evidently no longer the case today.  Mako's point about volunteer
>> motivations (
>> https://mako.cc/writing/funding_volunteers/funding_volunteers.html)
>> becomes all the more critical if we go too far flaunting nebulous
>> Trump-told-me salaries in the faces of our hardest working volunteers,
>> across the poorest places on earth (many on these mailing lists) when that
>> breaks our global solidarity rather more than Leading Us Forward.
>>
>> Walter and Devin Ulibarri chose to invest $3579.68 of Sugar Labs' money
>> going to Thailand's Constructionism 2016 (Feb 1-5) for a very good reason
>> -- to do exactly that, Lead Us Forward.
>>
>
> (Correction: that's of course $3977.42 of Sugar Labs' money prior to the
> 10% deduction payable to SFConservancy for
> accounting/legal/administration.  My mistake.)
>

> As that purpose does not yet appear at http://planet.sugarlabs.org, Sugar
>> Labs' community should help Walter and Devin articulate this through
>> community channels that bring this impact to life, easing all our work of
>> honoring TripAdvisor's request/requirement for (1) "Board-Approved Annual
>> Budget", (2) biennial assessment if it has not already been submitted for
>> August 2015, and (3) final 3-year report to be submitted August 2016.
>>
>> A preview from Feb 9:
>>
>> '4. I [Walter Bender] just returned from Constructionism 2016 (See [3]),
>> a "bi-annual
>> gathering of researchers and practitioners of the constructionist learning
>> philosophy is intended to be a place to showcase lessons learned,
>> innovative learning tools, new case studies, and novel approaches that has
>> been happening throughout the world." A number of Sugar Labs community
>> members were there, including Cynthia Solomon, Claudia Urrea, and Devin
>> Ulibarri. Devin and I spoke about Music Blocks and along with Cynthia and
>> Claudia, we ran several workshops for children and teachers. Lots of great
>> feedback and many new and renewed connections. (Our host, Khun Paron, has
>> been an advocate for Sugar for almost a decade.) The entire conference was
>> videotaped and will be posted online soon. Be sure to watch Cynthia's
>> keynote address in which she reviewed the history of Constructionism,
>> which
>> has had a great influence on the design and development of Sugar.
>>
>> 5. Music Blocks is a fork the Turtle Blocks program that we began last
>> year
>> during GSoC. Our goal is for Music Blocks to be an open-ended, yet
>> musically relevant tool—one that invites learners to explore fundamental
>> musical concepts that are both intrinsic to music yet transcendent of a
>> specific discipline.
>>
>> The structure of our workshops included the concept of a "Power Piece". A
>> power piece is a melody or a song that is taught because it is powerful
>> and
>> becomes more powerful as it is taught. Children took phrases of some
>> familiar music as a basis of exploring and manipulating the music through
>> programming.
>>
>> As a result of feedback from the workshops, I have made a number of
>> improvements to Music Blocks [4]. It is much more robust and internally
>> consistent. Please do try it (there is a guide at [5]) and give me
>> additional feedback.'
>>
>> [4] https://walterbender.github.io/musicblocks
>> [5]
>> https://github.com/walterbender/musicblocks/blob/master/guide/README.md
>>
>> A postscript from March 25:
>>
>> '3. Devin Ulibarri and I had the opportunity to speak at LibrePlanet [2].
>> Our topic was "Education needs Free/Libre Software needs education." [3]
>>
>> <blockquote>ABSTRACT: The bad news is that educational technology has
>> largely failed to deliver on its promise. Its focus on efficiency rather
>> than on learning has resulted in a further reinforcement of education as a
>> system of instruction to curricula rather than one of student-driven
>> construction of knowledge.
>>
>> The good news is that Free/Libre Software is the starting point towards a
>> solution&emdash;not just because it tends to focus on putting powerful
>> tools into the hands of its end-users, but also because Free/Libre
>> Software
>> espouses a culture of doing and sharing in a context of critique,
>> reflection, and personal responsibility.
>>
>> In this session, we will review some tangible ways in which Free/Libre
>> Software is having and can have a positive impact on education and some
>> things we can and should be doing better. We will then discuss strategies
>> for advocating for Free/Libre Software in education systems both in the US
>> and globally. The next generation of computer users are in school today.
>> We
>> need to ensure that the next generation is empowered to take advantage of
>> the opportunities afforded by Free/Libre Software.</blockquote>
>>
>> Unlike the session on Free/Libre Software at EdFoo, which was sparsely
>> attended, there was standing-room only for our session. The recording
>> should be on line within a few weeks.
>>
>> It occured to me afterwards that one simple call to action would be for
>> every member of the Free/Libre Software community to adopt a teacher (or
>> be
>> open to being adopted, e.g., Devin, a music teacher, has adopted me). We
>> need to make our voices heard.'
>>
>> [2] https://libreplanet.org/2016/
>> [3]
>> https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/images/c/c7/Education-needs-free-software.pdf
>>
>> Who can help Walter/Devin turn the above into more colorful (better yet
>> musical) blog post(s) that appear at http://planet.sugarlabs.org if not
>> beyond, to Lead Us Forward?
>>
>> --
>> Unsung Heroes of OLPC, interviewed live @ http://unleashkids.org !
>>
>> --
>> Unsung Heroes of OLPC, interviewed live @ http://unleashkids.org !
>>
>
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>



-- 
Laura V.
I&D SomosAZUCAR.Org
IRC kaametza

Happy Learning!
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