Re: Registration for GUADEC 2017: request for opinions & testing

Benjamin Berg <[email protected]> Sat, 28 Jan 2017 19:55:14 +0100
Newsgroups	gmane.comp.gnome.guadec
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Hey,

On Sat, 2017-01-28 at 18:33 +0000, Sam Thursfield wrote:
> btw. we called it "fee" last year as we couldn't book it as a
> > "donation" properly. Also if it was an actual donation, then any
> > offer
> > like a t-shirt is illegal.
> 
> OK; I guess this is something to discuss with tax experts before we
> launch it.

Right, what I wrote is obviously only applicable to Germany. While I
would expect something similar in e.g. France, the UK seems like it
could be different.

> > >   * Will we give a 50% refund for cancellations on fees before a
> > >     certain date, and what date?
> > 
> > We didn't have any cancellations and this specific regulation was
> > chosen rather randomly to be honest.
> > 
> > I think you should decide this based on what cancellation policy
> > makes
> > sense with regard to the accommodation booking.
> 
> For accommodation, the problem is we have to front the cost of the
> rooms and if any of them are empty we'll lose money. So I think the
> cancellation policy for those will be "ask us", and we can decide case
> by case based on whether we have someone else to take on the room.

Your suggestion seems fair. So it would just say that the money is
returned if the spot is sold to someone else.

I don't think it will be hard to find replacement. Generally there are
always some people in need of last minute bookings (something that has
been used in previous years to fill the sponsored accommodation).

> Perhaps we can just change this to "your fee can be returned (minus
> payment processing costs) if you cannot attend the conference, contact
> > us on [email protected] before 1st July 2017."  The
> deadline there is chosen just because we'll be really busy in the last
> month :-)

Maybe a fixed processing charge would make more sense. Simpler to
process and also fair as everyone has additional work.

> Did the Wau Holland Stiftung pass this money on to GNOME, or were
> those people donating *to* the Wau Holland Stuftung?

WHS has a contract with GNOME. Any donation to them will be forwarded
to the GNOME foundation at some point. This has been set up for the
sole purpose of allowing EU residence to donate money to the foundation
in a tax deductible fashion.

> I was thinking the other day, I made a change to regcfp that prevents
> €0 donations... but then I started wondering how that works for
> volunteers, who still need to register but should probably not have
> to pay a registration fee.

I would personally suggest to leave the 0€ option in there. Though most
volunteers seem to just pay the hobbyist price actually.

> I think the legal host is the GNOME Foundation this year, they are the
> ones who signed the contract with the venue. I guess we should discuss
> this with a law expert though.

Interesting, I guess that can work. Though it is more than just the
venue (e.g. who is the contractual partner for the accommodation?) :)

Benjamin

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