Re: Travel committee disfunctional?
Zeeshan, I understand your frustration, but how would you feel if you were one of the volunteers throwing as much spare time as you have to help in the committee and you read your email (or even just the subject, which I find discouraging enough)? how would you feel if you were thinking about becoming a volunteer on this or some other committee/group within GNOME and saw this kind of negative feedback thrown? Do you think your email is particularly encouraging? We must be rather careful with words towards people making an extra effort outside of their work/"normal" life to help run this community. This sort of problem is normal in any volunteer based organization, which you should know by now, and your email doesn't quite point things towards any particular solution. What are we (the foundation members) supposed to do with your email? Unleash some sort of imaginary whip towards the travel committee? I'm pretty sure they're doing their best. 2016-03-16 14:36 GMT+00:00 Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) : > Hi everyone, > > I'm sorry to bring this up but it seems to me that travel-committee > members do not have time for doing their job in a timely manner. I say > this cause it's now been several weeks that I applied for FOSDEM > re-reimbursement but have not yet received it. Soon after the > conference I was informed that I need to blog about the events and I > did that as soon as I could, even though I was ill, assuming that > would mean me getting reimbursed sooner. After a few weeks of waiting > and regular reminders, I was asked if I would rather want to be > reimbursed to paypal instead and it's been two weeks since I provided > my paypal details now. I pinged the travel-committee list a few times > since then but I have got no response at all. > > I understand that travel-committee is composed of volunteers and they > could get real busy with their work and life but if people have to > spend a lot of time on getting the committee members to do their jobs, > I think we have a problem and we need to talk about it. > > -- > Regards, > > Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) > > Befriend GNOME: http://www.gnome.org/friends/ > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > -- Cheers, Alberto Ruiz ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Travel committee disfunctional?
On Sat, Mar 19, 2016 at 3:35 AM, Max wrote: > Hi Zeeshan and ALL Hi Max, > I am Max, one of the travel committee members and GNOME.Asia members. > > > We have 2 wiki for GNOME travel instruction. Thanks so much for providing all the details here. Also thanks a bunch for reimbursement (I've received it today). I have some comments for the record: > Honestly, when I see this mail at foundation-list, I feel a little sad why I > spend much time at volunteers task. ( But I will still do more with GNOME > cause that’s the way I choose to contribute ) I'm very sorry if my mail here caused you (or anyone) any grief. The point was to bring up a potential issue that I saw: If travel committee members do not have sufficient time to be able to communicate in timely manner to folks awaiting for reimbursement. If that is the case, nobody is to be blamed (since as you said, you're all volunteers) but rather we should talk about possible solutions. I do realize now that I failed completely to communicate the actual intent of the email and perhaps didn't choose the best of the wording, for which I'm sorry. > 2016/3/1 - Accept the explain, note will change to paypal method ( but > not give information ) I actually did send Kat a paypal request immediately after but was not informed then that that is not good enough. The last I heard from travel-committee at this time was that travel-committee will follow-up with Rosanna. So I kept on waiting.. > 2016/3/3 - Zeeshan - Ask reibursement status > > 2016/3/3 - Travel Committee - Reply to zeeshan, not receive paypal > information from zeeshan so Rosanna can’t pay via payal method > > 2016/3/3 - Zeeshan - Provide paypal account information > > 2016/3/10 - Zeeshan - Ask reimbursement status again and send to > foundation-list mail Actually there were 6 days between these two events. My mail to foundation-list was on 2016/3/16. > 2016/3/10 - Travel Committee - Notify Zeeshan already in reimbursement > queue This didn't happen so since I had not received any reply for two weeks, I got very frustrated. -- Regards, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) Befriend GNOME: http://www.gnome.org/friends/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Travel committee disfunctional?
