[Sugar-devel] [SLOB] (1) travel advances and (2) external programs

[Walter Bender]

My apologies in advance for the length of this email. The lists have been
overwhelmed of late with discussions of procedure and as a consequence, it
feels as if technical and pedagogical discussions have seemingly been
marginalized.

---

I. TRAVEL ADVANCES

We had two topics of discussion we were going to consider between the
monthly meetings of the Sugar Labs oversight board, both of which seemed to
have stalled out.

The first topic was in regards to the process and conditions under which we
would consider travel advances. I raise this issue now because it impacts
Samson, who needs to prepare his trip to Google well in advance of our next
meeting.

Laura stated the obvious in her wiki post, essentially: (1) ask the
oversight board and (2) if approved, the oversight board would ask the SFC
[1]. But this formulation doesn't offer much guidance. What are the
criteria for the decision? I had written up some details in the wiki --
which were subsequently deleted -- to try to address what I think are the
questions someone would reasonably be asking of us.



(0) Before asking for a travel advance, please consider the following
questions:

* Is the travel on behalf of Sugar Labs?
* Has the trip been approved by the Sugar Labs oversight board or some
designated representative of the board?
* Do the travel plans comply with the SFC travel policy? [2]
* Do you need to have a ticket purchased on your behalf?
* Do you need cash for local travel and/or per diem expenses?

(1) Anyone traveling on behalf of Sugar Labs may request a travel advance
by sending a written request to the oversight board <slobs AT
lists.sugarlabs.org>. Be sure to include the reason for your request, the
amount requested, the anticipated dates of travel, and answers to the
questions above.

(2) The oversight board will discuss the request and may ask for
clarification. The criteria for approval include:

* availability of funds
* ???

It may take the board ''up to one week'' to reach its decision, so please
make your request as far in advance as possible.

The deliberations of the board will either be published on a  public email
list [3] or in a meeting log [4]. The decision itself will be documented on
[5].

(3) If the travel advance is approved (by at least four board members) then
our liaison with the SFC will communicate the decision on behalf of the
applicant. Note that approval by the SL oversight board does not guarantee
that the SFC will approve the travel advance. (Past experience suggests
that they are more likely to approve the prepurchase of a ticket than a
cash advance.) The time-frame for the SFC varies widely and is outside of
our control, so again, it is recommended that you make your request well in
advance.



I think it is imperative that the oversight board define criteria for
determining whether or not a travel advance be considered. For example, we
have been inconsistent in regard to travel advances where a visa is
required. We made no contingency on Ignacio's request for a travel advance
to attend the Google Code-in (GCI) summit, where as we turned down Samson's
request for an advance to get a visa to attend the Google Summer of Code
(GSoC) summit. I would ask for more clarification as to if and when we
consider an advance for the visa expenses to be acceptable.

Also, if a group or team (e.g. the GSoC mentors) decides to send someone to
a workshop or meeting and has the cash in hand (Google funding in this
case), are there further criteria that the oversight board need consider?
If so what?

---

II. EXTERNAL PROGRAMS

The second topic of discussion is in regards to the process and guidelines
by which community members engage in external activities on behalf of Sugar
Labs. The case in point is GCI. We have been participating in GCI for for
the past five years (since 2012) and every year, I have asked the board for
permission to participate. But once granted that permission, I have taken
it upon myself to organize our application, recruit mentors, solicit
projects, and administer the program. I've engaged the community along the
way, holding public meeting and utilizing the wiki extensively. I think
this has worked out well. I was prepared to proceed along the same lines
again this year, but given the heated climate on the board regarding
process, I thought we should clarify our guidelines first [6].

I raise this topic now as we will need a head start on our GCI application
before the next scheduled meeting.

As per above, what are the expectations for someone who wants to organize a
project on behalf of Sugar Labs?



