Ok, so short summary is that FSFE could afford to put 550€ on this.
I think we could go forward with the idea, if I get some company in Finland to sponsor the venue and maybe a little bit extra on that. Matthias, could you check if it is possible for FSFE to pay the salary directly to a Finn? That would help avoid some extra costs (VAT, Finnish pension etc) that must be paid if Seravo takes care of the salary payment.
I discussed DFD yesterday with Kim Aaltonen of SUSE Finland (Finceptum Oy). He wasn't directly thrilled about the event but if somebody else takes the lead of organizing everything, then they could contribute something small.
Now to the question: would some volunteer be de-motivated if somebody else gets paid for organizing DFD in Finland?
We'll, at the moment there are no volunteers doing anything, so there really is nobody to de-motivate in the first place. We can't do any worse out of it. Also I think that the general sentiment is in favor of that somebody doing the bulk of the work can get paid, while volunteers do only tasks that they think are fun etc. Anyway, this is the way the FSFE itself is run: core paid staff + network of volunteers. If one (partially) paid person runs an event and forms a backbone that random volunteers can contribute to, I think it would work very well. If he ends up doing things mostly alone, it still is better than current situation.
I will now file an expense request for this, and if it is accepted, I'll call Jens Wiik to see if he is still interested, and if not talk to others who might be potential.
2013/1/21 Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org:
- Otto Kekäläinen otto@fsfe.org [2013-01-17 13:16:51 +0200]:
2013/1/17 Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org: ..
I have to discuss this with Sam. He is responsible for the DFD budget, which is in total 6000 EUR. The normal amount which we planned for local events is 400 EUR, but we will only pay that to a selected amount of course.
Would it be possible to use the Finnish Fellowship budget? At the moment it looks like the Finnish team isn't going to have other expenses..
We could use some money from Fellowship local.
Do you have someone in mind for hiring, someone you trust will do good work?
Yes, I've been discussing with the Finnish team and with a prospect, Jens Wiik, a guy that was quite successful promoting the Meego Network in Helsinki (back in the days it existed). He has an business education, but he has been programming as a hobby from his childhood, and he believes strongly in Free Software. Very social and technically savvy, a perfect fit for the job if he accepts it.
That sounds like a good candidate.
Jens was willing to work for the cause for 15 €/h as salary. I expect organizing DFD event and related media visibility in Finland will consume 30-40 hours of work, which translates into 450-600 euros. In addition the employer needs to pay salary related expences about 25%. It would be best if FSFE would pay the salary directly, but if there is some legal obstacle, we can use Seravo Oy as backup, but it has the drawback that FSFE would need to pay also VAT which adds another 19% in costs..
So for 30 hours it would be ~670 EUR and for 40 hours it would be ~860 EUR, right? (in the calculation we would do everything through Seravo Oy.) That's a lot for the current budgets. I talked with Sam, and he can support a local activity with 100-150 EUR. From the Finnish Fellowship budget we could also use some money e.g. ~400 EUR.
Do you think he is a guy, who would be able to find some local donors for Document Freedom Day, as well? Is he good in talking with companies, and getting some money out of them?
Do you think he is able to make an activity which has a good PR impact?
What do you think, how other FI volunteers would react, when one gets paid for something. Do you think it would demotivate them to do other tasks just with payment, too? I am a bit afraid about the signal to other volunteers in Europe, who spent a lot of their free time on FSFE tasks, but who do not get any payment.
If you think we should pay him for this I will discuss this with Reinhard and Karsten and see if we are able to do so.
Regards, Matthias
-- Matthias Kirschner - FSFE - Fellowship Coordinator, German Coordinator FSFE, Linienstr. 141, 10115 Berlin, t +49-30-27595290 +49-1577-1780003 Weblog (blogs.fsfe.org/mk) - Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) Support FSFE! http://fsfe.org/support/?mk