Travel Fund approval and being careful about funds available

[hackygolucky]

It is written in the travel fund as documentation, but I wanted to reiterate this:

The @nodejs/tsc and the @nodejs/community-committee members are responsible for approving requests for the travel fund. Another responsibility as part of this approval is that we as an admin group have the responsibility of periodically checking in to make sure we aren't going anywhere near reaching the limit of the travel fund. If we go over the limit, that means we have approved someone's travel and they aren't going to get reimbursed because the Board hasn't approved that amount of money for us to use. It is at our discretion to monitor this as part of any single one of us +1ing a travel fund pull request :)

When we are getting close to the limit, we can request more funds from the Board, but that does not ensure it will be granted.

Scared? It's a big responsibility! But also a cool one that enables a lot of great, hard working contributors to work in-person.

Does it make sense for us to (A)have a meeting about this, (B)have some checks in place to make sure we aren't going over without being aware, or (C)make sure everyone approving requests understands the weight of responsibility they are carrying as part of this?

I think a little bit of A, B, and C is needed. Thoughts?

cc @mhdawson @MylesBorins @bnb Please please review this with existing members at next meetings to make sure the message is received.

[mhdawson]

Could we ask people to decrement the total available as part of the PR making the request. We can double check that and we'll see what's left more easily.

[mhdawson]

We should probably also break out the sheet so its per year to make it easier to track as well.

[mcollina]

@mhdawson I we truly need a spreadsheet for this, with the responsibility of whoever merge the PR to update the spreadsheet.

[Trott]

@mhdawson The problem with asking people to document the amount left is that there will likely be a dozen or more of these for Collab Summit events. Once one lands, the other 11 have to be updated. When the next one lands, the remaining 10 need to be updated.

If we want to have a keeping-track aspect to this, then it probably ought to be the responsibility of whoever closes/lands the PRs. Which brings up another question: Who does that and when? Like, I think my request has effectively been approved, but there's no official indication.

[mhdawson]

@Trott that's a good point. Ideally, we have a volunteer who managed the travel fund. @bnb do you think we might find a volunteer on the CommComm side?

[bnb]

@mhdawson I'm not sure, though that is a good question and definitely something that someone may be interested in.

Ping @nodejs/community-committee.

[MylesBorins]

I would like to suggest that perhaps this is something the foundation, specifically someone focused on community management, take responsibility for.

[mcollina]

To me all travel requests from any member that has been minimally active should be accepted, within reason (economy flights, etc).
I do not recall anything we have denied, and the biggest concern right now is asking for more money after this is spent.

I’m +1 to write down some criteria for this, and hand it off to a staff at the foundation.