(0) Before asking for permission to engage in an external activity on
behalf of Sugar Labs, please consider the following questions:

* To what extent does the project have to align with the Sugar Labs mission?
* Is the project Free/Libre?
* Will the project be self-funding or does it require funding from Sugar
Labs?
* What are your qualifications for administering the program?
* What involvement from the community is required to make the project a
success?
* Is there any risk to the Sugar Labs brand if the project is not
successful?
* [YOUR QUESTION HERE]

(2) The oversight board will discuss the request and may ask for
clarification. The criteria for approval include:

[WE NEED TO CONSIDER THESE QUESTIONS IN ORDER TO DEFINE THE CRITERIA AND TO
SET EXPECTATIONS]
* Who can run a project on behalf of Sugar Labs?
* Are there restrictions on the nature of the project?
* To what extent should the community be engaged?
* What are the requirements for communication with the oversight board?
With the community?
* Are there restrictions on how funds will be used (above and beyond the
ones imposed by the SFC)?
* Will the project administrator have to get SLOB approval for spending
those funds? For each expenditure or just the overall budget?
* Is there any expectation of financial reporting?
* Is the new initiative redundant with or in conflict with any existing
programs?
* Does it require time and commitments from the community that we cannot
credibly fulfill?
* How do we resolve conflicts, such as when more than one community member
wants to administer the same program on behalf of Sugar Labs?

It may take the board ''up to one week'' to reach its decision, so please
make your request as far in advance as possible.

The deliberations of the board will either be published on a public email
list [3] or in a meeting log [4]. The decision itself will be documented on
[5].

(3) If the reuqest to engage in an external program on behalf of Sugar Labs
is approved (by at least four board members) then our liaison with the SFC
will communicate the decision on behalf of the applicant. Note that
approval by the SL oversight board does not guarantee that the SFC will
approve the engagement. The time-frame for the SFC varies widely and is
outside of our control, so again, it is recommended that you make your
request well in advance.

If there is any contract involved, e.g, signing of a contract, letter of
intent, etc., the SFC will need to do this on behalf of Sugar Labs. Please
be sure to pass any such material to our liaison to the SFC for processing.



These questions and procedures may seem abstract, but they have come up
again and again in past programs I have been involved in. For example, when
I wrote the Trip Advisor grant, I ran the proposal past the SFC and SLOB
before I submitted it, including the budget. And I asked and was granted
permission from the oversight board to administer the program as per the
proposal and budget. And yet I have had to have every allocation of funds
-- for travel to workshops and for translations -- approved individually as
well. To me this has been onerous, but it that is the level of oversight
the board requires, I accept it. But lets please be explicit and consistent
about our requirements and expectations.

Another example is GCI 2017. While I have been the one initiating the
program every year, and brought up the subject again this year, I delayed
asking for a motion to approve our participation in anticipation of our
establishing guidelines for such requests [6]. In the meantime, another
board member proposed a motion that we participate, which, as expected,
passed. (I raised the issue of guidelines when casting my vote.) What I
didn't expect was that this same board member would unilaterally begin
community engagement for the program, with no consultation with the team
that had been running it five years in a row. [7] Is it anything goes? Or
do we have some process by which the community members who have been
running a program on behalf of Sugar Labs are expected to be consulted?

I would like to resolve these questions soon as we have a lot of work to do
if we are going to make a successful application to GCI.

regards.

-walter

---

[1] https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Procedures (Note: it would make sense to
move this page to a subpage in the Governance section of the wiki.)
[2]
https://github.com/conservancy/policies/blob/master/Travel/conservancy-travel-policy.txt
travel policy
[3] https://lists.sugarlabs.org
[4] https://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/meetings
[5] https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/Decisions
[6] http://meeting.sugarlabs.org/sugar-meeting/meetings/2017-09-01
[7] In #sugar on irc.freenode.net <kaametza> I would like to ask everybody
to start thinking in task-ideas for the Code In this year


-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
<http://www.sugarlabs.org>
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