FOSS4G'13

Many Thanks Addy and we are thankful to EDINA for leading this.

We will now try to get more funding to the "Bursary Pot" from other potential sponsors. I can also email few contacts (cc you and Steven in) and let us hope we get more organisations to support bursaries for FOSS4G 2013.

My suggestion is that priority should be given to students with accepted papers/presentations  by providing discounted fees.

Travel bursaries adds more administration work.

All ideas and help welcome from all on this.

Cheers Suchith, perhaps lets get a list of people/organisations/institutios that we think would see this as the best way that they could support FOSS4G and then put a standard letter together so we don't hit the same folk twice. I will draft a letter this afternoon, but can you start putting the list together either here or in a doc.

That is good idea.

I will create a next text document called Academic Bursaires and start putting the key contacts from a mix of both government (BGS, Environment Agency, DSTL etc) and industry.

I will have to this in the weekend as bit busy with other work in the meanwhile. Thanks.

Ok, here is a very rough first draft for the begging letter, we would personalise the bit in the brackets.

_______________

FOSS4G (Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial) is the annual conference for the open source geospatial community.  This year the conference will be held in Nottingham in the UK.  The last time it was in Europe was in 2009 when it visited Barcelona.

The Local Organising Committee (LOC) aim to have a strong programme that spans the private, public and academic sectors.  It is the LOC’s aim to host an academic track and to attract researchers and educators to the event. We would like to make it as easy as possible for early stage researchers to attend and have reduced fees for academic researchers.  In addition, we plan to offer travel bursaries to offset the cost of travelling to Nottingham.  We have already secures some sponsorship for these bursaries but are looking to attract more. Essentially, the more sponsorship we get, the more bursaries we can offer.

<Insert bit about their organisation being active in this community or supporting the use of open source in education and research>

 

We hope that you share our enthusiasm for FOSS4G 2013 and will be able to support us by helping sponsor the academic bursaries that we plan to offer.

 

Yours Sincerely

 

FOSS4G LOC

_____________________

I have created a  Bursary contacts text document for contacting various organizations to help support bursaries for FOSS4G 2013.

Please check and confirm so that we are not emailing twice to the same organisation. Once i get confirmation , i can start emailing (cc in Steven and Addy) to take this forward.

Suchith

Hi Addy,

As the academic bursary deadline is today, could you please let us know your thoughts/ideas for the selection , dates when we can announce the winners etc.

I assume Claire will be sending details of  applicants etc to all of us.

Suchith

Thanks for the reminder, have been on the road for the last few days and catching up.  We said we would sort them by the 1st July.  We should have a chat next week once we have had time to go through them.  We should also remember to offer early bird rates to those that are unsuccessful.

Addy 

Yes, next week telemeeting is fine for me (Tue or Wed are best).

I have emailed across the folder with the spreadsheet and CVs.

Ok, we have scored the applicants and the 11 academics bursaries look like they should go to:

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.....

Thanks for your input Barend. Will aim to email out tomor.

Ok, drafted a "rats" and "congrats" email to those who applied for the Academic Bursaries.  Can you have a read through and comment on them please.  Steven, do you agree with the extension of the early bird offer (i think this was discussed a while back).

Successful

Congratulations, your application for an academic bursary has been successful. This means that you will receive:

1.       a free pass to all 3 days of the conference

2.       free accommodation for 3 nights

3.       a ticket to the Gala dinner on Thursday night

You will need to organise and pay for your own travel to, and from, the event. 

What we need from you now is that you book your travel to the event and forward the organiser’s confirmation of this.  We will be able to hold your pass and accommodation until August the 9th.  If we have not received confirmation that your travel is booked by the 9th August, the LOC reserve the right to remove this offer and re-allocate the bursary.

We look forward to seeing you at FOSS4G 2013 and hope that you will enjoy attending the event.

 

Unsuccessful

The Local Organising Committee of FOSS4G 2013 has reviewed your application for an academic bursary. Unfortunately, on this occasion you have been unsuccessful. The quality of applications was very high and it was difficult for the LOC to decide who should receive the bursaries.  We thank you for your application and would encourage you to still try to attend the conference.  The LOC has decided to offer all those who applied for the academic bursaries the opportunity to sign up for the event at the Early Bird rate.  This offer will be available until the 31st July.  If you wish to take advantage of this please contact <Claire>.

We hope to see you at the event.

Nicely put, I think these can be sent as they are...

http://2013.foss4g.org/registration/academic-bursaries/ says bursary winners will have to do a spot of volunteering and blog about the conference - you should remind them.

can you update that web page as well?

Thanks chaps, will add the bit about volunteering. 

Great outcome Addy, 1 question from me - do we have a good geographic distribution of the bursaries (particularly supporting applicants from less developed economies)? Maybe it is too late to factor this in, I will leave that to you.

Mails are excellent (assuming you add volunteering commitment). I am fine to extend the early bird rate for the unsuccessful ones

steven 

Best to send out from a central email account?

Has this gone out? I want to reference it in my osgeo-discuss list.

Yes, Claire confirmed

success and unsuccessful notes gone out, just about to send out the "we can offer you volunteer position" email to 5 candidates

Can you confirm exactly how many students will be attending? You mention 11 then have a list of 13 names....?

Then I have an email with a list of people you have suggested apply for a day pass - 5, have you had any direct responses from these apart from Amir?

I really need to get the numbers right to see where we are for volunteers.

Hi, waiting for an update of responses from Claire about the academic bursaries. They have until next friday to sort their travel.  They have to do a 1/3 day of volunteering.  Will see where we are when Claire gets back into the office.

The email sent out to the "local" folk included a link to the volunteer pages.  There were only 5 people that fell into this category. Do you want me to chase the remaining 4?

Hi Addy,
I thought it was half a day of volunteering for bursaries? Please confirm.

For the local folk, feel free to send a reminder. What was the situation agreed with these folk, that we would offer them a volunteer pass for 1 day? (ie do I just treat them as the regular non-registered volunteers?)

Abi