On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 6:31 PM, Alberto Ruiz wrote: > Zeeshan, Alberto, > I understand your frustration, I like to believe people mean well and I think you do too in here but sorry I don't feel that you understand my frustration, reading through the rest of your reply. You completely focused on my email and showing how it's not constructive at all, instead of suggesting any solution to the actual problem. > but how would you feel if you were one of the volunteers throwing as much > spare time as you have to help in the committee and you read your email (or > even just the subject, which I find discouraging enough)? how would you feel > if you were thinking about becoming a volunteer on this or some other > committee/group within GNOME and saw this kind of negative feedback thrown? > Do you think your email is particularly encouraging? 1. Soon after sending this email, I immediately started to get replies to my emails from one member of the travel committee and was informed of the status of my reimbursement So yes, this seems to have been not entirely futile. 2. I did not mean this to be a insulting email but more like bringing up an issue. If my choice of words wasn't the best, I do apologise. > We must be rather careful with words towards people making an extra effort > outside of their work/"normal" life to help run this community. This sort of > problem is normal in any volunteer based organization, which you should know > by now, and your email doesn't quite point things towards any particular > solution. What are we (the foundation members) supposed to do with your > email? Unleash some sort of imaginary whip towards the travel committee? I'm > pretty sure they're doing their best. Like many people here suggested, a solution could be for more people on the committee. If that's the case, I'd like to volunteer (though I'm guessing this is the not the right place for that). P.S. Please note that the actual re-reimbursement process being slow is not what I was getting frustrated about but rather the complete lack of communication from the committee for weeks in a row despite weekly reminders and having no idea about when I'll be reimbursed. -- Regards, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) Befriend GNOME: http://www.gnome.org/friends/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Travel committee disfunctional?
[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] Someone who isn't already doing substantial work for the free software movement might consider joining the travel committee to help it get its work done. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Travel committee disfunctional?
Hi everyone, I'm sorry to bring this up but it seems to me that travel-committee members do not have time for doing their job in a timely manner. I say this cause it's now been several weeks that I applied for FOSDEM re-reimbursement but have not yet received it. Soon after the conference I was informed that I need to blog about the events and I did that as soon as I could, even though I was ill, assuming that would mean me getting reimbursed sooner. After a few weeks of waiting and regular reminders, I was asked if I would rather want to be reimbursed to paypal instead and it's been two weeks since I provided my paypal details now. I pinged the travel-committee list a few times since then but I have got no response at all. I understand that travel-committee is composed of volunteers and they could get real busy with their work and life but if people have to spend a lot of time on getting the committee members to do their jobs, I think we have a problem and we need to talk about it. -- Regards, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) Befriend GNOME: http://www.gnome.org/friends/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Travel committee disfunctional?
Le jeudi 17 mars 2016 à 15:28 -0700, Germán Poo-Caamaño a écrit : > The delay may be explained by several factors. One thing is checking > that everything is in order to approve the reimbursement. A different > thing is to proceed with the actual payment. > > The second one means giving access to GNOME's bank and PayPal > accounts, plus coordination to avoid reimburse twice, avoid mistakes > that make the transfer going to the wrong place, and so on. [...] Ah, I was basing myself on what I'd heard a while back (that there wasn't exactly a lot of people willing to do this work), and was still under the impression that the biggest problem would be "available time and energy" for people to process requests. After all, I can imagine it's a lot of unexciting verification work (decipher receipts in various languages and currencies, make sure numbers match, discuss among team members, write emails, etc.). I presumed the verification work to be more complicated than the funds transfers, so I guess that colored my appraisal of the situation. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Travel committee disfunctional?
On Thu, 2016-03-17 at 17:57 -0400, Jeff F. T. wrote: > Indeed the issue, as far as I know, is that the Travel Committee is > has finite human resources. IMHO the only way to alleviate this is to > have additional trusted Foundation members join that team to share > the workload. The delay may be explained by several factors. One thing is checking that everything is in order to approve the reimbursement. A different thing is to proceed with the actual payment. The second one means giving access to GNOME's bank and PayPal accounts, plus coordination to avoid reimburse twice, avoid mistakes that make the transfer going to the wrong place, and so on. My understanding is that PayPal transfers are straightforward. However, bank transfer require to call to the bank, provide some access code, plus the information to proceed. Yet, that cannot be done from any place. For that reason, reimbursements are processed in batches (or at least we tried to do that when I was there). What is the workload you want to share? (the second one is tricky). -- Germán Poo-Caamaño http://calcifer.org/ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Travel committee disfunctional?
Indeed the issue, as far as I know, is that the Travel Committee is has finite human resources. IMHO the only way to alleviate this is to have additional trusted Foundation members join that team to share the workload. Personally, I'm quite grateful for their existence. I can imagine the processing times would be much longer if the committee didn't exist and everything had to go through the Board (as you folks know how loaded the board##SELECTION_END## is already :)___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Travel committee disfunctional?
Hi Zeeshan, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) wrote: ... > I'm sorry to bring this up but it seems to me that travel-committee > members do not have time for doing their job in a timely manner. ... You're right to say that the Travel Committee are volunteers, and I think it's worth reminding ourselves that we are lucky to have them. I'm not sure that complaining to Foundation List is the best way to deal with a delay you might have experienced. Assuming that you have already brought the issue up with the committee and have waited a reasonable length of time, it would probably be better for you to contact the Board so we can find out what has happened. Please provide specific details if you decide to do this. Thanks, Allan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Travel committee disfunctional?
Hi Zeeshan and ALL I am Max, one of the travel committee members and GNOME.Asia members. We have 2 wiki for GNOME travel instruction. GNOME Travel Wiki https://wiki.gnome.org/Travel Request instructions https://wiki.gnome.org/Travel/Request We are all are volunteers with GNOME travel tasks. I always do the travel tasks by batch mode. ( You could see the 2 wiki above, people who get the subsidy should send their receipt and provide report within 2 weeks ) Travel committee will process multiple events at the same time. So I will focus reimbursement process after event end 2 weeks.( I am not sure other travel committee members, I just provide my work process ) I will keep eye if some mail out of 2 weeks time. In zeeshan this case, zeeshan think he wait enough time to travel committee. I will explain why zeeshan not get the same process speed like others in the same conference. not provide blog report in 2 weeks. ( You will know even you are not give blog report at 2 weeks, but travel committee will process the travel reimbursement, but you are not in focus batch time period, so might be a little late )( Thanks foundation members always give us enough time) provide transfer information at Mar -- after explain the cost of bank transfer, zeeshan accept and provide at 2016/3/3, we are already run the reimburse, but we are not mail to zeeshan very soon. Zeeshan mail to foundation list at 2016/3/10 ( 7 days after ) == Summary == ** Both travel committee and foundation member need more time, if the receipt or report not on time. ( according GNOME travel wiki ) solution: Maybe we could consider add “no later than two weeks after the event:” in people should write their report to GNOME. Question: If people don’t send the receipts and report in time, what could travel committee member do? Reject ? ( For now, we will still process the reimbursement ) Accept? ( But still reply and process very soon or on time? We are all volunteers, so maybe it’s hard to do that. I write this e-mail spend me almost 45 mins to check the mail list timeline and reply this mail. I will wonder to spend this time to take process for other events ) Anyway, sorry for my poor English and thank everyone give enough time to travel committee. I really do my best with GNOME tasks. Honestly, when I see this mail at foundation-list, I feel a little sad why I spend much time at volunteers task. ( But I will still do more with GNOME cause that’s the way I choose to contribute ) Max, one of the travel committee members = Time line for this case 2015/12/24 - Zeeshan - send request 2016/1/14 - Zeeshan - ask confirm request 2016/1/15 - Travel committee - confirm request 2016/1/15 - Zeeshan - Accept travel offer 2016/1/15 - Zeeshan - send the receipt include correct wrong receipt 2016/2/4 - Travel Committee - reminder Zeeshan to send to report ( blog ) to travel committee 2016/2/4 - Zeeshan - Tell travel committee didn’t write blog, he will send report soon 2016/2/6- Zeeshan - send blog url to travel committee 2016/2/22 - Zeeshan - Ask reimbursement status 2016/2/26 - Zeeshan - Ask reimbursement status 2016/3/1- Travel Committee - Notify Zeeshan “may be lose a significant part of the reimbursement in fees and the cost to the Foundation will also be quite significant compared to the total. Would you be amenable to PayPal or another reimbursement method instead ” 2016/3/1- Zeeshan - Zeeshan don't think I should have to pay for any such costs. Zeeshan think travel committee should consider these costs when accepting funding requests. 2016/3/1 - Travel Committee - Explain why the cost to Zeeshan 2016/3/1 - Accept the explain, note will change to paypal method ( but not give information ) 2016/3/3 - Zeeshan - Ask reibursement status 2016/3/3 - Travel Committee - Reply to zeeshan, not receive paypal information from zeeshan so Rosanna can’t pay via payal method 2016/3/3 - Zeeshan - Provide paypal account information 2016/3/10 - Zeeshan - Ask reimbursement status again and send to foundation-list mail 2016/3/10 - Travel Committee - Notify Zeeshan already in reimbursement queue 2016/3/16 - Zeeshan - reply to travel committee 2016/3/17 - Travel Commitee - reply to travel committee = On Sat, Mar 19, 2016 at 2:36 AM, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) wrote: > On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 6:31 PM, Alberto Ruiz wrote: > > Zeeshan, > > Alberto, > > > I understand your frustration, > > I like to believe people mean well and I think you do too in here but > sorry I don't feel that you understand my frustration, reading through > the rest of your reply. You completely focused on my email and showing > how it's not constructive at all, instead of suggesting any solution > to the actual problem. > > > but how would you feel if you were one of the volunteers throwing as much > > spare time as you have
