Re: [gentoo-nfp] Events Kit!

[Chris Gianelloni]

On Wed, 2006-11-01 at 17:25 +0000, Christel Dahlskjaer wrote:
> How does one go about writing a proposal for funding? Is there a form
> somewhere or do I just e-mail trustees@?

http://www.gentoo.org/foundation/en/requesting-funds.xml

> To give you a quick rundown of what I am after, having had the pleasure
> of diving into the Events kits for Joomla and GNOME I really want us to
> have similar, they have a large metal box that is shipped to various
> conferences (when they're not at an event it lives in the garage of one
> of their developers and it's contents are replenished and checked prior
> to each event), the box contains T-shirts in various sizes for people to
> wear at the event (so, they do it fairly cheap and wash and reuse, I see
> no problem with that if kept in good condition), leaflets, two TFTs, two
> small machines (I'll ask around and see if we can score a couple of free
> machines, I'm thinking one X86 or AMD64 box and one PPC (or other
> arch)), some cables, some swag as give-aways (KDE does some nifty pin
> badges, others do funky case badges, we could also look at pens, or
> branded mints or whatever), a small projector, posters, a sign, t-shirts
> etc for sale and a small cashbox.

I like the shirt idea.  We could get a few more of the nice polo shirts
from Land's End that we've been using at LWE in the US.  I'm not sure
about the hardware, as it seems to be fairly easy to get hardware
to/from the shows.  I could see including a cheap switch of some sort,
since that seems to be always needed.  We have a nice poster, which is
currently in Kurt Lieber's possession, which we should use for this.
Also, remember that we can't sell anything at US shows, but we can give
stuff away and ask for donations.  All in all, I definitely like the
idea.

> I have some better notes on paper, which actually gives a greater idea
> and I am waiting to get a few quotes back for various things before I
> propose that you give us (PR) the cash to do it. If we do T-shirt and CD
> sale fex. then the initial outlay should be covered fairly fast, and the
> kit would become selfsufficient for re-stocking swag and leaflets.

I can't wait to hear the details.

> On a different note, I was saddened to see that LWE UK has had a 'Gentoo
> not welcome' rule for a while now, after our developers kept booking
> booths and not turning up.. I believe that is now rectified and we are
> more than welcome in the future, even if it did cost me a hangover and
> endless hours of talk with the guys that sponsor the .org pavillion! ;)

Do you think it would be helpful to have all of this sort of
communications filtered through the trustees?  We definitely don't want
any sort of bad reputation, so I know that I'm willing to do whatever is
requested of me to assist in this matter.

> I'd also like to ask what sort of time frame we look at for having a
> funding proposal approved, as it would be nice to get a kit ready by
> early 2007 as there's a few conferences happening. I know off-hand that
> we'll have a official presence at SCALE, FOSSDEM, Linuxforum and
> possibly LISA. All of which take place in February and March, which
> would mean it'd be nice to be able to send a kit across to the
> developers present at these and replenish as needed inbetween.

It would be nice.  I know that I'll be bringing some of my own equipment
for FOSDEM.  It would be very nice to have T-shirts there, as it was a
heavily-requested item at the show.

One thing to consider is we need to come up with some sort of guidelines
on what to do with the monies gathered at the shows, if any.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation